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Minutes of the 64th Executive Board Meeting

Author: Paul Rendek
Date: 14 October 2008
Revision No.: 1.1
Status: Final
Maintainer: Sabine Mader

Attendees:

Dmitry Burkov, ICANN Liaison
Andreas Wittkemper, Secretary
Fahad AlShirawi, Member
Nigel Titley, Chairman
János Zsakó, Treasurer

Guest: Rob Blokzijl, RIPE Chairman

Sabine Mader, Assistant to the Managing Director, RIPE NCC
Axel Pawlik, Managing Director, RIPE NCC
Paul Rendek, Head of External Relations and Comms., RIPE NCC
Jochem de Ruig , Chief Financial Officer, RIPE NCC

AGENDA:

1. Agenda / Comments
1.1 Apologies, New Agenda Points
1.2 Approval of Previous Minutes, EB#63
1.3 Date of Next Meetings
(Proposed: 28 October 2008 (week of RIPE-57),1 December 2008, Bahrain)
2. Outstanding Actions
3. Report from the RIPE NCC
4. Scenarios
4.1 Gartner: Strategic Scenarios for IPv4-IPv6 Transition
4.2 Financial Modelling 2009-2011, Three Views
5. Capital/Expense Ratio, A Proposal
6. GM preparations
6.1 Changes to the Articles of Association proposed for 2009
6.2 Draft Activity Plan 2009
6.3 Draft Budget 2009
6.4 Charging Scheme 2009
6.5 Amendment Charging Scheme 2008 re 2007-01
6.6 RIPE NCC Donor Agreement
6.7 Service agreement for PI space holders
6.8 GM Agenda
6.9 Presentations
6.10 Board Activities
7. External Relations
7.1 ICANN
7.2 NRO
7.3 RIPE
8. AOB

Nigel Titley, RIPE NCC Chairman, opened the meeting at 13:00

1. Agenda / Comments

1.1 Apologies, New Agenda Points

No further issues were brought forward. No new agenda points.

1.2 Approval of Previous Minutes, EB#63

No comment, the minutes of Executive Board meeting #63 were approved.

1.3 Date of Next Meetings

#65 Tuesday, 28 October 2008, Dubai, 12:30 (week of RIPE-57)

#66 Monday, 1 December 2008, Bahrain

2. Outstanding Actions

The Board reviewed the outstanding action items. The Board agreed to have the action items integrated into the minutes.

EB140 04/09/2007 AP
The Board requested Axel to produce various scenarios surrounding the depletion of IPv4 address space in time for the Board strategy retreat.
Status 12/12/07: IN PROGRESS
Status 02/06/08: IN PROGRESS
Status 11/06/08: ONGOING

Status: 10/09/08: DONE

János pointed out that an action item listed in the minutes of Exec. Board Meeting #63 was missing in the outstanding action item list. Axel agreed to have this corrected in the previous minutes and included in the minutes of this meeting.

3. Report from the RIPE NCC

Axel provided a short update to the RIPE NCC report that was published to the Executive Board prior to this meeting.

Further to the published report a short summary of the policy discussions that took place at APNIC 26 meeting was discussed. Axel also provided an update from the recent ITU-T IPv6 Workshop that took place in Geneva.

Axel presented membership growth and IP address space distribution statistics. The Board found the information useful and they asked that the RIPE NCC continue work on expanding the set of data presented. Axel asked the Board to contact him if they have any other statistical data they would like to see.

ACTION: The board asked Axel to produce a graph that shows the number of tickets handled by Customer Services plotted against the membership growth figures.

4. Scenarios

4.1 Gartner: Strategic Scenarios for IPv4-IPv6 Transition

The Board was pleased with the results of the strategic scenario building exercise and the report from Gartner. A summary of the results was briefly discussed.

No further comment was provided on the final report supplied by Gartner.

4.2 Financial Modelling 2009-2011, Three Views

Jochem summarised the three views for financial modelling. The models provide a view up to 2011.

Dmitry commented on the unrealistic perspective of the worst-case scenario. The Board agreed and asked Axel to modify the scenario incorporating a realistic decrease in RIPE NCC expenses in the worst-case scenario.

The Board asked what the inflation estimate was for 2008 in the Netherlands. Jochem answered that it may be around 4%.

Fahad asked how many members did not pay their membership fee during the year of the Internet bubble in 2002. Jochem answered that it was roughly 10%.

Fahad asked Jochem to provide the view of membership category size that did not pay during the Internet bubble of 2002 to see if any one size was affected more than another.

ACTION: The Board asked Axel to provide an updated set of financial scenarios with modifications to RIPE NCC expenses in the worst-case scenario.

5. Capital/Expense Ratio, A Proposal

After some general discussion, János stated that the proposed scenario did not account for investments/fixed assets while the current ratio partly does account for them.

