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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IEEE-KC SECTION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

Wyndham Garden Hotel: 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.

February 15, 2007

Attendees: Dick Hodgman, Cale Yates, David Readio, Chris Zugelder, Jorge Marquez, Fred Granville, Bill Ritter, Vishwa Soni, Himanshu Gupta, and Debby Dilks

Action Items:

1. Imran Pishori will work on the L-50 report and get it in on time and will make sure the Treasurer’s Report delineates how much money belongs to the Computer Society.
2. Himanshu Gupta will have the topic of the program Information Security advertised on the website.
3. Debby Dilks will contact Shiva Narayanabhatla to find out what the new date will be for the April meeting. I did and it will be April 12^th.
4. Dick Hodgman will contact Kathryn Flynn at the hotel to see which date in April is available at the hotel for a meeting.
5. Vishwa Soni will attempt to move the PES June meeting to an alternate date.
6. Debby will contact Alex Freeman to get information on the July meeting.
7. Dick Hodgman will possibly initiate an Ad Hoc committee that will work on the organization of the monthly meetings.
8. Bill Ritter will attempt to get everyone on the EXCOM to sign up for the Community website.
9. Everyone needs to read the draft minutes on the Community website and make a comment that they have reviewed them even if they do not have a revision.
10. Dick Hodgman would like everyone to take a look at the Governance of Section website
11. Dick Hodgman will give Kathryn Flynn at the Wyndham Garden Hotel a copy of the menu with the dates identified.
12. Debby Dilks will ask Kirk Duncan if all of the L31 reports are done.

Debby Dilks announced that a quorum was met and at 5:14 p.m. Dick Hodgman proceeded with the meeting.

Minutes were approved with minor revisions already made.

Treasurer Imran Pishori was not present at the meeting, but he sent checks to pay for the evening with Jorge Marquez.  Jorge also reported the following for Imran:  He sent the bank disclosure forms today and will work on the L-50 tonight because he knows of the importance of getting the L-50 reports in on time.  Bill Ritter said that we need to be sure that the Treasurer’s Report delineates how much money belongs to the Computer Society.  They need to know how much money they really have.

Dick introduced Jorge Marquez who had just moved to our section from the Caribbean and Latin America Section where he served as both Section Chair and Treasurer.

Members in attendance asked Jorge questions about how that section compared to the KC Section?  (This part was moved to New Business at the end of these minutes.)  Jorge asked the group how much money does this section have and was told we have $20k in our checking account and $25K in an investment account with $15k in expenses.   We mostly break even each year.

Section Meeting Status:

February 15: GOLD: Chris Zugelder reported that the speaker for the evening was delayed at the airport in Washington, D.C. and was not able to be at the meeting.  So we will have a teleconference with a speaker phone and use his PowerPoint which he sent via the internet.   We have 25 dinners ordered, so we are in good shape on attendance.  At the moment we don’t have Internet access yet, but we will have a telephone and the hotel is working on the Internet access for us.  Bill Ritter said that he could talk about 2008 conference for next year as well.

March 15: Computer Society: Himanshu Gupta was not yet in attendance at the meeting, when the question arose for a report from the Computer Society.  The attendees decided that they have the necessary information from last month’s minutes and we will use them. (from January 15^th Minutes) Himanshu Gupta supplied the following information on the Computer Society presenter. Aaron Shilts, V.P. of Professional Services at Fishnet Security will speak on Program Security.  Bill Ritter asked that Himanshu have the topic of the program Information Security advertised on the website.  Bill Ritter will contact Mark Lamendola to get the Web updated and Bill will update the Community.

April 19: Communications Society: Shiva Narayanabhatla  was not in attendance and Dick asked Debby to contact him to find out when he was able to move the April meeting – April 12^th or April 26^th should work.  Dick will contact Kathryn Flynn at the hotel to see which date is available at the hotel.

May 17: Annual Banquet: Dick Hodgman said that Bill Ritter will be the speaker at the May meeting.  He will give a presentation on the Holloman High Speed Test Track.

June 21: Power Engineering Society: Vishwa Soni asked if the PES could switch their meeting to March 6^th because they already have a society meeting scheduled on that date.  If they can switch, they won’t have to schedule another meeting so soon.  They will have to stay with the June date unless they can work it out with another society.

