IEEE Kansas City Section Meeting Minutes

IEEE-KC SECTION EX-COM
March 12, 2007

Attendees: Dick Hodgman, Bill Ritter, Mark Lamendola, John Fessler, Fred Granville, Imran Pishori, Randy Winzer, Ghulam Chaudhry, and Debby Dilks

Chair Dick Hodgman called the meeting to order after Secretary Debby Dilks took the Roll and determination that there was a quorum.

Action Items:
1. Dick Hodgman will put together a formal budget for the KC Section with Imran.
2. Dick asked Imran for a breakdown on the interest rates if we don’t want to put all of our excess money in the stock market.
3. Dick said that he planned to go to the Region 5 lunch and see what tour budget should look like.
4. Dick has a write up on the May program from Bill and will get it sent in for the website.
5. Debby will ask Vishwa, Alex and David the status of their monthly meetings along with Chris Zugelder for the September GOLD meeting. The PES still has a June meeting to set up too.
6. Dick Hodgman would like to get a report from Bill Ritter back in a month on how the Community is working for the 2008 R5 Conference Committee.
7. Dick would like the 2008 R5 Conference Committee to have one successful teleconference before the next IEEE-ExCom.
8. Dick said that IEEE needs to tell us what “up and running” involves by August..
9. Imran said that the Reach out to Community committee had not met yet, but will after April.
10. Bill said that the Communications committee hasn’t met as a committee yet, but they have used the community to review the minutes, discuss them, vote on them, had two funding request pass with a motion that was seconded and then voted on both of them, etc.
11. Dick said that the Governance of Section committee had not taken any further action on, but that they need to follow up on what a couple of people were already working on.
12. Dick asked Bill to post a request for By-Laws changes on the Community and let people comment on it.
13. Dick asked Bill Ritter to open up a discussion on the Community to ask for input from the membership on issues they would like for him to present when he attends the Congressional Visits Day.
14. Dick asked Bill Ritter to put together a trip report when he comes back from Congressional Visits Day.
15. Mark will post the request for input from the membership on congressional issues in the Newsletter.
16. Dick will write up a description for the Program Arrangements Chair and get it to Mark to post on the newsletter.
17. Mark needs to write something up for the newsletter to advertise the Webmaster position but send it to Dick first.

Previous Meeting Minutes: Because the minutes are posted on the Communities [see the minutes as posted on the KC IEEE Community at https://www.ieeecommunities.org/ieee.kansascity] and everyone has the opportunity to read them there, the reading of the minutes was waived. Minutes were approved in advance with motions and votes taken on the communities. Bill Ritter asked if Dick Hodgman received his By-laws recommendation. Dick has received them and will discuss them in new business.

Treasurer Report: Imran Pishori submitted his Financial Report for February 2007 on the Communities. He went over the report [see the report as posted on the KC IEEE Community at https://www.ieeecommunities.org/ieee.kansascity]. Imran said that he and Dick filled out the L50 report and sent it in for the rebate. Imran hasn’t heard since then so he assumes everything was accepted. In the Concentration banking account, we earned $114.91 in interest. Last month we paid $633.19 to the Wyndham Garden and collected $470, so we had a loss of $163.19. The IEEE Investment Fund with a balance of $23,952.75 doesn’t reflect interest paid since December. Dick Hodgman will put together a formal budget with Imran. It was suggested that if we have $23K in the checkbook we might consider putting some of that money in our investment funds. Bill Ritter said that we don’t want to drain the checking account down so we can’t last for a few months without any deposits or rebates. We received the rebate in November, but not in May according to Imran. We don’t need three years worth of money, but six months might be pushing it if IEEE is slow in getting a rebate to us. Imran suggested doing it gradually, Dick asked Imran for a breakdown on the interest rates if we don’t want to put it all in the stock market. Bill Ritter said one of the meeting minutes from last year indicated that we would allocate $1500 a year for a congress candidate to go to Congress. We need to send a person to Section’s Congress on our own. It will be in Quebec, Canada and could cost as much as $4500. Section’s Congress is only every three years. Region will fund a primary delegate to go, but we should try to send an additional one on our own. Dick said that he planned to go to the Region 5 lunch and see what the budget should look like.

