Council Minutes 26/02/99

MINUTES OF MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF THE INTERNET SOCIETY OF NEW ZEALAND INC HELD IN THE EAGLE ROOM, MIRAMAR GOLF-COURSE FEBRUARY 26 1999

Status: Minutes adopted at Council Meeting 21 May 1999

1. WELCOME

Jim Higgins opened the meeting at 9:05am and welcomed those present

2. PRESENT

• Jim Higgins (Chair), Frank March (Secretary), Keith Davidson (Treasurer), Colin Jackson, Don Hollander, Liz Dengate-Thrush, John Vorstermans, Don Stokes, Richard Bourne, Mark Harris, Jennifer Northover, Roger de Salis, Jim Shaw, Sue Leader (Executive Director).

3. IN ATTENDANCE

• Patrick O'Brien, CEO Domainz (for the duration of his report)

4. APOLOGIES

• Absent: Bruce Sim, Peter Mott, Brenda Leeuwenberg, David Farrar, Mark Davies, Prashanta Mukherjee. Lateness: Colin Jackson, Roger De Salis, Don Stokes

MOVED: (Chair) That the apologies be accepted.

CARRIED

5. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING

MOVED: (Chair) That the minutes of the Council Meeting held 11 December 1998 be signed as a true and correct record.

CARRIED

6. MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

Mark Harris noted that the Action Item "Short-hand Electronic Meetings" (Number 4, page 4) had not begun yet.

7. ELECTION QUESTIONNAIRE

Frank March spoke to the Election Questionnaire for Political Parties which had been circulated prior to the meeting. The idea for the questionnaire arose around Christmas when an early election was possible. ISOCNZ put out a questionnaire for the 1996 Elections but it was not as effective as it could have been. This time the questionnaire takes the form of a "Manifesto" which outlines the ISOCNZ position on an issue and asks specific questions for the political party to answer. The exercise gives ISOCNZ a political profile. The Internet was almost irrelevant to the general public at the last election. This time, it is reasonable to expect that political parties will have well thought through positions.

The questions for Council are:

• Should we do the Election Questionnaire?
• Is the format appropriate?
• How do we consult with the membership?
• As a Council document for comment?
• On the website for public consultation?
• Members only?

Points noted in discussion:

• The main political parties are all using the Internet themselves.
• Internet issues such as encryption will be of interest to users.
• Frank should be commended for his initiative, the process as suggested with clear deadlines
• We need clarity about what trying to achieve before it goes out
• The consultation process should be with our members only as is a membership benefit

MOVED: (Frank March/Colin Jackson) THAT we proceed to circulate the Election Questionnaire on Internet Policies to all Political Parties registered with the Electoral Commission and then publish the replies on the web-site, using that as the basis for making statements to the media.

CARRIED U

MOVED: (Frank March/Jim Higgins) THAT the Election Questionnaire on Internet Policies use the format which has been circulated by Frank March including the Manifesto Statement and Questions.

CARRIED U

MOVED: (Frank March/Colin Jackson) THAT the consultation process prior to finalisation of the Election Questionnaire on Internet Policies be via the Members-only mailing list.

CARRIED

ACTION: ALL: Feedback on Content of Election Questionnaire on Internet Policies to Frank March by Wednesday March 3 1999.

ACTION: Executive Director put reminder on Council List.

8. DOMAINZ REPORT – Patrick O’Brien

For full report go here.

9. CHAIR'S REPORT

Jim Higgins reported briefly on the activities he has been involved with since the last Council meeting:

• Media calls have doubled since last year and the issues are more in-depth
• Doing an early morning radio session in Christchurch
• Governance issues: Jim and Patrick will be in Singapore next week for the ICANN meeting
• Has been working with the Niue government on the .nu domain name control.
• A member of the joint Ministry of Justice/Law Commission committee which is looking at the need for inclusion of computer crime in the Crimes Act. The committee is operating under the leadership of P Heath, QC and held its first meeting last week which was addressed by Judge Baragwanath. There are four sessions planned leading to a consultation document
• Pacific Islands/UNESCO seminar flow-on - the people have finally arrived in NZ for their training/work experience with local ISP's.

10. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Sue Leader spoke to three points on her previously circulated report:

• Web migration - this is now complete and Sue recorded her thanks to John Vorstermans of Actrix for the assistance and positive support during the process. Sue also thanked Cr Mark Harris for voluntarily taking the time to check the whole site for glitches, broken links etc.
• Membership - Sue noted that work has not started on promoting the different levels of Corporate Membership as we do not yet have AGM approval for the subscription fees
• Sue has had meetings with CEO's of sister organisations (e.g., NZCS, TUANZ) to look for areas where we can co-operate rather than compete. One outcome - Sue will be putting up a page on our site with links to Calendars of events in the IT community. A reciprocal arrangement is planned.
• A 'retreat' for Councillors to undertake forward planning and prioritising is urgently needed. Sue requested the Council to give urgent consideration to setting a date for this.

