Stenography Transcript

RIPE 87

29 November 2023

General Meeting

ONDREJ FILIP:  A very good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we are slightly delayed but we can start the General Meeting. 

First of all, let me inform you about some administrative matters.  I decided to appoint Athina Fragkouli as the Chief Legal Officer as the secretary for this GM, and then I would like to remind you that how the objection against minutes work. 

GM minutes will be published in two working days after the General Meeting, so that means Tuesday, December 5th, and the member has three weeks to submit a notice of objection to the minutes. 

Objection will be collected using a tooling to the General Meeting minutes page on the website.  And unless the Board receives a notice of objection signed by at least 100 members within three weeks of publication of the draft minutes, the draft ‑‑ the minutes of the meeting will be final and binding.  So, that's it for the administrative part. 

And let me introduce you to the agenda. 

So, we will start with the welcome, which is right now.  So again welcome. 

Then just for the formal reasons because there was already a presentation during the RIPE NCC Services Working Group, and there will also ‑‑ also a discussion, so this presentation was delivered already.  Then I will do a short presentation, the report from the Executive Board.  Then we will have, we will discuss the RIPE NCC activity plan and budget for the next year.  I guess that's one of the main points of this General Meeting. 

Then there will be a discussion about financial update and redistribution of the RIPE NCC surplus, and then amendments of the Articles of Association.  Then we will vote.  And then on Friday morning, there will be announcement of the voting results.  And then I will conclude finally the General Meeting. 

So, with that, if there are no questions or comments about this ‑‑ I don't expect much discussion on this point but just in case. 

Let me start with the report from the Executive Board. 

So, the Board consists of six very smart individuals and me, so ‑‑ and you can see them on my right‑hand side.  So, I am Ondrej Philip, Peter, the secretary, Raymond the treasurer of the Board, Maria is participating remotely, she unfortunately got ill.  So I hope you are getting better, and everything is okay with you.  Then Remco, Job, and Harald. 

So that's my great colleagues. 

From the last General Meeting, to today, we had the two physical and two meetings per e‑mail.  All the minutes from those meetings are published so you can read that.  If you forgot there is an URL that points you to the list of the meeting minutes, so please, if you are interested, read them. 

First of all, we made a distribution of the roles in the Board, so I already said who is Chair, secretary and treasurer.  Then the Board liaison to RIPE NomCom is Remco and our NRO meeting observer is Remco as well, Marie deals with the ACK Daemon and NRENs is Miriam Hall, and Job Snijders was collected to the committee for the RIPE NCC community project fund. 

Now, something about treasury.  At the March meeting, we approved the selection of an investment partner that will manage the RIPE NCC's investment portfolio.  Since that time, we are working on implementing this.  So, in June of we approved the treasury Institute, constitute, we also approved the selection of the UBS Luxembourg as a counterparty in compliance with the updated treasury statute, it provides its services through UBS Luxembourg, so we had to open an account there in order to be able to work with that party. 

And at the October meeting, we approved an initial investment of 10 million euros with the investment partner.  So, that's how we are trying to save your assets, how we try to, you know, increase the value of our portfolio. 

Then, we very intensively, of course, discussed the situation that happened during the last General Meeting.  You approved that fees remain on the same level, which, of course, is something we need to react.  For the year 2024 there is a projected income of 30 million euros, the budget of this year was €40 million, so it's already 5% decrease and please keep in mind we are living in inflation times, you know, so it's even with the 5% inflation, it's actually a little bit even more. 

So, we felt that we shouldn't stop any activities.  So ‑‑ because I think that must be discussed with members, and that is something that we wanted to avoid for this time.  So, we suggested aiming for a break‑even budget, and that includes the revenue at risk and that's why we know we asked management of RIPE NCC to find some savings in the budget.  And I think it was already kind of presented in Hans Petter's presentation, and also you will see how the activity plan and budget looks like. 

Just a reminder slide that was also used by Hans Petter.  This was the budget for 2023.  This is the budget for 2024.  Just one number to make it simple, and you can see where we tried to find the savings.  So, I hope that answers the voting at the last General Meeting. 

We also approved a few governance documents.  First of all, it was the RIPE Database terms and conditions, I think the issue was that there was a consensus at the RIPE Database Working Group to include geolocation data into the database, so we had to amend this terms and conditions. 

Also, there was RIPE NCC closure of members, the deregistration of the Internet Resources and Legacy Internet resource procedure.  It was written that the RIPE NCC has to send a notice of termination by registered mail which is not easy and not done in practice, so we removed that thing. 

Also, RIPE NCC website and publicly available RIPE NCC Services terms of service.  This was an enhancement to comply with the so‑called cookie law, or, you know, ePrivacy Act, digital service act and also the RIPE Code of Conduct. 

And last thing was the RIPE NCC privacy statement.  Again, it was about the geolocation stuff.  And almost in all documents, so, I didn't mention that, we changed from he/she to they, so we did some polishing of the text to sound gender‑neutral. 

We also made a few resolutions.  We resolved to remove the suspension of imposed on 21 April, and we allow the submission of new application for the IPv4 waiting list.  We imposed that ‑‑ we made the suspension to prevent some behaviour of ‑‑ or speculative behaviour before the voting at the General Meeting, so since the voting was done, it was not necessary. 