Debby Dilks asked Imran about the Computer Society funds that were supposed to be reflected separately from other funds. He said that amount is $1,630. It was suggested that when the Computer Society gets a Treasurer assigned that they set up a bank account and then they will withdraw that amount out of the fund. Mark Lamendola said that he truly appreciated the help Imran provided him and the Computer Society.

Debby also asked if Imran received the UMKC IEEE budget yet and he said that he did. He asked if the money from the KC section was really needed by the Robotics Team since their budget showed a balance of over $3000. Debby replied that the balance left over after the conference is used to purchase the parts for the robot the next year until they start to receive more donations. Bill Ritter said that the money is really part of the annual section rebate from IEEE and should be around $200. The money goes to the section because of the UMKC IEEE Student Branch. So is really for them if justified by a budget.”

Section meetings status:
March 15: - Computer Society: Mark Lamendola said that everything was set for the meeting with Aaron Shilts, Vice President of Professional Services at Fishnet Security as the speaker talking on Information Security. Mark also said that he had the information on the October speaker already posted on website. He adamantly stated that six months is the bare minimum for adequate promotion of a monthly meeting. Meeting information submitted less than six months before the meeting is late. The Computer Society is working on their 2008 programs now and they are waiting for the 2008 Meetings Calendar so they can finalize that schedule. He said that the section is suffering from meeting content being too light weight and not technical enough to attract the majority of the members to attend, plus the meetings run overtime because of poor preparation.

April 12: Communications Society: Shiva Narayanabhatla was not in attendance nor was anyone else from this society. But we do have the information on this meeting posted on the website. Jack Sippel will provide a program on WiMax. Mark Lamendola mentioned that Jack still holds the best attendance record in IEEE-KC from when he was active. Debby mentioned that the Agenda didn’t show the new date of April 12th.

May 17: Annual Banquet: Dick Hodgman, said that Bill Ritter will be the speaker. Dick has a write up on the May program from Bill and will get it sent for the website.

June 21: Power Engineering Society: Vishwa Soni
OPEN AI: Neither Vishwa Soni nor any other members of the Power Engineering Society were in attendance.

July 19: Engineering Medical & Biomedical Society: Alex Freeman
OPEN AI: Neither Alex Freeman no any other members of EMBS were in attendance..

August 16: PACE: David Kasper
OPEN AI: Neither David Kasper nor any other members of PACE were in attendance.

Debby will ask Vishwa, Alex and David the status of their monthly meetings along with Chris Zugelder for the September GOLD meeting. The PES still has a June meeting to set up too.

Standing Committee reports:
Nominations committee: Dr. Ken Vollmar, chair. Ken was not present at the meeting to present this report. Dick Hodgman has some new ideas on trying to tie this with the meeting organization.

Ad-hoc committee reports:

2008 Region 5 Conference: Prof. Ghulam Chaudhry, chair was not present at this time. Bill Ritter managed to get all but two people on the committee to join the Communities. So hopefully it will help us to have meetings through the Communities, since we are having so much trouble getting everyone together to meeting face to face otherwise. Dick Hodgman would like to get a report from Bill Ritter back in a month on how that is working. Dick would like the 2008 R5 Conference Committee o have one successful teleconference before the next IEEE-ExCom. Bill mentioned that we have been updating the room assignments and Debby found some rooms that were missing, so Bill is trying to get in contact with the hotel right now to correct that. Bill also reported that Vita wanted to know what the status was on us using her, so Bill Ritter told her she was too expensive. We are planning to pair up with Denver on their contract with CVENT or we could use IEEE’s Business information system. Dick brought it up at R5 teleconference last week, but he nervous about using the new IEEE system and us not that experienced with what we are doing. He doesn’t want to test it for IEEE and then find all of the bugs, but then find out it is too late for us to recover what goes wrong. Bill said that if it costs more than going with Denver, then we should still go with Denver. Dick said that IEEE needs to tell us what “up and running” involves by August. It will be plenty busy trying to get the conference running without added problems. Chris Zugelder is our Registration Chair., but he may take a job in California. He is interviewing right now.