12. TREASURER'S REPORT

Keith Davidson circulated the Financial Statements to Councillors and spoke to them:

• The format has been developed in response to the issues raised by Cr's Mott and Farrar. The Profit and Loss Statement has been developed in Excel as NZA Gold doesn't have the ability to customise reports. The Balance Sheet is NZA Gold.
• The budget figures for last year have been extrapolated because of time frames
• Current bank balances: $10,240 (Cheque) $53,064 (Savings)
• Note that the Goodwill figure needs to be taken out of the Balance Sheet.

The Executive Director noted that Councillors should be aware of the significant changes from last year's expenditure and budget, e.g., Executive Director's contract, when doing year or month comparisons. The 1999 Budget is under revision as it was not possible to create an in-depth budget so soon after the start of a paid Executive Director.

There was discussion about the role of ISOCNZ in relation to Domainz as a non-profit entity, i.e., returning benefits to domain name holders.

MOVED: (Keith Davidson) THAT the Treasurer's Report be received.

CARRIED

MOVED: (Keith Davidson) THAT Section 10.1 of the By-Laws be amended to read: "The financial year of the Society shall be from 1st October up to and including 30th September of the following year."

CARRIED U

13. BREAK OUT INTO COMMITTEES

The Council broke into committees at 11:00am and returned to full Council at 1:30 pm

14. COMMITTEE REPORTS

ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE

Frank March (Chair), Keith Davidson, Mark Harris, Jim Higgins (briefly). From the last Council Meeting's Action Items:

• The "Short-hand for Electronic Meetings" has not been actioned but is now top of the list.
• The single point of contact for Domainz is the Executive Director
• Frank March and Peter Mott - general revision of the By-Laws - as circulated. Note that the proposed new Section 17.6 was submitted by Cr Mott and he is not in attendance at this meeting so suggest tabling until he is present
• Note that for Section 14 deals with the new levels of Corporate Membership adopted from the Executive Director's report to the December 1998 Council Meeting. Can adopt the By-Law amendment but cannot set fees without AGM or SGM. Suggest set interim fees for each class are: $1000; $750; $500; $150, and seek ratification at AGM.
• The amendments to Sections 4 and 8 are therefore tabled and will be voted on by electronic meeting.

MOVED: (Jim Higgins) THAT Section 14 of the By-Laws be amended to read:

"14 SUB-CLASSES OF ORGANISATIONAL MEMBER

There shall be four subclasses of organisational member as provided for in paragraph 3.3 of the Articles of Association of the Society:

i) Platinum Partners – four "ordinary" members may be nominated (Rate 1)

(ii) Gold Partners - three "ordinary" members may be nominated (Rate 2)

(iii) Silver Partners – two "ordinary" members may be nominated (Rate 3)

(iv) Bronze Partners - one "ordinary" member may be nominated (Rate 4)"

CARRIED U

MOVED: (Jennifer Northover) THAT Section 5.1 be amended to read: "5.1 All motions require a proposer and seconder"

CARRIED

The Executive Director noted that the first NetDay advertising flyer is in and our logo appears. Cr Harris noted that the web-site does not display our logo.

ACTION: Executive Director to check NetDay web-site and action

• The value of having Council meetings in Auckland has not been investigated
• The Executive Director's contract came up for renewal on February 12 - by agreement this has been rolled over for six months, with automatic right of renewal for another twelve months after that period. The Terms and Conditions will be renegotiated before the end of the current six-month contract.

MOVED: (Colin Jackson/Jennifer Northover) THAT the Council registers a vote of thanks for the work that the Executive Director has been doing.

CARRIED U

Liz Dengate-Thrush apologised for her early departure from the meeting.

POLICY COMMITTEE

Jennifer Northover, Liz Dengate-Thrush, Richard Bourne, Colin Jackson; Jim Higgins and Sue Leader (briefly).

Domain Names

• Reservation of Domain Names - it is time to re-look at the policy. Recommend that should be able to "reserve" Domain Names by registering and paying an additional fee. If 'warehousing' arises then a review would be needed
• 'Cash up front' for domain Names - recommend as not necessary for NZ
• E-commerce - recommend we strongly promote as an additional choice for Domainz business - but not to replace invoices.