We resolved to extend the resolution to basically for voluntary resource log because we are waiting for the policy which I think was the ‑‑ the consensus was reached already and we are now in the phase of implementation of that resource logs, I guess this will not be needed any more. 

Then we resolved to remove the temporary moderation of the members discuss list.  I am happy it's not moderated any more and I really hope that it will stay as it is now. 

We also resolved to continue to provide funds for the physical participation of the Working Group Chairs at RIPE meetings in accordance with the relevant published procedure until the end of 2026.  So, that's basically no change, but, you know, this resolution is time limited so if you want to continue, we need to resolve it again. 

And we closed two services, one is the IPv4 transfer broker list, and the IPv4 transfer listing service.  So I think that is also discussed in the mailing list. 

Then, we also approved the proposed amendments of the RIPE NCC articles.  I think one of the biggest change there is that we would like to avoid the kind of two people acting in concert.  There is a much much more complicated legal language behind it, so Athena will explain that change.  So that's basically the main change of this modification of the Articles. 

And also, we approved the publication of the Draft Activity Plan and Budget, which will be discussed today. 

We also had one, really pleasant business, that was the appointment of Herve Clement to the Number Resource Organisation Numbers Council.  He was chairing this group and I had the privilege to see some of the meetings he chaired and I think he made an excellent job.  So we are happily reappointing him again.  So please help me thanking him for this job. 

(Applause)

.

And we discussed other important topics.  I already mentioned ‑‑ I haven't mentioned, but it was mentioned many times ‑‑ the NCC survey.  You can see the presentation during NCC Working Group.  Then the PESTLE analysis, which I forget what that means, I think it's political, economical, social, technological, legal, and environmental analysis, that was performed by the staff, I think, in June this year.  We also discussed the setup of the Dubai office, the legal entity in Dubai that could help us to employ the people there because there are some issues with that. 

Then, we discussed the situation of AFRINIC.  I don't know how much you are familiar with that, but in very short, AFRINIC has, these days, no Board, you know, and there is no way how to call for the General Meeting to elect a new Board.  So, the Mauritius court appointed an official receiver, but unfortunately this was appealed after a few days there is an interim order to appoint the receiver was discharged.  So currently we are waiting for the Mauritius court and we will see what happens.  This is a very delicate situation for us of course because we are five RIRs, and kind of unsuccess of one of us could influence the others, so we are really watching that carefully. 

Then also, we discussed RIPE Atlas and RIS historical data.  It was agreed that there will be some tiered storage model because, you know, the cost of storing the data is quite high.  So the historical data will be kept but will be stored in a kind of storage with slower access.  So it will be available for some, you know, research and study, but it will be a little bit slower to retrieve that data. 

And then we met the RIPE NCC Works Council, which, you know, we do regularly. 

And of course, as usual, we are very closely working with Hans Petter to ensure the good information sharing and high level engagement. 

We are guiding RIPE NCC management, which like we did, for example, with the budget. 

And we are fulfilling corporate governance and fiduciary responsibilities. 

We are really happy to get feedback, so we encourage you. 

There are two important documents, and there is, of course, a lot of other activities, so something you should definitely look at is the charging scheme and activity plan and budget ‑‑ I believe you did.  But also, of course, there is a lot of other things you can provide feedback for us, and many of you do.  So, thank you for that.  But some you are shy, so I just want to encourage anybody not to be. 

We also ask input on some specific services. 

How you can do that:   You can catch us in the corridor and speak with us informally.  Also, there is a members list which we use.  You can e‑mail us directly.  And we also attend the open house sessions, and also there is usually the Monday, which is the meet the Board and the RIPE Chair session.  I really tried hard to encourage somebody to approach us and talk about the RIPE NCC.  I even said that if I will be approached by some new face, that would make my life happy.  And I was full of hope, a new face came to me and said I was really looking forward to get some feedback, but unfortunately he didn't want to talk about the RIPE NCC at all.  So my life stays miserable.  But again please use this opportunity on Mondays to approach us.  That's a good informal environment to talk.  But of course they can approach us and thank you for the feedback you provide. 

And of course, last but not least, is you can speak now at the General Meeting. 

So, that is all from my side.  If you have any questions/comments, please use the mic. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Jan Zorz, speaking for myself. 

I have actually two questions. 

First one is you mentioned that you are providing funds for the Working Group Chairs for the physical attendance.  I would like to ask you that you also take RIPE Programme Committee into consideration because there may be people on the Programme Committee that may need funds to come here.  We are taking care of the big portion of the programme and I think there should be some possibility also for us. 

And the second question is ‑‑

ONDREJ FILIP:  We will consider that. 

JAN ZORZ:  The second question is:  Last time we voted for the budget that we thought it would be the same, but it's not.  You mentioned the inflation, and the rest of the world is adjusting their prices according to inflation automatically.  Can we find a way that we adjust the membership fees with inflation without even making a lot of noise around it and then big discussions and fire?  Thank you. 

