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Executive Director's Report to Council 26/04/01

1. INTRODUCTION

I have spent the period since the last Council Meeting (March 23) primarily focused on the following four areas - the Minutes , the Draft Business Plan (to go with the Draft Budget submitted last meeting), and the issues surrounding the defamation case and the (failed) call for an SGM on the case, and completing all Action Items from the last meeting including the letter to Domainz Director nominees. As I am aware that there are time constraints on this meeting I have ordered my report in relation to actions needed from Council, rather than sequential or other order.

2. LEASE ON PREMISES

We have been awaiting the architect to provide the dimensions of the premises so that the lease can be formally signed. These have now been received. In order to sign the lease the Council needs to affix the Common Seal. The Society does not have a Common Seal. Our lawyer advises that rather than going to the expense of getting a seal made, that the Council simply pass a resolution, based on the Summary

MOVED: "THAT the Executive Director sign the Lease for the premises as summarised in the attached document."

3. TECHNICAL

E-Voting

After preparing a brief of our needs in consultation with the MEP WG, and assessing available implementations of e-voting systems, John Vorstermans recommends going with Catalyst. As a result John and I met with Catalyst people and gave them our specifications. We've tested the system thoroughly and it needs little modification to suit our needs. They will have the modified system available in time for the Constitution Review SGM and the cost will be in the region of $4000 - we will own the software. ( survey.net.nz )

I ask, therefore, that the Council RATIFY the decision to go use Catalyst as software providers.

Mailing lists

John has moved all the Mailing Lists now in house (9-10 April). There is a bug in Mailman v2.2 which has affected the archives for the ten Council mailing lists. Since there is not a "fix", John did a work-around, details of which were notifed to Council by email.

In addition, John has added a substantial amount of old archives dating back to 1997 for the Council list. We would welcome any other archives held by Councilors or members, and in particular the isocnz-l list from its establishment to December 1989.

Website

The website continues to be tweaked and added to. We do modifications on the internal server and these changes are uploaded to the live site at 0600 and 1800 every day. If it is urgent, we can do an upload on the spot.

4. ".MAORI.NZ" PROPOSAL

I received the "maori.nz" proposal and referred it to Council on April 12 with a request for Feedback . I am awaiting your response.

5. CALL FOR SGM ON DEFAMATION CASE

This took up a significant amount of time between the 5 and 17 of April. The process involved has been documented on the lists by the Secretary.

One issue arising is the lack of process for a fully online SGM. The SGM for the Constitution Review (see Working Group Report) is capable of being run entirely online as it will have no amendments, nor new motions, from the 'floor'. As this meeting is scheduled for early May, I asked David Farrar to suggest the appropriate ByLaws change to allow it to proceed. I recommend that the Council discuss this at this meeting, recommending whatever modifications it sees fit, so that it can be adopted via an e-Vote before the SGM. [ Proposed Process]

6. MEDIA

Dealing with the media took up a lot of time. Issues were the outcome of the Straw Poll on the ".bank.nz" proposal, the defamation case and the call for an SGM, and the ".maori.nz" proposal. I did an online interview on "bank.nz" and the 2LD process with nzoom, after issuing a release on the outcome. As usual, time was spent attempting, with mixed success, to get errors corrected.

7. END OF YEAR ACCOUNTS

Beverley has done a sterling job with the accounts, getting the EOY accounts to the Treasurer by April 11. The accounts were with the Accountant last week and he is pleased with the quality of their presentation. The accounts should be with the Auditor by tomorrow (Friday 27), so we are on track for the AGM.

I would like to reiterate here my email to Council where I said:

"Many thanks to Councilors for supplying actual or estimated expenses. We have been able to correctly include five Councilor's expenses to the value of $6263.75 (two of which were over $2500) in the 2000-2001 accounts. We will still have to accrue some items (e.g. the servers), but this effort helps enormously."

8. SRS Implementation

  • One full day was spent as part of the interview team for the SRS Implementation Manager (see SRSIOC Chair's report).
  • A desk and chair have been purchased for her use, and the signaled upgrade of the Office laptop will go ahead shortly, freeing the increasingly "flaky" laptop for her use.
  • The new Implementation Manager visited the Office on Tuesday 23, meeting the staff, and we established what other resourcing needs she will have (e.g., mailbox)
  • The new Chair of the SRSIOC has requested that I participate formally in the Committee, so I have resubscribed to the SRSIOC mailing list.
  • On March 26 - I received Xtra's submission on the Green Paper on SRS Implementation - referred to SRSIOC.

9. REBRANDING

I prepared a brief for Damian Broadley of AJ Park on the Trade Mark search we required for the proposed new name. He reported back that the name was not registered, and after consultation with the Admin Committee, I instructed him to begin the Registration process. He did note that registering a logo is easier, and after seeking names of firms who do design work from the Admin Committee, I am preparing a brief for the logo design. I hope to have this actioned by next Monday afternoon. As of today, all the reserved domain names have been registered, again after discussion with the Admin Committee.

10. MEETINGS - various

Cr Hine - 2LD fees (with Cr Heath) - motion arising on today's Agenda, Society Documents Policy - motion arising on today's Agenda

Grant Kerr, NZ Banker's Association - feedback on the ".bank.nz" process (attached)

Kevin Holland - NZ Film and Video Security Office - on ISP regulation in NZ

Paul Kane - amongst other things Paul is a Registrar representative on the Names Council of the DNSO of ICANN, and his company manages a number of ccTLD's. Paul was in town for a meeting, and as the Chair was not able to spend time with him I spent an afternoon with him showing him our operation etc.

11. MISCELLANEOUS

  • ccTLD issues - I responded to various ccTLD issues, namely: glue records (prepared by Don Stokes), Best Practices Model - voted Yes, Secretariat - commented on the AdCom etc process issues and voted Yes for current proposal.
  • APNIC - has had a change of staff, so I am awaiting feedback from new person before setting the date for the ISP Forum.
  • I've had a request from the Special Olympics Board to assist with a domain name as a community issue.
  • Opening II - apart from preparing the guest list from names submitted by Councilors, I have done little other than ratify work done by Beverley on the Opening II. At this stage we are expecting just over 60 people (Councilors included) and the total cost of the two events will be well under the $3000 budget approved by Council. We will be asking for your assistance as soon as the meeting finishes to prepare the room, and for the long-stayers to help with any clean-up as the first rent-out of the Board Room is tomorrow (Friday)
  • Time was also spent writing my presentation for Australia and NZ e-Business Conference
Sue Leader
Executive Director

© 2001 The Internet Society of New Zealand
Last updated 25 April 2001

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