Reach out to Community: Imran Pishori, chair : Imran didn’t have an update on this committee. Dick asked what the activity is at this time. Imran said that they had not met yet, but will after April.

Communications: Bill Ritter, chair: Bill said that they haven’t met as a committee yet, but they have used the community to review the minutes, discuss them, voted on them, had two funding request pass with a motion that was seconded and then voted on both of them. So we are learning how to use the tool of the community. Not saying there aren’t problems, but this was still a success. He also said that he has had a number of people saying it was working. Fred Granville agreed.

Governance of Section: Dick Hodgman, chair: Dick said that he had not taken any further action on this, but that he needs to follow up on what a couple of people were already working on.

Menu Committee: Debby Dilks, chair: Because all of the menus are posted on the community with options rather than alternatives and they are assigned to meetings this Ad-Hoc Committee was closed.

Old business:
AIs from February 15th ExCom not addressed above;
see the minutes as posted on the KC IEEE Community at

https://www.ieeecommunities.org/ieee.kansascity?go=1499776

Action Items from the February 15th minutes:
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. Done. Imran and Dick worked on this together and submitted it on time. Action Item Closed.
2. Himanshu Gupta will have the topic of the program Information Security advertised on the website. Done. Action Item Closed.
3. Debby Dilks will contact Shiva Narayanabhtla to find out what the new date will be for the April meeting. Done. Action Item Closed.
4. Dick Hodgman will contact Kathryn Flynn at the hotel to see which date in April is available at the hotel for a meeting. Done. Action Item Closed.
5. Vishwa Soni will attempt to move the PES June meeting to an alternate date. PES is still on task to have a meeting in June.
6. Debby will contact Alex Freeman to get information on the July meeting. To be done.
7. Dick Hodgman will possibly initiate an Ad Hoc committee that will work on the organization of the monthly meetings. Dick will talk about it at the next meeting.
8. Bill Ritter will attempt to get everyone on the ExCom to sign up for the Community website. Done. Action Item Closed.
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. Done. Action Item Closed.
10. Dick Hodgman would like everyone to take a look at the Governance of Section website. To be done.
11. Dick Hodgman will give Kathryn Flynn at the Wyndham Garden Hotel a copy of the menu with the dates identified. Done. Action Item Closed.
12. Debby Dilks will ask Kirk Duncan if all of the L31 reports are done. Done. Action Item Closed.

New business:
A. The question was posed how legal the business transactions and the votes on funding have been that were conducted on the Community. Bill Ritter said that it went very well, given that it was a brand new system. It is open to all ExCom members whether they are a voting member or not. On the Community Dick moved and Debby seconded with various discussions and then it went to the polls for voting. Bill created the polls so that only the voting ExCom members could vote and it was unanimous. So I think it went very well – Fred Granville asked how many voted and Bill replied that it was 6 on one and 8 on the other Next the timing on the minutes was discussed and how long they should be left up on the Community for review. Bill said that he will leave them there for a week and Debby will put the changes into it and then post it for Poll-Voting on the community. It will be open to voting members for three (3) days.

It was asked what our By-Laws say about electronic voting and should we look at amending them to bring them up to date? That verbiage needs to be changed. Past problems have been that some people don’t get an e-mail, so don’t know to vote. Fred Granville said that ExCom members can subscribe to RSS stuff and that way they don’t have to wade through a bunch of extra pages on Community. Bill said did you find the suggestion for the By-Laws amendment. Dick asked Bill to post it on Community and let people comment on it. Fred said that we should take Mark’s comments and post them also. He said that he thinks the Community is more secure than e-mail and that might be a good discussion. Mark said that we should forget about e-mail voting. At one time we had to vote in person, but the times have changed. In the case where we are voting for the section officers then voting is open to all members of section and the Communities might not work well for that.

