[NPMUG] Goodwill CRC update Dec. 5, 2008 and Yearly Report

[Robert A. Donaldson]

Dear Mac friends:

Many thanks to Charlie Hutchens, Rich Fitzgibbon, John Hamill, Tucker  
Trainor and Dave Sevick for joining me today at the Goodwill Computer  
Recycling Center.

Today, we put another productive year at the Goodwill Computer  
Recycling Center to bed.

We quickly took care of four slot-load DV iMacs in the intake bin,  
then spend the rest of the day preparing keyboards and mice to match  
our inventory of refurbished iMacs. These four iMacs bring our all- 
time total of refurbished Macs to 1,614. These were the last ones  
we'll prepare this year.

We'll be taking off for the holidays and return to begin our third  
year at Goodwill on Friday, January 9, 2009.

In the past three weeks, all of Goodwill ComputerWorks store inventory  
of G3 and G4 Towers, and 700 mhz eMacs were sold in bulk to Cyber  
Depot, a computer store in Youngwood, Westmoreland County (U.S. Route  
119 & South 4th St. <bigcomputerdlr at aol.com>). You can now find our  
work for sale there in addition to ComputerWorks.

Here's what we've accomplished this year:

We've refurbished 595 Macintoshes in 2008. 449 were at our current  
location at Goodwill on Pittsburgh's South Side; 146 were done at the  
CRC's previous location in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville, now a UPMC  
parking lot.

This compares to 450 Macs in 2007.

Not bad, considering we went from 2,000 square feet in Lawrenceville  
to approximately 450 square feet of work space on the South Side.

To put this in perspective, we had done only 569 Macs before joining  
with Goodwill in March of 2007.

These amazing numbers are due to the continuing dedication of many  
people: Not only the people who show up at Goodwill to help make our  
Macs sing again, but all of you who keep us in your thoughts and tell  
everyone they know where to take a computer for donation or recycling.  
And especially to Charles Firth, whose technical contributions have  
allowed us to erase and re-image hard drives to produce these  
dramatically increased numbers.

The coming year will see new relationships with organizations seeking  
to help people, and Goodwill will be honoring bulk rates to make our  
Macs even more affordable for those people. You'll hear more as this  
gets underway after the New Year.

Please have a joyous holiday season, and thank you all.


Robert A. Donaldson
radonaldson at mac.com
(H) 412-922-3303
(M) 412-477-9188