Members Meeting, Geneva, 5 May 1997

Date and Time: 5 May 1997

Location: ITU, Geneva

Organizer: Amardeo Sarma

Taken by: Oystein Haugen

Attendees

11 members

Minutes

  1. Amardeo Sarma led the meeting. Oystein Haugen took the minutes. The Agenda was unanimously agreed.

  2. Report

    The chairman has been A. Sarma, Eurescom, Germany with board members R. Reed, TSE, UK (treasurer) and B. Moller-Pedersen, Telenor, Norway (secretary).

    The WWW-site and the email exploders are maintained by Y. Lahav, ECI Telecom, Israel. He plans to split the SDL news mailing list in four different lists on which people can subscribe through majorodomo: news, sdl, msc and methodology. It was agreed that SDL Forum Society offers to take over the maintenance of the MSC mailing list now maintained by E. Rudolph, TUM, Germany.

    The society has decided to contribute to the funding of the travel expenses of the SDL rapporteur in the current study period. This is because the SDL rapporteur, R. Reed, TSE, UK does not receive other funding for his participation in ITU work.

    The treasurer (R. Reed) pointed out that it had been cumbersome that the treasurer was outside Germany since the society is registered in Germany. This will change in the next period. The biggest single cost for the society is for the web site which amounts to 100 USD/month.

  3. Discussion

    R. Reed, the present editor of the SDL Newsletter, asked to be relieved of this job. A new editor has not yet been found. The next issue of the Newsletter will go to 200 people on the distribution list. Thereafter the next issue will only go to the members, but the newsletter will be available electronically on the web.

    It was pointed out the considerable discount offered to SDL Forum Society members for the SDL Forum 1997 to be held in Paris this fall. Members will also get a considerable discount on extra copies of the proceedings.

    Suggested extra benefits for members included:

    • members only areas on the web
    • direct e-mail to members of importance updates of the web site

    The SDL Forum Society is being recognized by the ITU formally and thereby it is feasible to let SDL Forum Society members who do not attend regular ITU meetings participate in meetings with SDL and MSC experts about the standardization issues.

    The new board was given instructions to negotiate financial agreement with R. Reed about funding parts of his travel expenses. It was agreed that his actual costs should be visualized and that he should get a fixed amount for each meeting, as suggested by the Canadian member Bill McCrum.

  4. Approval of the Boards activities

    The Board was given freedom of responsibility.

  5. Changes to the Constitution

    There was one single change suggested which made it sufficient for any two out of the three members of the board to act in behalf of the Society.

    The change in the Constitution suggested by Chairman A. Sarma was unanimously agreed.

  6. Election of officers

    The following officers were unanimously elected:

    • Chairman: Yair Lahav, ECI Telecom, Israel;
    • Secretary: Oystein Haugen, Ericsson, Norway;
    • Treasurer: Amardeo Sarma, Eurescom, Germany.

    It was also unanimously agreed that as cooptive members (ex officio) there should be one person from Question 6 (SDL) and one from Question 9 (MSC) of Study Group 10 in ITU. There should also be one person from SDL Forum Organizing Committee and one from the Promotion Group. The different groups will find their own representatives.

    As auditors, Bill Mc Crum, Canada and Heinz Kossmann, Siemens, Germany were unanimously elected.

  7. Miscellaneous

    • Next SDL Forum 1999

      There was full agreement that the 1999 SDL Forum should take place in Montreal, Canada as Nortel has backed up the event. It was also agreed that work should be done to promote activity in China such that SDL Forum 2001 could be held there.

    • Representative from SDL Forum Society to ITU

      Yair Lahav was elected as representative from the Society to ITU.

    • Reminder

      The SDL Forum Society Board will remind the SDL Forum Organizing Committee to send paper material for the promotion of the SDL '97.

    • Next meeting

      The next member meeting will at the next ITU-T SG 10 meeting. The board may decide intermediate informal meetings with the members.