Dick asked if what we do on Community was legal. It probably wasn’t totally kosher, so we should vote on what we approved on the Community to make sure it is legal. Bill read each of the funding requests:

1. Partial funding is requested to support sending 1 IEEE Kansas City Section Member (Bill Ritter) to the2007 Congressional Visits Day, to be held in Washington DC on May 1-2, 2007.

Fred Granville moved and Dick Hodgman seconded the motion. Discussion ensued. The total cost to send one person to go to the Congressional Visits Day in Washington, D.C. will be $1400. R5 will pay $600 and this will make the Section obligated for $800. Imran could write a check up to $1400. Dick asked Bill Ritter to put together a trip report when he comes back, but in the meantime he should open up discussion asking for input from the members to see if there are any additional issues they may have and want Bill to present to congressmen. Mark can also put it in Newsletter. The motion carried.

2. Partial funding is requested to support 3 IEEE Kansas City Section, 2008 Conference Committee Members to go 1 day earlier (19 Apr 2007) than Region 5’s funding for the 3 individuals to attend the 2007 Region 5 Technical Conference and Business Meeting, that will be held Friday-Sunday on April 20-22, 2007 in Fayetteville, AR.

Dick moved that the request be approved and Mark seconded the motion. Most of the expense will be paid by R5 and that includes travel and registration for an estimated cost of $1080 for three people to go. This allows them to go to the technical conference a day early, to compare Arkansas’ conference to our own. This way we can see what is working and what isn’t working. Motion carried.

Chaudhry told the ExCom that he is registered and has his hotel room reserved. He will also be chairing a part of the technical conference while there.

Program Arrangements Chair: Dick said that is would be helpful to have someone who is the focal point for our program to make sure the different societies are aware of their responsibilities and to set up the meetings. Dick will write up a description and get it to Mark for the newsletter. This position might give us an opportunity to streamline our system and to get more of a closure on future meeting dates. Fred thinks it is a good idea because most of the responsibilities have fallen upon our Webmaster. That isn’t right, so having someone who is responsible for this will help alleviate him. Mark said that the Section Chair and Secretary are in place to do that, but if the Section Chair feels that he needs someone else to focus on that, it should be ok. Mark said that you really need six months to promote any activities to the membership. When you get down to the wire that is when things are falling through. You have to allow for Q&A at the end of a presentation, so meetings aren’t getting out too late. Dick said that since it is within his realm to do this, he will write something up for this position.

Webmaster position: We need to write something up for the newsletter to advertise this position. We don’t want to keep it within the group of people who are already volunteering. We would like to see someone else take it on. Mark said that if anyone has been a newsletter editor for their church, that person would be a good choice. It is really a Publications Officer. Dick asked Mark to include something in the description about the future changes in the section and that this position will help shape our communications in the future. Mark said that he doesn’t want to scare anyone off. Mainly we just need someone who will commit to doing it and who will be reliable, but we can bring this up later. Mark said that he has kept the website very simple in coding from day one so they don’t need to learn something new. Dick asked Mark to put something together and get it to him to look at.

Dick asked Bill if he wanted to announce his volunteering for the R5 Sections Congress on the Newsletter and Bill said that we can do that.

With a motion by Debby Dilks and a second by Fred Granville the meeting was adjourned at 1:00 PM.

Respectfully submitted by,

Debby Dilks, Secretary

Contact the Webmaster (Mark Lamendola) at writer @ ieee.org. If you would like to be the Webmaster, I am looking for someone to replace me. Please contact me if you're interested.

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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Minutes, March, 2007