Minutes of Board Meeting No. 52

10 Apr 2006, Conference Call

Author: S. Bradner
Date: 2006-04-10
Committee: BOT
Document: 06-52
Status: Unconfirmed
Maintainer: S. Bradner
Access: Unlimted

The ISOC Board of Trustees met from 10:06 am on 10 April 2006 to 12:15pm EDT via teleconference.

The following members of the Board of Trustees were present on the call:

Fred Baker (chair)

Steve Crocker
Rosa M. Delgado
Erik Huizer
Daniel Karrenberg
Veni Markovski
Desiree Miloshevic
Glenn Ricart
Stephen Squires
Lynn St. Amour (President)
Patrick Vande Walle
Margaret Wasserman
Pindar Wong

Also present were:

Scott Bradner (Secretary)
Lynn DuVal (ISOC Staff)
Peter Godwin (ISOC Staff)
Mirjam Kuehne (ISOC Staff)
David McAuley (ISOC staff)
Mike Nelson (VP Public Policy)
Matthew Shears (ISOC Director of Public Policy)

Minutes taken by Scott Bradner.

I – 2005 Financials

Lynn reported that the auditor has just completed the audit and will be sending the report to Glenn (as treasurer). She said that the auditors did not suggest any changes to the financials. Lynn said that cash on hand at the end of the year was about $1.4 million (about 3 months expenses – one of the highest cash levels that ISOC has ever had). She reported that the accounts payable was approximately $200K and that the P&L surplus was /approx. $370K, a 40% increase over the budget despite the shortfall in Organization member revenues and was due to a careful monitoring of expenses and some last minute success with organization member payments, notably Cisco an ISOC Platinum contributor. Lynn reported that the expenses for the standards and education efforts were under budget due to the delay in getting the IASA structure implemented and due to increased staff support for policy efforts. She also noted that the policy effort, mostly due to the WSIS efforts, was over budget.

Steve Crocker noted that some of the budget surpluses were of a type that would not likely be repeated in the future but that the shortfalls (e.g., the org members) seem more likely to indicate more long-term issues.

Daniel asked that the board be told asap about the future IASA budget requests. Lynn said that additional information should be available within a month.

Lynn noted that the balance sheet is very sound and that the ISOC is well positioned on the 2006 budget (other than the possibility of increased standards-related expenses.)

II – Internet Governance – IGF/WTDC, etc.

Matthew Shears introduced a quick update of the status of the ISOC Internet governance effort. He reported that the first open consultation of the IGF was held a few weeks after the last ISOC board meeting. He reported that the forum was well attended including representatives from a number of ISOC chapters. He said that ISOC had been quite active during the meeting.

Matthew said that the current IGF focus was on connecting the unconnected and other developing country issues. He also reported that the UN Secretary General called for a new WGIG-like advisory group (to be 40 people) to develop the issues that the IGF should work on. Matthew said that the ISOC was working on names to offer to the IGF chair.

Matthew reported that he attended the World Telecommunications Development Conference (WTDC) in Doha, Qatar, an ITU-D plenary session where one of the topics was what the role of the ITU should be in the future of the Internet governance discussions. He said that the meeting did not result in specific results.

The board discussed developing a list of names to offer to the IGF and Lynn explained that the process was not likely to be that formal and our ability to nominate names was going to be limited to maximum of 7 across all the Internet Community organizations (ISOC, ICANN, RIR’s, etc.). She also commented that we were working collaboratively with those groups on this process.

III – updates – written reports provided (URL)

(A) Membership System Update – McAuley/Godwin

Erik asked how David expected to form a committee to help define the requirements for a revised membership system. David said that he was waiting for a report from GoMembers then would be looking for people to be on the committee over the next couple of weeks. Rosa suggested that some committee members be from chapters that are not actually using the existing system.

(B) IT Systems update – Godwin

Covered in the briefing book, no additional discussion.

(C) Education Report – Kuehne

Covered in the briefing book, no additional discussion.