ONDREJ FILIP:  Thank you for that input.  Of course that would need, you know, absolutely automatic change is not possible because by‑laws, it's written that the members vote, but we will consider at least to make it somehow automated, for example.  Thank you for that input. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Andre Philippe.  Thank you for your presentation.  I have a question about your Dubai office.  As a Dubai citizen, I wonder how will it help, do you have any calculation how will it help to save money or what is the purpose of this?  Because it's a very expensive and like it's not suitable maybe in some cases to have an entity in the UAE. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  So we did not open the Dubai office to save money.  The cost of living in Oslo, Amsterdam and Dubai is roughly the same.  So that's not a big driver.  Neither of these cities are cheap.  The reason we opened an office in Dubai, that was more than ten years, was to get closer to the community in that area.  So to be closer to members, to be closer to decision makers in the Middle East was a really important thing because at the time the region was considering splitting up from the RIPE NCC and opening a separate Internet registry.  So if we centralise everything in Amsterdam and say that everybody needs to come to Amsterdam to visit us or we have to fly out all the time, then it's going to be difficult to interact with the community.  We have staff in Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, Portugal, UK, and we have a huge service region, 70 plus countries.  So, could we choose a cheaper country?  For sure.  But that was not the criteria.  It was to be a place where we meet people and to be closer to decision‑makers and our members in the region. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Sander Steffann.  As you know over the last couple of years, I have been quite critical of the Board and about a lot of stuff.  But I wanted to thank you for all the hard work you did over the last couple of years, like things seem to be improving.  So, of course, I have lots of more things to complain about, don't worry.  But yeah, thank you. 

Like I said to Hans Petter when I saw the cuts in the budget, just noticing that the CEO's office actually was taking a good cut for themselves, really made me happy.  Like I was okay, this is not just the people on the floor who get punished, it's actually also higher layers that look at themselves and I really appreciated that.  So thank you. 

ONDREJ FILIP:  I really didn't expect any thank yous today, so...

So now my miserable life is a little bit better.  Thank you so much. 

Any other question or comment?  Especially those positive ones.  I don't see any, so in that case I pass the floor to Hans Petter. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thank you Ondrej.  So activity plan and budget 2004.  How many did not attend the Services Working Group session?  A few.  So I'll repeat some stuff then. 

Key takeaways.  At the last meeting I said we want your input.  We have spent a lot of time listening to the mailing list.  We knew this year that we would have less income and increased costs.  We see that in 2023, we had 38 million income and you voted, two thirds of you, against increasing the membership fees.  I think we tried to make it very clear that not increasing the membership fees meant lower income, but I will repeat that later on today as well. 

The bottom line here that we now have a budget for next year of €38 million, and a balanced budget. 

So what's in front of you now is a Draft Activity Plan and Budget.  This is going to be approved by the Executive Board, that's their duty, they are responsibility.  But we need your input. 

We had an open house discussion in November and there has been e‑mails exchanged on the mailing list which we will take into account before we make a final update before the Board approval. 

Ondrej already mentioned the Board direction that was given here, so I will not spend more time on this one.  I mentioned in the Services Working Group, the four focus points that we picked out of the five‑year strategy on the central of excellence for data tools and measurements, basically turning the data we have into more insight as a focus area. 

Ensure organisation stability and financial strength.  We need to be funded for what we do going forward. 

The political situation is still not resolved.  We have come a long way, as I talked about in my previous presentation, but we still need to focus on that next year. 

And the security is increasingly important for all of us. 

Costs.  Ondrej already pointed at this one as well.  If you try to sum this up, you will see this amounts to more than €2 million.  This is because we have incorporated in the budget inflation correction for staff salaries and other inflation.  So in reality, we have had to kind of cut 10% in order to allow for 5% inflation for the rest. 

So, yes, the world is changing, and to some extent, you know, it's been a good exercise to say that, you know, that there isn't an unlimited amount of money you need to be careful and look at the ‑‑ at what you are spending.  Some of our colleagues actually appreciated that and we have got quite some creativity out of that. 

On the other hand, I made it very clear to the Board back in June when we discussed this, we can do this now as a one‑off now, but we can't continue to do this 5% down every year for the next three, four, five years; I mean, that will not be possible without cutting services, which is a much bigger decision. 

We have done quite a lot to try to visualise the budget in the presentations, and I also point you here to the income side; it's mainly from membership fees.  There is some income here, a couple of million from new members' sign‑up fees and new membership fees, which is basically, you know, new members signing up or new LIRs getting onto the waiting list to get bits and pieces from free address that's been returned. 

The sponsorships and RIPE meeting fees are really low.  Each ticket for you guys here costs us €1,000 to produce, but we give you 60, 70% discount, you only pay 300 and something euros for that ticket.  So that's an incredible increase in costs for doing these meetings post‑Covid and the years before.  And that's something that we are, you know, challenging in different areas here. 

Sponsorships is in here. It's not a significant area but it's food for thought for '25 and beyond:   Should we focus more on other income streams or should we go back to the discussion of categorising the different, or creating different categories and having members participating different fees? 

.

There was a comment made to me just after the Services Working Group that did really the members complain about €1,550 and think that's expensive?  They spend more money coming to one RIPE meeting when you take travel and staying in a hotel and all that into account.  So, you know, the membership fee is really not prohibitive here.  But that's a discussion we are going to have to have in May. 