ACTION: The Board asked Axel to provide several Capital/Expense Ratio scenarios for Board review prior to the next scheduled Board meeting.

6. GM preparations

6.1 Changes to the Articles of Association proposed for 2009

Axel referred to a few suggestions raised by members at the GM Meeting in May 2008. These included electronic voting and the introduction of a non-voting support category that would involve changes to the RIPE NCC Articles of Association. The Board discussed possible voting procedures.

ACTION: The Board asked Axel to propose new voting procedures for the Board to discuss at the Executive Board meeting in December 2008, taking into account information about e-voting systems.

Nigel proposed that the Board discuss the suggested changes to the Articles of Association in greater detail at the Board meeting scheduled for 1 December 2008.

No further comments were made to the proposed document.

6.2 Draft Activity Plan 2009

Axel reported the main changes in the RIPE NCC Activity Plan 2009. The Board approved the publication of the document for the membership to review prior to the GM meeting.

6.3 Draft Budget 2009

Jochem presented the draft Budget for 2009. The Board agreed to publish the draft budget for the membership to review prior to the GM meeting.

6.4 Charging Scheme 2009

Jochem presented the charging scheme 2009. The Board approved the Charging Scheme 2009 and approved its publication for RIPE NCC membership review.

6.5 Amendment Charging Scheme 2008 re 2007-01

The Board agreed that the amendment to the Charging Scheme 2008 be included as a resolution for the GM Meeting in October 2008.

6.6 RIPE NCC Donor Agreement

After discussion, the Board agreed to change the name of RIPE NCC Donor to RIPE NCC Supporter.

The Board agreed that supporters of the RIPE NCC be identified on the RIPE NCC website.

ACTION: The Board asked Axel to modify the Donor Agreement in accordance with the suggested changes and distribute the document to the Board to review prior to publication as a GM meeting document.

6.7 Service agreement for PI space holders

János made several comments to the service agreement proposal:

- Reword the agreement to reflect that a private person may become the contracting party, in accordance with the original intent

- The text on reverse DNS should be clarified

- A deadline for the contract termination should be added to point 7.3(g).

ACTION: The Board asked Axel to circulate a revised version of the service agreement for PI space holders to the Board.

6.8 GM Agenda

The Board agreed the draft GM agenda. The Board asked Axel to publish the draft agenda accordance with the RIPE NCC Articles of Association.

6.9 Presentations

The Board discussed the presentation preparation needed for the upcoming GM Meeting. Axel and the Board agreed to work together to produce the presentation.

6.10 Board Activities

This agenda item was covered in discussions in agenda point 6.9

7. External Relations

7.1 ICANN

Axel provided a brief update on ICANN activities.

Dmitry provided an update on key issues raised at the ICANN meeting in Paris in July 2008.

Rob noted that ICANN was planning to conduct an external evaluation of the workings of the Address Supporting Organisation. The Board agreed to closely follow this issue.

7.2 NRO

Axel presented a short update on NRO activities.

7.3 RIPE

Rob Blokzijl provided an update on issues in RIPE. He mentioned that there are a significant number of policies to discuss at the upcoming RIPE meeting. He confirmed that he has allocated more time from the plenary session for address policy discussion and would coordinate this with the Address Policy WG Chairman.

He also mentioned that as we near the exhaustion of the free pool of IPv4 addresses, there might be a need to have an extraordinary Address Policy Working Group meeting. If the community requests this he agreed to inform the Board.

8. AOB

No further agenda items were brought forward.

The meeting was brought to a close at 17:15.

ACTION ITEMS

EB140 11/06/2008 AP
Axel to provide the Executive Board with a draft of changes to the Articles of Association, including the new Associate Member category without voting rights, revised charging scheme that includes the new member category, the possibility of electronic voting schemes for use at the General Meetings, and a review of alternative voting mechanisms including options for changes to the proxy function.
Deadline: 15 July 2008.
Status: 10/09/2008: DONE

EB141 10/09/2008 AP
The board asked Axel to produce a graph that shows the number of tickets handled by Customer Services plotted against the membership growth figures.

EB142 10/09/2008 AP
The Board asked Axel to provide an updated set of financial scenarios with modifications to RIPE NCC expenses in the worst-case scenario.

EB143 10/09/2008 AP
The Board asked Axel to provide several Capital/Expense Ratio scenarios for Board review prior to the next scheduled Board meeting.

EB144 10/09/2008 AP
The Board asked Axel to propose new voting procedures for the Board to discuss at the Executive Board meeting in December 2008, taking into account information about e-voting systems.

EB145 10/09/2008 AP
The Board asked Axel to modify the Donor Agreement in accordance with the suggested changes and distribute the document to the Board to review prior to publication as a GM meeting document.

EB146 10/09/2008 AP
The Board asked Axel to circulate a revised version of the service agreement for PI space holders to the Board.