SDL Forum AGM 2001- Secretary's report

Membership and Fees

There have been a number of new Members joining throughout the year, though inevitably a number of Members did not renew their subscription in January.

The fees were revised in accordance with the proposal accepted at the last AGM. The new fee structure can be found on the www. Membership is now annual rather than biennial. The board introduced a new category for individual students at half the normal individual rate. This fee has been in operation since last September. The Board is now asks the Members to endorse the revised fees.

The Board decided that to qualify for a member discount on events, membership should be in place 2-3 months before the event. For SDL '01 the deadline was set as 1st April 2001.

WWW Site

The Society has continued to maintain the www site, though contributions and suggestions from the members would be welcome. The objective is to be the primary site for SDL information with links to other sites. The contract the Society has with the internet service provider, iServer, allows us to resell services to third parties. The Board already has a potential client (the German Skeptics Society) and asks the endorsement of the membership to proceed. Together with moving to a different iServer host, this will save the society some money. The Board does not propose being a general reseller, but could sub-host www sites of members for a fee, if they so request.

Board elections and AGM

At the last AGM there was action on the Secretary to suggest a procedure for election of the Board. An election committee was considered, but this only introduces indirection as there needs to be a mechanism to select the election committee. Therefore, it is proposed that a simple democratic process is retained, but the procedure should be documented as follows:

1. A Member can nominate any Member for election to the three person Board, but is valid only if the nominated Member agrees.
2. Nominations can be made at any time before the AGM by informing the Membership via the email list members of sdl-forum.org up to the day before the AGM, or verbally at the AGM when invited by the chairman of the meeting.
3. In principle the election at the AGM shall take place in two stages: a) election of three Members to the Board b) election of Board members to the three roles - Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer.
4. If for any reason one or more of the Board is unable to continue in their role, the remaining Board and the non-continuing person(s) (if available) shall endeavour to appoint a replacement Member to the Board.
5. Prior to the AGM the Board shall endeavour to appoint a non-Board Member to chair the AGM, but if no Member is prepared to chair the meeting it will be chaired by the existing Board Chairman.

Events and Publications

SAM-2000 was a success and the proceedings have been made available via the www. A number of articles from SDL'99 were published in Computer Networks earlier this year.

The Board has not received financial reports for either SDL'99 or SAM-2000, but it is understood that neither event made a (significant) profit or loss.

The SDL'01 seems set to be successful as an event, but it was also planned (see AGM 2000) to make a profit to fund Society activities. Due to lack of sponsors and lower attendance (mainly due to the current telecomm. downturn) break-even looks more likely.

Moving to LNCS for publication makes the proceedings less expensive and more available.

SAM-2002 is planned only as a date: June 2002. The Board needs to obtain proposals and make a decision by September 2001. On the other hand Computer Networks is interested in publishing selected presentations.

Planning for SDL '02 should also be started, with an objective to have selected a venue date by Spring 2002.

Grant and other items

The posthumous grant to Ragozin has been paid and it is time to consider whether the Society should sponsor a further award to promote SDL or MSC.

The Society has been asked to send the Chairman to a meeting between ITU-T collaborators and on standards work.

As a Member, I have three proposals to be considered:

1. Whether to apply for Associate Membership of ETSI;
2. Re-interpretation of 'SDL' as the more inclusive 'System Design Language';
3. Formation of specific tool-user groups (e.g. Cinderella User Group, Tau User Group) within the Society.

No other change of benefits has been proposed.

Rick Reed

Secretary SDL Forum Society, June 2001.

Contact the webmaster with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1997 - 2013 SDL Forum Society

Last update: 01 May 2013 15:34 +0100