Looking at the budget for last year, it was €35 million, and we had a 15% increase in the planned budget to 40 million, while we had an inflation last year of 10%.  So yes there was more expansion in the budget than the inflation.  At the same time we saw the decline of 4% of the membership fee and that increased the cost per LIR by 20%.  Which is dramatic, I understand that. 

Now, looking at the forecast, the numbers the week before this meeting, we see that we have pulled the brakes, we are going to spend around €38 million this year, so it's only a 9% increase while we had 10% inflation last year, so we are more in line with that, and that only gives an increase of 16% in the cost per member. 

Looking at next year's budget.  We see a continued decline in LIRs, another 9% is our forecast.  But the cost, if I go back to 2022 and compare with 2024, is a 9% because we're not changing the budget from what we're actually spending this year and next year but over those two years we are expecting inflation as we saw 10% last year and 5% this year.  We have a 15% stretch there. 

Cost per LIR is up 19%. 

Activity plan and budget.  We have cut in all areas basically, or not quite all areas.  You will see that revenue reduced the registry, mostly on the software licences side.  We have a cut in information services external engagement and community, and in organisational sustainability, which you know is the classical overhead in the organisation. 

So, the registry, James talked about that earlier, so I won't repeat this, but to some extent it's business as usual.  We are doing very well, we are delivering a very high‑service level.  But, of course, there is room for improvement of processes and become more efficient and to automate more.  So that is going to be the focus for next year. 

Cost savings there. You can see there are small adjustments in registration services, in member services and registry monitoring, not the big changes, but the biggest changes is really on the software side, LIR portal, RPKI and RIPE Database. 

Information services:   Turning the data into insight is one of our focus areas, and we will put significant effort into cost savings on the back‑end on the data storage part there.  As I talked about in my services presentation extensively. 

Looking here there is no change in the DNS and K‑root purchase.  That's pretty lean and mean I think, we compared a bit informally with other route server operators and they said yeah, it costs us plus, minus a million for those that wants to reveal that.  So if you add our 20, 25% overhead in finance, administration and so on, it's plus/minus a million to operate the K‑root. 

RIPE Atlas is a minor reduction.  RIPEstat is a minor reduction.  RIS is a bit more significant.  And then IT support is growing. 

Basically a lot of things and changes that we have done over the last couple of years is committing us into contracts that will take longer time to turn around.  So the main focus in the technology area has been on those licence agreements that can easily be changed and we can squeeze down the number of licences for third‑party software, while on the core IT side, it's going to take longer to do this. 

Community and engagement.  And this is, as you know I have grown up in this community, I have been RIPE Chair.  This is probably the area where it kind of hurt me most to do the cuts.  We need together to nurture the Internet in our region and to do that we need to meet.  Why do we travel?  Why don't we just keep everything in Amsterdam and then meet there?  Well, because it's difficult for you, and especially those of you who aren't here, the members that couldn't travel because we need to travel to ‑‑ throughout our service region, more than 70 countries, and have meetings here. 

So we will continue the RIPE meetings and we will continue MENOG, SCE but we have had to sacrifice things due to budget cuts.  We could add in a couple of more hundred thousand euros here to keep that local engagement up, but that's the sort of trade‑off that we made here. 

We have then lowering the barriers for remote participation.  We are trying local hubs.  That's the first time here.  We have the RIPE NCC forum.  We are doing open houses and webinars, new websites, labs and so on.  It's not like if we compare with ten years ago that we don't do outreach to all parts.  But we have shifted more to online, to virtual thing that what we did, you know, back in the very early days. 

Lowering language barriers to translations. That's going to have a continuous focus.  We have a translation WIKI and we do simultaneous translations at the regional events.  So, the one we had in Uzbekistan, for instance, we had quite a few people from, members from Iran participating there and we had translation to as far as see at that event.  So, you know, it is actually possible to extend the community to all corners of our service region. 

Research now in this area and will enable to us provide for data insights to policymakers and to decision makers in the community.  So, they of course have to work closely with technology, but getting closer to you, to the community is a good I think this, we believe. 

So, community building is increasing slightly.  And one of the drivers for that is the cost of doing these meetings is really increasing.  So, you know, this costs us more than 700,000 to produce while we get 120, 150,000 in income from the ticket fee.  So it's a huge disproportionate thing there.  So, whenever you come to me and say, but Hans Petter can't you just put in more shuttles or do more, I would say I'd love, to but where do I take the money from?  We could try to get more sponsorships, but looking around us, looking at other organisations, there are a lot of NOGs struggling now because they don't get sponsorships.  It's eyesier for us to get sponsors in the Middle East or central Asia than it is in north western Europe because you, our members, are more careful about where you are spending your marketing money.  This is not only affecting the RIPE NCC but also other NOGs and other events we see. 

Membership engagement.  A bit down.  Training and travel and development, a bit down, curriculum development also, and then also public policy and Internet governance.  So basically we are cutting in all the areas in this area. 

Organisation a.m. sustainability.  Security and compliance is still going to have a strong focus.  We don't really have a choice here.  And we do have work also with the open structure, Dubai was already asked her, we are a work in progress of setting up a separate legal entity there, a fully owned company which gives us some legal advantages by distancing ourselves a bit from the Amsterdam.  It will be fully controlled by the RIPE NCC, but it will be not a Dutch entity with an office in Dubai.  It will be a fully Dubai entity. 

