Executive Director's Report for the AGM 2002
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I became Executive Director of the Internet Society of Australia in
January 2002. The first activity of the year was to poll the members
to find out exactly what sort of services they wanted us to focus on.
Now, ten months later, it is pleasing to note that we have managed to
successfully offer some of those most requested activities to our
members over 2002.
[A] Member Interests
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In terms of facilities, members said that they wanted an online
interface to change membership details, and an electronic newsletter.
We simply didn't have the resources to do the first of these, but we
were very fortunate to be able to organise for members to receive Adam
Creed's weekly newsletter, which is certainly one of the most original,
succinct and interesting summaries around.
Members said that in terms of events they were most in favour of
one-day conferences and informal meetings with a speaker. For the
first time in ISOC-AU's history we organised two very successful
one-day conferences during the year, Connecting the Future and
Designing the Future. We also organised a Broadband discussion in
Sydney in May and an informal Brisbane meeting with president Tony
Hill.
The major topics of members interest as subjects for talks were:
Internet standards and development and Connectivity and infrastructure,
and these became the subjects of our two one-day forums (as below).
[B] Forums
~~~~~~~~~~
* Connecting the Future, May 28 in Sydney, held in conjunction with
AC3 was a great success. It reviewed the progess and development of
advanced high-speed network infrastructure in Australia. See -
http://www.isoc-au.org.au/CTF
* Designing the Future, December 3 in Melbourne, held in conjunction
with Maddocks, was also a great success, looking at Internet protocol
design and implementation for all types of Internet users. See -
http://www.isoc-au.org.au/DTF
[C] Working with Our Organisational Members
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our relationships with other organisations continue to grow and
develop. We have been able to support and promote the activites of a
number of our Organisational Members:
CCNR: ISOC-AU supported the Community Networking conference held at
Monash in June by the Centre for Community Networking Research. I was
on the committee, chaired a conference session, and enjoyed some very
interesting discussions and talks. In October I also attended CCNR's
very productive one-day study meeting to research future directions in
community networking.
SETEL: ISOC-AU supported and I spoke at the SETEL Forum on SME
involvement with the Internet and again heard some very innovative
discussion on the problems of Internet take-up for small business.
ATUG: Sydney directors provided a booth at the ATUG annual conference
in March and we publicised a number of ATUG events that had concession
entry for our members.
Broadband: we organised a teleconference consultation between our
Organisational members on broadband issues.
We also promoted Web Accessibility Workshops on behalf of some of
our individual members.
[D] Governance and Submissions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Director Galen Townson attended a round-table discussion on Spam
with NOIE in May and we provided a submission on the topic, see -
http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Submissions/SpamNOIE020502.html
* In August we provided a submission with recommendations to the
Broadband Advisory Group, see -
http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Submissions/bband140802.html
* We submitted comments to NOIE on ICANN developments.
* We were involved in several ACA meetings on deriving guidelines
for ISP activities and codes for consumers of telecommunications
services.
* We took part in a day of protest on lack of review of the censorship
provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act and in November Director
Jeremy Malcolm provided a submission on the effectiveness of the BSA
three years after implementation.
* We applied for and received a small grant from DCITA under Section 593
as a Telecommunications consumer representative organisation.
* We continued to discuss and promote our key points for
maximising the potential of the Internet, see -
http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Points/
* auDA: We remain strongly involved with domain name governance -
Director Cheryl Langdon-Orr was elected to the board of auDA as a
Demand class representative, and ex-director Greg Watson was re-elected
as an Association class representative.
[E] Resources
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* We provide a source for the excellent CIRCIT report on "E-mail for All"
after that organisation closed down.
* We provided links on our home page to resources on Internet security
and testing for the most common computer vulnerabilities.
* We provide links and advice on dealing with Spam.
* We also provide comment to journalists, respond to individual queries,
and maintain Internet history resources.
* Our web pages were archived by the National Library of Australia as
"culturally significant".
[F] Administration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We surveyed other ISOC chapters for their membership fee structure, and
we were able to reduce our fees for students and concession-holders when
our parent body ISOC changed their fee structure.
We held an Extraordinary General Meeting in May to clarify the different
categories and classes of membership so that we could reduce concession
fees withing the structure of our constitution.
We created a new pamphlet about ISOC-AU for public distribution,
describing our membership, aims and achievements.
[G] Directors' Activities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The directors usually meet via teleconference once a month and the
minutes of those meetings appear on our web pages. We also organised
a face-to-face strategy meeting in February, held at the Sydney premises
of one of our very helpful sponsors, Cisco.
In November I organised a meeting in Townsville with a number of people
interested in Internet developments, to discuss regional telecommunications
consumer concerns. This was a very productive meeting which offered
new and interesting perspectives on user requirements.
Regards,
Kate Lance
+ Kate Lance -------------------- Executive Director ISOC-AU +
| lance@cyber.com.au Internet Society of Australia |
| Tel +61 3 9525 7574 PO Box 152 Civic Square ACT 2608 |
+ www.isoc-au.org.au --------- The Internet is for everyone! +