July 19: Engineering Medical & Biomedical Society:   Alex Freeman was not at the meeting.  Debby will send him an e-mail to get information on their meeting.

Dick Hodgman asked if we want to have an Ad-Hoc committee working on the organization of the monthly meetings.  He will put this under new business.

Bill Ritter said that we still need everyone to sign up for the Community and then comment on the minutes even if it is only to say they are ok.

Standing Committee Reports:

Nominations Committee: Dr. Ken Vollmar, chair of this committee was not in attendance and Dick said that he had not heard from him on this.

Dick Hodgman said that there is now an additional position open on the EXCOM.  After ten years as the KC Sections’ Webmaster, Mark Lamendola wants to step down. So if you know of anyone who would be interested in taking this over, let us know.  Can the community take on more of the section stuff?  At the kickoff meeting we discussed adding more to the newsletter.  Do we want to do that?  Bill Ritter will discuss the community at the end of the meeting.  How much does the community cost?  Bill said he wasn’t sure.  IEEE will give space for free but we have to adhere to their rules.  Do we need both the Communities and the website?

Ad-hoc Committee reports:

2008 Region 5 Conference: Dr. Ghulam Chaudhry was not in attendance at the meeting, because he had cataract surgery.  Debby shared with the group that the committee is meeting every other Friday and met on February 8^th.  They are using the teleconference system to assist in meeting with the members out-of-town.  At the last meeting, Dr. Chaudhry introduced two new members who were in attendance; Drs. Reza Derakhshani and Deb Chatterjee.  They will work on the professional side of the conference by encouraging academia to come and present papers.  Also in attendance at that meeting were Kevin Kirkpatrick and Cale Yates (via telephone).  The group came up with a name that all in attendance agreed embodied the areas in which the professional side could relate.  The name is BASICS² (Biotechnology, Avionics, Security, Informatics, Computer and Software Systems).  Bill then talked with the group about the developments with the hotel and arrangements.  He was asked about what happened with using Vita and he said that the cost would be more than we could probably afford.  There is another way we could go with RegOnline.  It is free to open an account and then $25 to $30 per registrant after that.  Is the region paying for the registration process? – No, it is our responsibility and will come out of the money we receive. We can get upfront money from them and they will cover 60% of the loss.

Reach out to the community: Imran Pishori, chair was not in attendance so this was tabled until the next meeting.

Communications – Bill Ritter will talk about the Communities at the end of the meeting.

Governance of Section: Dick Hodgman started a discussion online and sent a notice out to everyone at the meeting. He has had two comments so far.  He would like everyone to take a look at this and make a comment.

Menu Committee: Dick Hodgman confessed that he assigned Debby Dilks and Shiva Narayanabhatla to this committee without talking with them.  So, he took care of the menu and gave everyone a copy who attended the meeting.  He will give a copy of it to Kathryn Flynn at the Wyndham Garden. The menu can be found on the KC Communities website with the meetings assigned to each item.

Old Business:

Last Meetings Action Items:

1. Debby Dilks will reverse the order of the minutes putting the Action Items at the top. Done
2. Bill Ritter will contact Mark Lamendola to update the Web and Bill will update the Community on the March meeting. Done
3. Shiva Narayanabhatla will get back to the EXCOM by January 31^st with the new date of the April meeting. Debby will get the new date from Shiva.
4. Dick Hodgman will get back to the EXCOM by February 12^th with the information on the May Banquet. Done
5. Gary Engmann or Vishwa Soni will finalize the speaker and topic for the June meeting by the end of next month. End of February Vishwa Soni will get a speaker and topic for June
6. Bill Ritter will come up with pointers on how to advertise the meetings by the next EXCOM and will put his findings on the Community Website. Not done yet
7. Ghulam Chaudhry to start having regular 2008 Conference Committee meetings. Done
8. Bill Ritter will use the Communications Working Group “Discussions” on the IEEE Kansas City (Region 5) Online Community to record all discussions relating to the working group. Bill Ritter initiated this – Done
9. Shiva Narayanabhatla needs to reply to Dick Hodgman on the vegetarian menus at the Wyndham before the 31^st which is when they need to be finalized. Done
10. Debby Dilks will contact Duane Highley to get the L31 updated for the Southwestern Missouri Subsection. Duane sent the information to Debby and she will ask Kirk Duncan if this was done. Bill Ritter will send a link to Dick Hodgman to check on it.
11. Cale Yates will send out instructions on how to fill out the L31s to John Fessler, Alex Freeman, and Leyla Celebi. Done
12. Dick Hodgman will move the November meeting to the 8^th instead of the 15^th and will notify the Wyndham Garden of this move. Bill Ritter will notify Mark Lamendola of the move for the website correction. Moved and done – notified but not done on the website – Everything is done now.
13. Everyone to read draft minutes on the Community website and make a comment that they have reviewed them if they do not have a revision. Done, carry this to next month
14. Dick Hodgman will get with the Power Engineering Society on their menu for their meeting. Dick sent an e-mail to Gary Engmann and told him to get in contact with Kathryn but it is too expensive. 