The cuts here is a bit in facilities.  Some in HR.  Some in legal.  Finance is increasing a bit because it gets, it is expensive to collect money and we seeing an increase in the bad debt and so on because we are not able to collect all the money.  Information security risk and compliance is by design set‑up the same.  And as Sander pointed out the office the Managing Director, which is you know not only my salary and my spendings, I don't get quite that much, but it's also the Board travel, it's actually also the ASO AC travel, so Sander we will cut a bit of your benefits as well, and there are some like the community project funds decided by the Board is in there and the contributions to ICANN and IETF and so on is also in there.  So it's kind of like a the bit bucket.  I had some reserves this year for the restructuring and setting up the Dubai office.  All of that is is taken out. 

And then the RIPE Chair is also quite the same and I think that's roughly sufficient after talking to Mirjam about that. 

So that's a sort of very high‑level overview of how we have been thinking about that. 

And that slide was actually from last year.  So I skipped that with the summary and then I'm taking questions.  So Erik. 

ERIK BAIS:  Thank you for the information.  We already exchanged some e‑mails and thank you for your answer on that. 

I do have a couple of remarks and questions. 

First of all, for the charging scheme, and this is more a suggestion, perhaps for the next versions that will come up, at least do as the bare minimum, an option with inflation as the bare minimum, and not keep it as is.  Which also brings me to the one for ‑‑ and this is something that we regularly, or we tend to not discuss here.  But I actually wonder about how are the NCC employees compensated and is inflation regardless of performance at least compensated?  And if not, can we actually agree on that, that should be the bare minimum? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  I can answer that last part.  We did extensive benchmarking of all the job descriptions, and then used a professional third party to benchmark all the job descriptions in the RIPE NCC last year.  And we decided on a pay policy where we would pay the meet of our bands would be market medium plus 10% which brings up in the 75% percentile.  And gives us the ability to pay up in the 90s percentile.  In addition to that we add the specialist level and principal level so we are able to keep people in senior technical positions without making them monitors in order to pay them a lot.  And I think that was one important thing. 

As for the inflation correction, the current pay policy, or remuneration policy, it's under discussion with the Works Council now, and the way it has been structured is that it has a performance component and the market correction component.  So that at least, you know, if you do well in the year of the 10% inflation, we made sure that if you did a good performance you got that compensated, so that we would keep that. 

We have now done a rebenchmarking and we are seeing that the bands are, you know, slightly ahead of the market, so we have not sort of lagged behind in the first year, which is a good thing.  But we still have to then figure out what exactly do we do next year.  And the current system isn't really designed for really low inflation, we may in a couple of years see 2% or negative inflation, and the current system then is missing that.  So that's why we are discussing this with the Works Council now. 

But to me to keep a consistent pay policy and be able to make sure that staff get, you know, a development consistent with the market is really important for the RIPE NCC, especially when we have to do launches. 

In the budget for next year we have budgeted with the 5%, not that that is a promise to staff or something, but we have that room in the budget.  We have savings in other areas that are, you know, in the area of 10%, in order to be able to grow there.  But that's also room where we can, where we have some further savings if the inflation in the Netherlands stays close to zero as it was last month. 

ERIK BAIS:  I understand the answer, and I'm not asking you to change your salary structure, but I do like to stress that compensation for inflation regardless of performance should be the bare minimum.  Because otherwise, you are basically cutting salary.  In the end, people will have less money to spend because the groceries will go up and the rest will go up. 

Now obviously last year, this was, you know, 10%, which was quite a lot, and I just want to make sure that we do not forget the employees and make sure that they they be the bare minimum as a good employer.  So...

(Applause)

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  I think we are fully aligned on that and I know that the Works Council is sitting here and taking notes and are going to use your words against me, and in the meeting with the Board that we have in two weeks' time, so thank you so much for that Erik, really appreciate it. 

ERIK BAIS:  And the suggestion that I want to restate for the charging scheme, just skip the keep‑it‑as‑is and take at least the inflation, because, you know, last year, even though, you know, we voted for 10% increase, you know, we got outvoted by "let's keep it" or ‑‑ you know, if you had the option, cut costs even more than that, You know, people would have voted for that.  So be ‑‑ learn from this, we have had a year now where we needed to cut costs.  You have done a good job on that.  And, you know, looking at it, and looking where to improve, but, you know, as you said, we cannot keep this up.  So, we need to change the system because we know how psychology works, people will think and vote with their wallet. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thanks very much for that. 

ONDREJ FILIP:  Just one remark, thank you for that suggestion Erik, and there's one thing, the majority of the budget are salaries, so, inflation might not be the best number every year because, you know, there are different numbers, inflation and the average salary increase in the Netherlands.  So sometimes they are different.  So maybe ‑‑ I take the inflation but maybe it was more aligned towards the growth in the country or something like that. But thank you thank you for that input. 

