Internet Society of Australia
A Chapter of the Internet Society
ABN 36 076 406 801The Annual General Meeting of the Internet Society of Australia were held on 10th December, 2003, at the offices of Maddocks, Melbourne. The meeting commenced at 6:00 pm.
Minutes of Annual General Meeting, 20031. Welcome
Mr Tony Hill was Chair and welcomed members attending and on teleconference, and listed the items on the agenda. He noted that the Annual Reports and Accounts are available on the Society's web pages at: http://www.isoc-au.org.au/AGM2003/FY03/index.htmliApologies were received from Jeremy Malcolm, Ross Kelso, Peter Gerrand, Andrew McRae, Ann Greiner.
2. Notice of meeting
Motion: "That the notice of the Annual General Meeting 2003 be taken as read."
MOVED Tony Hill, SECONDED George Fong. ACCEPTED.3. Quorum
A quorum for the meeting was established with fifteen people present in person, seven by teleconference and eleven proxies, for which proxy forms were open for inspection.
Motion: "That the 11 proxies received be accepted at the AGM."
MOVED Tony Hill, SECONDED Narelle Clark. ACCEPTED.4. Executive Director's report
The Executive Director, Dr Kate Lance, presented her report for the year and was thanked for her excellent work on behalf of ISOC-AU.It has been a very busy year for ISOC-AU. Our directors continue to offer their time and resources in specialist areas, attending meetings and providing advice and services to Internet organisations.Requests for media comments have been continuous throughout the year, with a number of directors discussing topics such as spam, chatrooms, file-sharing, Verisign activities, censorship, interconnection and peering. Major events for the year were the one-day forum `Connecting the Future 2003' and nine meetings held with Internet users in cities all over Australia.
[A] Working with Our Members
We have offered substantial benefits to our Organisational members, with publicity for their Internet-focussed activities, and invitations to special directors' teleconferences with guest speakers.This year we were addressed by the Honorable Marsha Thomson, Victorian Minister for ICT & Small Business, Anne-Marie Lansdowne from DCITA, Mike Biber from the IPv6 Forum, and Bronte Adams on the BAG report - reports are available at:
http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Organisation/mins/mins1003.html http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Organisation/mins/mins0703.html http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Organisation/mins/mins0803.html http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Organisation/mins/mins0203.htmlWe also held an informative teleconference with a visiting delegation from the Internet Society of China.
We promoted numerous events (most with concessions for our own members) for Organisational Members such as ATUG, SPAN, Curtin University Internet Studies, and on behalf of members involved with Web Accessibility Workshops, QUESTnet 2003, the Regional Broadband Conference III, Australian Technology Park Open Day, and a book launch for member Dr Gerard Goggin. We regularly provide a column for the Smart Internet Technology CRC newsletter.
[B] Meetings and Submissions
Directors have attended meetings with the TCCC, ACA, ACIF, SPAN, ASIC, InterAct 2003 and the National ICT Alliance, covering topics such as ENUM, broadband, next generation networks, interconnection and peering, Any-to-Any Text Connectivity, standards and guidelines, IT law, framework for future leaders. A major area of commitment has been the involvement of directors Cheryl Langdon-Orr and Craig Ng with the auDA board and committees.Spam has become a major issue this year. We provided a special page on spam on the website, with links to helpful organisations and a paper on the problem by director Jeremy Malcolm. We submitted comments to NOIE on proposed anti-spam legislation in August and further comments in October. We also provided a submission on peering and interconnection to the ACCC in June.
[C] Forums
Together with AC3 and the Smart Internet Technology CRC we organised Connecting the Future'03, on new mobile, web and Internet services, smart networks and IPv6. We were addressed by an amazing range of excellent speakers, and were kindly sponsored by Optus, Cisco and T-Systems. The day was a great success - educational, enjoyable and thought-provoking - see www.isoc-au.org.au/CTF03
[D] Telecommunications Consumer Consultation Meetings
In mid 2002 we secured funding of $25,000 through the Telecommunications Consumer Representation Grant Program of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, to carry out a program of discussions with users of Internet services across Australia. We were awarded the same funding this year to continue the program, and since the AGM last December we have held the following meetings:* Sydney, NSW - 17 December 2002
* Perth, WA - 23 January 2003
* Adelaide, SA - 27 March 2003
* Brisbane, Qld - 01 May 2003
* Melbourne, Vic - 21 May 2003
* Darwin, NT - 24 June 2003
* Sydney, NSW - 26 June 2003
* Perth, WA - 05 November 2003
* Broome, WA - 11 November 2003
The meetings were helpfully facilitated by local members or directors and full reports are at www.isoc-au.org.au/TCCM - the contrasts in requirements and priorities between major cities and the more remote areas such as Broome and Darwin make extremely interesting reading.
[E] Sponsors
In addition to the much-appreciated efforts of our Platinum sponsors Telstra and Cisco, we were also fortunate to be sponsored for a year by Comindico, and we are grateful for the vision and support of all of our sponsors during 2003.
[F] Administration
We moved our banking and accounting activities to more efficient and functional systems, an arduous task undertaken with great energy by Treasurer Cheryl Langdon-Orr, and all of the directors would like to place on record their appreciation for her efforts during this difficult period. We have also provided our own membership cards for the first time and have new invoice and payment systems in place.The fact that our membership mailing-list is by moderated subscription only means that it has been spared the appalling increase in spam we are seeing on many other open lists. We strongly encourage our members to use the list to discuss ideas and issues with each other and with the directors, it is a great resource of people with extensive Internet experience.
We keep our web page as up-to-date as possible, with the approved minutes of directors' meetings, our annual accounts, reports of our activities and much other relevant information available on the site. This year for the first time we were pleased to be able to offer members small ISOC-AU logos to put on their own websites to show that they are an individual or organisational member, something that had been requested often over the years.
5. Resolution: Adoption of accounts
Motion: "That the profit and loss accounts, the balance sheet, the report of the directors and the auditor's and directors' reports of the Society be received and adopted."
MOVED Tony Hill, SECONDED Narelle Clark. ACCEPTED.6. Election of Directors
There were four board vacancies and three nominations: Gunela Astbrink, Adam Creed, Gerry White. As per Article 48.1 the number of candidates for election as directors was less than the number of vacancies on the Board, so a ballot was not held for the election of candidates.7. Other Business
Motion: "That the minutes of the previous Annual General Meeting 2002 be approved."
MOVED Tony Hill, SECONDED George Fong. ACCEPTED.Some discussion followed, including this list of priorities suggested by the Chair.
* Sponsorship
* Membership
* WAIA possibly hosting APRICOT 2006 meeting in Perth
* Incubator for new internet technologies, eg IPV6
* Advocacy for internet users
It was also suggested that resources on the access grid website at: www.accessgrid.org could be used for future meetings.The meeting closed at 7:15pm.
Signed as a correct and complete record of the above meeting.
Tony Hill President, ISOC-AU