In discussion, Jim Higgins raised two points:

• the recommendation on 'cash up front' can only be a recommendation to Domainz not a directive
• reservation of Domain Names is a major policy change. Originally Waikato did allow reservations. This was stopped at the change-over in 1996 - was based on legal grounds in an attempt to head off trade-mark disputes. It hasn't proved relevant as a method, so policy could change

Mark Harris recommended that we wait until this ICANN round is over to see what direction they head.

MOVED: (Jennifer Northover/John Vorstermans) THAT Domain Names may be reserved on payment of a fee.

It was noted that this requires consultation as it raises business issues.

MOVED: (Chair) THAT the motion be Tabled until the membership has been notified.

CARRIED

ACTION: Policy Committee to put together an argument both for and against the ability to reserve Domain Names and post this to isocnz-l together with notice of motion.

MOVED: (Jim Higgins/Jennifer Northover) THAT the proposed consultation By-Law (17) go to isocnz-members for comment

CARRIED

MOVED: (Jim Higgins/Jennifer Northover) THAT the proposed DNS document go out to isocnz-l for comment.

CARRIED

ISOC Liaison - no action

Moderation Policies for .iwi

A number of options have been suggested:

Plan A - David Farrar to approach various groups to take on moderation

Plan B - letter to all Runanga requesting their recommendations

Plan C - slow down listing in .iwi and close down eventually

Plan D - make a non-moderated domain

Moderating 'offensive and disgusting' names

Colin has contacted Companies Office regarding their list of proscribed names. He noted that the UK has no restrictions but Australia has similar policies to the NZ ones. It was suggested that Council wait for feedback from Jim from the ICANN Singapore forum.

Policy documents: Copyright, Crypto - issues will be carried over.

ACTION: Policy Committee to look at Code of Practice (http://isocnz.org.nz/code.htm) on site and confirm Code re-formatting fits policy.

ACTION: Policy Committee to prepare a policy on committee membership, co-opting, mailing lists etc

ACTION: Policy Committee to set up Working Group to utilize the volunteers from the Hacking/Cracking consultation on web-site. Terms of Reference, Outcomes, Consultation Process etc

ACTION: Policy Committee to contact Mark Harris for the compilation on government policy around the world.

TECHNICAL COMMITTEE

John Vorstermans (Chair), Jim Shaw, Roger De Salis, Don Stokes, Sue Leader (briefly)

ISP Code of Practice

A letter is to be drafted asking member ISPs to endorse the COP.

ACTION: John to approach Actrix, Netlink, ICONZ personally.

ACTION: Roger to send draft letter to Council list for comment.

ACTION: Roger - check out Irish, Finnish and Danish COP's for background before Hon M Williamson travels to region at the end of April.

ACTION: Executive Director create link for submissions on COP page (liaison with Roger de Salis).

ACTION: Jim Higgins to prepare letter to Minister outlining the need for assistance with 'selling' the COP to ISPs, as soon as possible.

Proposal to Join the WWW Consortium

At a cost of $US 5,000 p.a. with a three year minimum sign-up cannot see enough of a benefit for our members. No further action required at this stage.

ISP Forum at UNIFORUM

A letter is to be sent to ISPs soliciting their concerns and some of the ideas they believe ISOCNZ should be involved in. It was agreed to take advantage of the NZNOG informal session at UNIFORUM to buy the group some refreshments to go with their discussions. Perhaps ISOCNZ members could speak for a few minutes but intent is to get to know each other informally, not to make formal presentations.

ACTION: Executive Director to arrange for refreshments at UNIFORUM

NZNOG

The group is moving along and there are no major problems. The issue of IP addressing is being worked thorough by the technical people.

EDUCATION & RESEARCH COMMITTEE

Don Hollander (Chair) was joined by Sue Leader

Actions and plans developed since the last meeting in December:

Research:

• Mark Davies (of the Technical Committee) was approached for ideas on areas for measurement.
• Discussions held with Dr Howard Fredrick of the Internet Institute on the study topic agreed at the last meeting, " the Impact of the Internet on Maori culture among Maori’s – both in New Zealand and those living abroad. Does it provide a means for Maori in the Diaspora to gain a stronger cultural identity and does it have an ‘Americanisation’ of New Zealand base Maori." Dr Frederick believes that this research topic could be investigated by one of the Masters program students. He suggests that ISOCNZ could allocate no more than $3,000 for costs of travel, research materials, and so on, and would receive an excellent product as a result. Dr Frederick is currently reviewing the topic with some of his students.

Blue Print for the New Zealand Economy

No further significant progress has been made on this, though Prashanta is participating in a number of working parties.

ACTION: ALL - any ideas for Research projects to be sent direct to Don Hollander.

Education

Canned Presentation - No specific progress has been made on canned presentations, though they were discussed in a meeting with the Chair and Executive Director earlier this year.

ACTION: Jim Higgins pass materials on to Don Hollander for canned presentations.