BRIAN NISBET:  I want to echo what Daniel said in NCC Services in relation to some of the cuts in relation especially to the outreach part of the budget.  I think it is, from my point of view, one of the core activities, sure there is a registry.  But one of the core activities and I am particularly, as I was thinking about it when Daniel was talking about this, the world is in flux in lots of different places.  We can talk about recent election results and all sorts of things, and I think that piece, especially around government outreach and that public piece, is so hugely important insofar as, you know, I would be very worried if, because of those cuts something, something happened that could have been avoided, or even that we just never notice, we're not in a room where something happens, something bad happens that makes the world a better place and because of those cuts the NCC or ASO people or whatever else weren't in the room.  I think it's a really important consideration.  And would I stress, as Daniel said, it's an easy thing to cut because it's not a server price or something like that but I really think it's hugely important that this does not become a trend.  Thank you. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thanks for that. Much appreciated. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Sander Steffann.  No criticism.  Just re‑stating what Randy said on Monday.  It's fine to cut on the fancy, if that means less business class flights, then totally fine.  But the focus on outreach community, stuff like that, like Brian said, that's really important.  I heard that the contributions that the NCC makes to NOGs have shrunk a bit.  That pains me.  You think that ‑‑ as an old school bottom‑up person, I think that's an important bit.  So, I would prefer to refocus a bit from the less fancy more bottom‑up stuff.  Rough guideline, nothing in particular. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thanks for that.  We are trying to avoid fancy and I'm trying to introduce the concept of the Dutch frugality in the organisation.  Although, if you ask me to travel very far and have a two‑hour meeting and travel back again, then maybe it's better that I sleep on the plane and I am sort of stuck somewhere a couple of days later.  And I see that Sander is now asking for a business class ‑‑ no ‑‑.  Thanks for that.

When you look at the budget which is 60, 70% driven by staff cost, as Erik said we need to keep up with the inflation there, then you understand we have to cut in the rest and yes, we can get cheaper and faster servers, but it also means that when the RIPE meeting increases by not inflation but by much more than inflation since pre‑Covid it's really going to be difficult with the same budget to stretch that. 

So we haven't given up, but I think a community discussion also on what kind of RIPE meetings you want.  What kind of events you want is also a valuable thing.  So looking forward to those. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Gert Döring, we are engineers and we tend to micromanage, so I'm going with what Jan said about take the inflation into account for the next charging scheme as a minimum level, and do not forget to take the reduction into account.  Just going with inflation and if we have really shrunk the number of LIRs it will not really help anyone anything.  Sorry for micromanaging. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thank you for that. And that was really, you know, what we tried and failed to get through last time was to say that, you know, my original proposal was that right, two votes, they both give the same budget, 42 million, and one is a flat fee, the other one is a category fee and then we had a long discussion with the members and we listened to input and we provided five options, right.  So maybe the lesson learned is we shouldn't listen quite so much to all the individual ones but we need to do some high‑level planning and engineering before we present it. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Alexander Minchev, I will try to be short.  I do some calculation in my mind and it looks like in two years more than 50% will have only one class work because the old members are transferring resources to each other and the waiting list is full of new members that will have only one network.  Am I correct? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  So, I know we did an analysis on the waiting list and that's published in a Labs article but I can't answer offhand on exactly how that is.  But it is correct that if you are a newcomer to the market today, a new member, there isn't more address space to be had unless you go out and buy it on the market.  So, yeah...

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Okay.  So I'm wondering with membership fee that is close to a year's minimum salary in countries like Azerbaijan and Romania, and here in ARIN with 250 yearly fee for small members, maybe we should consider category structure again because it would become an issue, more of an issue, with time. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thank you so much for that.  I fully agree with you that we should have a category scheme, but two thirds of you voted against category schemes, right.  So, it's not only that you voted two thirds voted for ‑‑ the biggest vote came from the majority, but you know there was a clear signal not categories, so I am personally reluctant to take that back to the membership again.  But of course talk to the Board and tell them what you would like them to present as the options at the next meeting.  But I don't want to be the one that comes back with my idea year after year and get voted down.  So before May is the time to speak up and share what charging scheme do you want to see for the future.  But I fully understand that, yeah, it feels unfair that the smaller ones pay the same as the bigger ones.  But two thirds said that.  So

KURT LINDQVIST:   So, an I am a little bit concerned about the discussion that just happened.  Let me explain why.  So we come into crisis mode is very simple, especially membership organisations want to throw in their suggestions of what to do.  That goes back to the roll engineers, we're not all engineers, but many of us are.  And I think this is a little bit concerning to me because the impression that we as members will tell the Board or Hans Petter what we think the salary policy should be is quite worrying and, made this for a very good reason, whether I agree or disagree with this point would remind me of something else.  We as members realise we have delegated the running of the company to the Board.  That's what we have done.  It's a very fundamental governance principle that. Means that we have given some of our rights away.  It doesn't mean that we can't take them back or overrule them.  We have to accept that they have more data than we do. And I think I'd be very careful that we make blanket statements, I take Eric's point about the inflation, we have no idea what the performance structure is, the reward structures, even the salary benchmarking that happens in the NCC and that's not for us to do or care about.  That's for the Board to tell Hans Petter what to do with, that's how the governance structure and any good governance structure works like.  I think we have to be very careful with our role here.  I know we're in crisis mode.  We go back 20 years when we had the last crisis, we all jumped in and those ‑‑ we had much more heated discussions then than we do now.  It's actually quite civilized compared to 20 years ago.  I do think we need to be very conscious of our role in this as members is to set the parameters for the Board, not to tell them how to solve this.  Right. 

