Personal tools
You are here: Home → Internal & Annual Reports → Internal Reports → Officers Reports → InternetNZ President → Archive → President's Report to Council 04/07/03
 

President's Report to Council 04/07/03

It's been an amazingly busy and progressive time since our last Council meeting on 31 May. Since then, I have:

  • attended as shareholder representative, the AGM?s of Domainz and NZRS.
  • chaired the AGM of the Society
  • attended the Festival of Technology
  • chaired a meeting of the Domainz Future Task Force
  • chaired a meeting of the Admin Committee
  • watched the ICANN Montreal meeting webcasts
  • tele-attended an NZOC meeting
  • read 1906 email and list messages, and written 154 email or list messages
  • guest speaker at a Senior Net meeting representing InternetNZ
  • and the usual telephone calls, media requests etc.

Probably the best news this month is the successful path for the ccNSO, which may indicate that ICANN is in fact now listening and reacting favourable in the bottom up manner it is supposed to operate in.

And possibly the worst news of the month are the growing issues surrounding broadband deployment in New Zealand, with Project Probe, NGI and other initiatives appearing to be perhaps losing sight of their objectives. I would like InternetNZ to take some leadership in the issues of NZ broadband, and with Council's approval, will do some development work towards perhaps establishing a task force or similar.

As required by our constitution, I make the following recommendations for Council approval as the Chairs of the relevant standing committees of Council:

  • Administration Committee
    Chair: Keith Davidson
    Vice Chair: David Farrar
    Members: Chris Streatfield,
    Secretary (to be elected)
    One other councillor (to be decided after elections completed).

  • International Affairs 
    Chair: Peter Dengate-Thrush
    Note - this is an interim appointment, pending the outcome of the International Review.

  • Outreach
    Chair: Simon Riley

  • Technical
    Chair: Drew Whittle

  • Legal and Regulatory Committee 
    Chair: David Farrar

  • Governance and Consitutional 
    Chair: Chris Streatfield

The Executive Director is appointed, ex officio, to all committees, except the .nzoc Committee.

I recommend to the incoming Committee Chairs that they consider:

  • appointing a vice-chair, preferably a good administrator who can keep Council informed of committee progress (as has been done within the NZOC and Admin Committees).
  • delegating specific tasks and functions to members of their committees
  • finalise their committee members and terms of reference and seek an e-vote on the Council list as soon as possible, so that committee work can commence without delay
  • I will, over the next 2 days, email the chairs of the committees with a list of people who have indicated a desire to serve on those committees.

I was disappointed at the comment made by a resigning Councillor last month, that he felt it inappropriate that Council should be "rubber-stamping" reports. I will reiterate my belief that Council has an enormous quantity and scope of work to get through, and the only way this workload can be sensible achieved is through tasking committees with their various responsibilities, and those committees bringing recommendations for "rubber stamping" to Council. The detail and consultation work should usually be performed by the relevant committees, not by Council. The appropriate place for detailed input is through the committee structure. I will be doing my utmost to prevent Council meetings drilling down to an unnecessary level of detail, but rather that it concerns itself with the overarching governance of our objectives. There are fewer Council meetings scheduled this year, and firmer scheduled meetings for committees.

SUMMARY

I request Council to:

  1. Receive the President's Report

  2. Confirm the appointment of committee chairs for the forthcoming year.

Keith Davidson
President

Document Actions