Debby added that she sent an e-mail to John Fessler about the September meeting per a request from Mark Lamendola, but he is out of town and won’t return until next Tuesday.

New Business:

Kansas State has a new student EMBS chapter.  Debby reported that they will also be coming to UMKC on March 6^th and will talk to the student chapter then. 

Jorge Marquez discussed how the Puerto Rico and Caribbean handled meetings.  He said it was similar to ours, but that they were all friends that helped each other and so the meetings were a little more informal.  Their agenda didn’t look like this.  All chapter chairs gather at a meeting and he said that the PES like here was the most active society.  The Chair will head it up but everyone will help out.  Yes, they had monthly meetings. Members of their EXCOM aren’t chapter officers, they are society chairs.  They have a monthly EXCOM and schedule events for the section as well.  They have two or three major events per year with smaller ones about one a month average.    Jorge was asked how large the section was.  There are two sections - one on the west side of island and one on the east side that is grouped with the smaller islands nearby.  There are 800 members in the large one that is on the east side that is grouped with the smaller islands on Caribbean.  There are about 200 students with two or three active schools.  Section attendance was about 80% and the extra incentive for attending the Ex-Comm meetings  was that they were held at a restaurant.  Every Jan or Feb they would have a retreat or training session with family there. It was part meeting - part fun.  IEEE is very complex.  They received two awards for outstanding chapter and one Regional award.  Jorge’s former boss is running for President of IEEE now too.

September GOLD meeting: Chris Zugelder said that he is talking with a person at Rush Tracking Systems that has a presentation on RFID. 

Community – Bill Ritter needs to get people to log on to the IEEE Kansas City (Region 5) Online Community and become a member and review the community.  They can preview it.  He has changed the site so that it goes directly into the community with a “Preview” capability.  While in “Preview” a person will not have full privileges allowed (i.e. you can view a discussion, but you cannot enter any comments) so you need to go to the left side and click the “Logon” button and it will then ask for IEEE Web Account Username and Password, etc.  While in “Preview” anyone can view the calendar information without entering an IEEE Web Account Username and Password.  You can send any file to a select group of individuals by e-mail.  The Files Tool (on left) has several folders embedded under it.  Currently there is a file off the Root “File” for the Kansas City Section, Chapters, and Affinity Groups.  It can be expanded to include IEEE Student Branches.  The “Discussion Tool” is the same way.  On the Region 5 Website there is a button for “Websites for IEEE Documents and Forms.”  It would be nice if our community had a similar capability.  The problem with using the Community instead of the Website is that the Website gets out to 1200 people and the Community only goes out to the 37 people who have signed up.  Can we trigger an e-notice and build it into the Community?  The editor of the newsletter can send it out.  We can’t solve it now, but we will send a notice to all section members to join the IEEE Kansas City (Region 5) Online Community.

Dick Hodgman asked Bill Ritter to contact everyone on the Community now to give it a critical look before sending it out to everyone.  We need to get all of the EXCOM using it before sending it out to everyone.

The meeting was adjourned 6:10 with a move by Debby Dilks and a second by Cale Yates.

Respectfully submitted by,

Debby Dilks

IEEE-KC Section, Secretary