ONDREJ FILIP:  I think the Board is an aware of it and that's why I comment incremented the inflation thing because the biggest problem is the salary growth.  We had a proposal with categories, it failed to proposing in again and again, it's complicated.  We need to get back and do the homework and try to do a proposal which will be at the end voted by you the members.  So that's why we are trying to listen for any suggestions from the members we would like to get the temperature of the room, maybe next year there will be a better mood to agree on categories, maybe not.  So that's the work we are doing.  So it's not like we are expecting the members to tell us what to do regarding the finance part of the organisation, but of course we have to be aligned with the membership. 

ERIK BAIS:  I want to provide one additional point point today during the Address Policy Working Group, it was stated by Mr. Randy Bush, and I quote:  "I am a vampire.  I need new blood."  And I am paraphrasing here.  And in that, thinking about that statement later, we do need the younger generation getting more involved in the RIPE community. 

So, how to structure that.  But also in considering fellowships, the costs for the RIPE meeting, this ‑‑ coming to the RIPE meeting becomes a privileged situation where either your employer or yourself need to come up with, you know, serious investment to stay for a week, travel, cost for the actual meeting itself, if you don't have the vouchers any more, and for the majority of us that have old LIRs, they don't.  But how to keep engaging with the younger generation and getting them involved in a community is something I would not like to lose sight of.  And I would like to see, you know, how can we improve on that specifically also on outreach and also getting them more on the RIPE meetings itself.  I don't have a solution for it directly, I don't expect one, but on the costs for the RIPE meeting, I would love to see some creativity on how to structure this because otherwise we'll lose a complete generation here because it becomes too costly and we're losing out their input. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thanks for that, Erik.  And catering for the next generation and making sure that there is somebody here to take over is important to me as well.  So that's clearly on my mind.  Both for succession within the RIPE NCC, we are getting older, but we also recruit younger people so hopefully we are in a good position there, but I think also for the community, and I am discussing this with Mirjiam from time to time also how to do that.  So, thanks for that. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   James Rice.  I just want to challenge one the assumptions made regarding the vote against categories last year.  I voted against categories because I voted against the specific categories that were presented to me, not because I am against having categories or even having a flat per /24 charge.  In my case, I would have been quite penalised for having a /19 even though I was allocated a /19 back when a /19 was a minimum allocation size.  The point of reflection for when things start getting more expensive was smaller than a /19.  If we have a different point of inflexion, then it would have been a lot more palatable. 

As examples, if you take the RIPE's delegated list and look at the number of /24s that are delegated against the budget of 38 million, that's 11.63 euros per /24 per year.  So, if you had a ‑‑ you simply pay per IP address, then it can be very, very cheap and very expensive on national telcos, so it's I think just a case of finding what's a palatable point of inflation. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  So we had extensive discussion on that leading up to the last year, and we had several open houses and discussions on the mailing list and we did a lot of simulations.  A wise man told me earlier this week that Hans Petter the problem with categories is that people gets categorised and they find themselves in the wrong category.  And I think, you know, nobody was happy with the categories.  The problems with the modifications that were made after community consultation was that it tried to cater for putting people more in the categories that they, the vocal ones, wanted to put, and you know you are now arguing your case here.  What it did to my funding was that it put more people in the categories that paid less. 

What we presented in the end was a category scheme that everybody would pay more than the other RIRs while the one I proposed in the beginning was that everybody would pay less than the other RIRs.  So the side effects of optimising were not optimal.  And since then some of the RIRs have changed this.  You could look at the APNIC charging scheme which is a very fancy formula that needs some thinking but there is a so‑called bit factor in there, if you set that factor to one, you get a linear equation and if you set it to two you get a flat fee or vice versa, I can't remember exactly.  And then they are now changing that but basically you get a volume discount.  I also made a sort of a linear model and looked at what the big €56, telcos in Europe would pay if we did it completely linear, and then that would be more than a million euro each of them for membership fee.  And I think, you know,  going from 1,500 to a million euro, that would be a bit dramatic.  So that may require some careful thinking there.  But yeah, so I understand that people voted against this for various reasons, but I'm kind of just, you know, challenging you guys that if you think that there should be categories schemes presented again for a new vote, that will not come from me.  That needs to come from you or the Board, right.  I will not coming running back to you and say I want it my way here.  I was accused of coming back and again and again last year while it was the first time I proposed it. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Is there any fundamental reason why linear wouldn't be necessarily legal or anything like that?  Is it actually an option? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Well... do you think we will get the top seven telcos in Europe to pay us a million each by this?  And it doesn't matter if it gets legal or not.  It matters if we will have to spend, you know, a year, year‑and‑a‑half in the courts arguing that and if we win it in the end, you paralyse me and the organisation doing those legal battles for one‑and‑a‑half years and lots of bad press and monopolies misusing their powers, so on and so forth.  I don't think it's a binary answer to that. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Dmitry, LIR from Ukraine.  I was looking at your previous slides and you mention that salaries are the highest expense rate.  So to me as an 80:20 rule, it's simple, right, you have to cut salary budget by having less people do the same work, having people being paid less or we all know the ways right.  But there was one more point when you mentioned the salaries was inflation.  I just looked at Europa, EU and for Netherlands, I know not all expenses in Netherlands are created still, the inflation projection for the 23 year‑on‑year is 4.6%, in 24, it's 3.7% and 25 it's 3.0.  Nobody knows the future of course, but I'm just thinking we mentioned 15%, so thought you were referring to the past years inflation.  I thought you were referring to ‑‑ okay. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  I was referring to 15% over two years.  So 10% one year and 5% the next year, that's 15 together.  And I have at least four or five different statistical sources of inflation in the Netherlands.  Last month, October, over last year, was zero.  But that's because they changed the way they calculate it.  So if you take out the energy compensation, it's 4.5 or 5.4 or something in that range.  So, this year it's going to end up, you know, in that range, I guess. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Here is a question I guess.  So we do have to account for the inflation of course because people don't want to be underpaid but in the end, if everybody is, you know, paid inflation adjusted then you know you run into the wall of costs competing the benefits.  What's the strategy staff‑wise in a drastic case? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  So my strategy for next year is I have a budget to be able to give an inflation correction, or a salary correction in range with the salaries.  I will not negotiate the individual ones here.  There is a performance factor in that, and, you know, if you do good performance, you may get more than inflation.  If you don't do it so good, you may get less.  This is what the current policy says. 