Publications

At a meeting earlier this year with the Chairman and Executive Director, it was agreed that the Executive Director would produce a quarterly 'newsletter' quality printed publication of at least four A4 pages. If ISOCNZ gains agreement with ISOC about providing copies of their magazine, our publications would be 'wrapped around' theirs. If not, it will go out as a stand-alone document.

ACTION: Executive Director start planning first newsletter

ISOCNZ has agreed to be an endorsing organisation for the VUW/AU/e-Vision/TUANZ Impact '99 seminar series.

Seminars

Suggested dates:

16/7/99 - Auckland;

17/9/99 - Wellington;

19/11/99 - Auckland;

3/12/99 - Wellington.

It is proposed to have four, half day (morning preferably) seminars to run from 9:00 - noon; two in Auckland and two in Wellington.

Introduction to Existence on the Internet (Auckland)

• Domain Names: Conventions, How to Get One (DIY vs Professional Help), Issues for Mortals versus techies
• Online Security and Authenticity keys and Digital Signatures
• Privacy
• Encryption
• E-cash & Credit Card Payments
• Firewalls
• Where is your Domain
• The Domain Name Provisioning Process
• Planning a Web Presence (Issues to consider when planning your presence on the Internet).

Because of the time involved, this will only allow a light skim over the areas. But the topics should include: Promotion; Web Design; How to get your Domain (and the Domain Name Provisioning Process); Questions to ask about hosting - DIY or 3rd Party and questions to ask.

Technical Session (Wellington)

• Will be aimed at the real technical boffins for the Internet and Business Communities.
• IPNG; RFC - What are they, how do you see them, what do they mean; Firewalls; Routers; Zones; Redundancies; Network Security; Encryptions; VPN; E-Commerce; Voice over IP; AUSCert

Using the Internet for Research (Wellington)

• Identification of the various search engines, and what each is best at; How to use queries; Other services available via the Web; Mail Lists; News Groups; Commercial Services

General Issues:

• We expect to charge $195 for members and $245 for non-members (which will include membership)
• Sponsorship will be sought to underwrite the risk (and sponsor some souvenirs (I'm in favour of a Gym Bag with Logos)). I would expect three sponsors per event, and two other sponsors to cover the whole program. Investment required by each would be $1,750.

ACTION: Executive Director check figures against a draft budget

ACTION: ALL - Suggestions for speakers and specific topics in each of the sessions.

15. GENERAL BUSINESS

Face 2 Face '99

Do we need a Conference at all? Could it be part of Seminar series?

It ws noted that there is a high overlap between the ISOCNZ targetted audience and UNIFORM, which is undergoing a major change of people following the 1999 conference. Should the two groups run a joint conference in future?

ACTION: Chairperson, Executive Director to approach UNIFORUM organisers at their conference re joint venturing Conference.

MOVED: (Roger De Salis/Mark Harris) THAT ISOCNZ sponsor the '99 UNIFORUM Conference to the value of $2000 this year.

CARRIED U

ACTION: Executive Director - contact UNIFORUM to confirm sponsorship

ISOCNZ Shareholder representative for Domainz

John Hine is overseas and Roger de Salis, appointed as shareholder representative at the August 1998 Council meeting, has been appointed to the Board in the interim.

MOVED: (John Vorstermans/Jim Higgins) THAT Mark Harris be appointed ISOCNZ shareholder representative for Domainz, replacing Roger de Salis.

CARRIED U

ACTION: Secretary to write to Domainz Board informing that Mark Harris is the new shareholder representative.

ISOCNZ Logo

There appear to be no high quality prints (bromides) of the logo.

ACTION: Executive Director to get logo re-done in various formats

Moderators of Domains in NZ

In response to a question about DN moderation, it was agreed that a list of current moderators would be circulated to Councilors

ACTION: Executive Director to circulate.

Fellowship Panel

The first group of Fellowships was selected by a special panel. Now that there are a number of Fellows, one of their 'duties' is to set up a Fellowship Panel to select new Fellows.

ACTION: Executive Director to write letter to Fellows advising them of responsibility to set up a Fellowship Panel to determine new Awardees.

Y2K Status of Domainz

As sole shareholder, ISOCNZ should have a full report of NZIRL Y2K status.

MOVED: (Keith Davidson/Mark Harris) THAT the Secretary to write to Domainz Board asking for Y2K status. Letter to include a list of specific questions the Directors are to ask CEO.

CARRIED U

ACTION: Secretary to write to Domainz Board asking for Y2K status.

16. NEXT MEETING

The date for the next meeting will be notified by email.

ACTION: Secretary

Meeting closed at 3:48 pm

©1999 The Internet Society of New Zealand