(D) Technical Education/Publications – Klensin/Kuehne

Covered in the briefing book, no additional discussion.

(E) IETF Administrative Restructuring Update – Crocker/St.Amour

1. IAOC update Lynn reported that the first IETF meeting under the new operation went quite well but that the budget might need to be adjusted in the future.
2. Review of Trust activities Lynn and Steve reported that all is going well and there are no significant items to report since the last Board meeting.

(F) 2006 Budget update – St.Amour

Lynn reported that she expected no problems in meeting the 2006 budget with the possible exception of the IASA budget she had already mentioned.

(G) Elections Committee update – Markovski

Veni reported that the election process was on schedule and in good shape.

(H) Project Funding – McAuley

David discussed the first year of the project funding effort. He reported that ISOC allocated about 87% of the funding in each of two rounds. He quickly reviewed some of the projects. David said that he and the members of the committee feel that the program should continue at the level budgeted in the 2006 budget which is $50K higher than the previous year.

David reviewed four resolutions he had prepared to implement the continuation of the ISOC chapter funding program.

Daniel moved & Veni seconded the following four motions.

WHEREAS, the Internet Society Board of Trustees has previously formally approved the creation and operation of a project funding initiative known as the ISOC Chapter/Member Project Funding Program (the ‘Program’) as described at: www.isoc.org/isoc/chapters/projects/; and

WHEREAS, the operation of the Program is vested in the ISOC Project Funding Committee as therein described; and

WHEREAS, such Committee calls for the participation of members of the Board of Trustees as follows: “members of the Board of Trustees as appointed by the Board of Trustees from time to time (the Board will assign at least three such members and these members may be any member of the Board of Trustees).”; and

WHEREAS, the ISOC Board of Trustees has, after internal consultation and consideration, determined that the below named members of the ISOC Board of Trustees shall serve as members of such Committee for the calendar year 2006; and

WHEREAS, changes within the ISOC staff indicate that the CEO of ISOC should have flexibility to assign staff members to such Committee; and

WHEREAS, it is envisioned that each year during which this Program continues the Board should indicate the Strategic Priorities it establishes for using to evaluate Project Funding applications;

Resolution 06-05: Continue ISOC Chapter/Member Project Funding Program
RESOLVED that the ISOC Chapter/Member Project Funding Program be continued through 2006 in accordance with the provisions of such Program as previously approved by this Board, as amended in this Board action of April 10, 2006, and that such Program have at its disposal, under its terms, up to US$200,000.00 to pay out, in total, in 2006 awards.

Resolution 06-06: Approving membership in the ISOC Project Funding Committee
RESOLVED that the following members of the ISOC Board of Trustees shall serve as members of the ISOC Project Funding Committee until such time as otherwise determined by the Board of Trustees:

1. Patrick Vande Walle; and
2. Rosa M. Delgado; and
3. Margaret Wasserman

Resolution 06-07: Staff support for the ISOC Chapter/Member Project Funding Program
RESOLVED that the staff portion of the composition of the ISOC Project Funding Committee shall be up to three positions as determined by the CEO of ISOC from time to time, and that the ISOC website be changed to so indicate; and

Resolution 06-08: Establishing priorities for the ISOC Chapter/Member Project Funding Program
RESOLVED that the Strategic Priorities by which such Committee evaluates Project Funding Applications be amended in 2006 to provide as follows:

“In the year 2006 the Board has set the following as areas of strategic priorities for the Committee to use in evaluating project proposals:

1. Maintenance and evolution of effective administrative processes necessary for operation of the global Internet and this, in particular, specifically includes projects supporting capacity building and education focused activities, especially those capable of transferability, i.e. they could easily be adopted by other Chapters/stakeholders as, for example, a best practices template.; and
2. Education and research related to the Internet and internetworking.”

(I) Public Support Test – St.Amour Covered in the briefing book, little additional discussion. The meeting was adjourned at 12:15pm.

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