Meeting (10 September 2001)

Date: 2001.9.10
Committee: Executive Committee of BoT
Document: excom-01-008
Revision:
Supersedes:
Status:
Maintainer:
Access: Unconfirmed

Attendees: Brian Carpenter, Kees Neggers, Rosa Delgado, Christian Huitema, Lynn St. Amour, Bob Vaughan

FINANCIAL REVIEW:
The July financial statements were reviewed and matched the observations which were forwarded to the Trustees as part of the July financial statements. A surplus is forecasted for the end of the year, but it is expected to be less than the budget. In the fund raising area, Lynn reported that the first round of letters have been mailed to organizations with large IETF attendance and a second round will go out shortly. In total over 150 companies will be approached – at the CEO level. In addition, work on identifying prospects for the Fundraising Committee is still in process although this is moving more slowly than anticipated. The cash forecast was reviewed and shows less than a two weeks supply of cash on hand through October and this will necessitate a build up of Accounts Payable.

AUDIT REPORT UPDATE:
The Finance Director – Bob Vaughan reported that the draft audit report is in the hands of the Treasurer and has been distributed to the Audit Committee or review. Vacation schedules have delayed final approval, but approval is expected shortly. There were no major changes in the auditor’s statements nor any major concerns, but a change in format of the Balance sheet has made the review more time consuming.

INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP:
It was reported that our best estimate of the Individual Membership shortfall for 2001 is approximately $170K on a fully loaded basis. Investigations to date have determined that there are no quick fixes that could reduce the shortfall significantly this year. We looked at our admin. processes, systems costs, election processes, and the viability of reducing member benefits in an effort to cut costs. We also looked at increased member fees. It was determined that any of these initiatives would require major changes in member services, member fees and perhaps member composition. For this reason it was proposed that the Individual membership review be delayed until the December board meeting to allow adequate time for alternatives to be explored and a comprehensive plan to be developed. It was also proposed that Bob Vaughan (who is a Membership consultant) be appointed to oversee the Individual and Chapter Admin. departments on a day-to-day basis. This would free the President up to focus on fundraising. Bob will be charged with immediately reviewing and improving the processes now in place to improve customer response and in addition, working with the President, he will recommend structural and procedural changes to individual membership designed to address the issue of making Individual membership self-sustaining. This proposal was agreed by the ExComm. INET 2002 Review: Work on the Program is progressing quite well, however progress on the budget has been slow as it is proving difficult to find a suitable cost effective venue and this is now being further complicated by the recent events in the US which has hotels and conferences reviewing their contracts/cancellation policies and their pricing strategy. Note: the planning assumptions are Washington, DC June 11 – 14, 2002. The CC is focused on reducing the requirement on sponsorships and are reassessing the registration fees to ensure they are on a competitive basis with other conferences. Other favorable news is that the IPv6 Forum will likely hold their ‘conference’ with INET 2002.

MISCELLANEOUS REVIEWS:

• ELECTION UPDATE – Very little progress has been made on the 2001 Election process review. The ExComm urged that this process be speeded up as its’ recommendations are required to finalize the 2002 Election process. The ExComm reviewed Alan Greenberg’s schedule and gave some input but without the results of the 2001 Election process review, were not able to approve the schedule. ACM-ISOC: The ExComm noted that the proposal to organize joint publications is making good progress.
• 2002 ELECTION NOMCOMM – the ExComm have asked for the criteria to be used in selecting nominees to be published to the Board in the interest of making the election process more transparent.
• IPv6 PARTNERSHIP UPDATE – A draft of the agreement between ISOC and the IPv6 Forum was reviewed and subsequently approved by the ExComm and now awaits a final legal review before being implemented.
• IPv6 EDUCATION PROPOSAL – proposal was discussed, there’s agreement to go forward with the submission to the EC although more work is required on the operational logistics.
• ISTF – The ExComm reviewed the ISTF Chair’s report and the promise to generate two white papers by the time of the Board meeting. The ExComm feels however that we lack a procedure document; in the case of the IETF, the procedures were reviewed by our legal counsel before approval by the Board; we need a similar document if ISOC is going to sponsor the ISTF.
• ISOC Position On IPv6 – there has been a call for ISOC to draft a formal position on IPv6 for Board review and Christian Huitema offered to write this.
• VP’s – The plan for re-invigorating our VP efforts was discussed and the ExComm again reviewed the potential for conflict of interest if Board members were also to serve as VP’s. The ExComm agreed unanimously that Board members should not be allowed to hold VP positions simultaneously with their Trustee roles.

All Board Executive Committee Meeting Minutes