And then the Works Council is the one that I will discuss that policy with, not you guys.  Sorry about that. But the Works Council is giving me a hard time on those discussions.  So I'm sure, you know, speak up for staff there. 

I have not in this budget suggested reducing the number of staff.  Of course that is a possibility, but if I say that on stage, I will have a riot at home once I do that, right.  So, if I come back now and said that, you know, next year we have to cut number of staff by 5% in order to be able to give the rest of you a 5% increase, the Works Council would have said to me, why didn't you discuss this first, Hans Petter, because we have a right to advise on those kinds of discussion decisions.  So I will discuss that with them first before I propose things like that. 

So, you know, what we put on the table now is a budget.  That's a rough plan for next year.  We can do better.  We can do different within the frame of the budget.  It's not that we have decided everything we do next year.  If we find smarter things to done on the IT side, of course we will do that.  It's not that we want to spend money.  What's on the table now I think we can deliver on it. It's not my budget, it's the exec team's budget.  It's all the managers' budget.  It's built top‑down and bottom‑up so we believe in this. I know that this we can deliver on and we can probably also do better.  But with the world as it is now, there is, you know, new disruptions from the side.  There is a lot of uncertainty so we need to be aware of that. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I wish you good luck.  Thank you. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  I see there is a remote question. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I have got two here.  First one Ondrej us a Greg Mueller.  If the topic of the charging scheme should get on the floor again, would it be possible to have one vote categories yes or no, and another vote which concrete category scheme? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Maybe. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I have got one from Daniel Ziedler from Deloitte.  It says we should probably not think about categories but about goods we use and the maintenance we pay for. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thank you for that. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I have got one more as well.  Sebastian Brossier from himself.  I'm very much in favour of having an APNIC‑like charging scheme option at the next meeting. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thanks for that. One cool thing, I was at the latest APNIC meeting and the Board's proposals there, and this is just to set the expectation to my Board here, got in the range of 90% support from their members, right.  So the APNIC Board did a tremendous job.  But then, the APNIC Board gets to decide the charging scheme.  The ARIN Board, the LACNIC Board.  We are the only one that have the charging scheme at the power of the members, because we are a membership organisation, we are driven by strong democratic traditions that it's up to the membership.  So we give you, the members, a lot of power.  Sander? 

SANDER STEFFANN:  I just want to make a comment.  I was thinking about what Kurtis said before about us choosing the Board and delegating responsibility and I totally agree with that.  I also think we should, like Ondrej said, give the Board at least our opinion so they can be taken into account.  But there was one thing that triggered me, and that was like about the salaries and stuff like that.  We shouldn't care about those.  And that bit I was like no, that's not true.  We are a membership organisation, we are not a company.  The staff is a very important part of our community.  They are basically working full‑time for this community, and ‑‑ so, yeah, as a member, I do care about those.  So, thank you for the raises and the rebalancing of all the salaries, because I think the staff really deserves it.  Thank you. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thanks very much for that.  And of course you should care for the staff. 

(Applause)

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  Thank you. 

ONDREJ FILIP:  Next on the agenda is financial update. 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK: Hello everybody.  I am the CFO of the RIPE NCC.  I am Dutch and some call me Chief Frugal Officer after the 2024 budget process. 

This is my sixth presentation at the GM and the third one in real life, so good to be here again.  I have a bit of a long story, so let's just get into it. 

A recap of our financial strategy.  We have not‑for‑profit funding model and our funding strategy aims to generate sufficient income so we can fulfil our obligations in a stable and predictable manner while we maintain a low‑risk profile. 

The key messages for this presentation. 

2023, income and costs forecasted to be under budget with a surplus of €110,000 before taxes. 

For 2024, three main concerns:   Membership fee at risk, reducing income and inflation. 

2025‑2027, something will need to change in relation to our long term financial stability. 

The financial update:   

Our financial performance.  I can no longer report that all performance indicators are in green.  Income is 4% under budget and marked in red. 

Costs are under with 8% and we have more LIR accounts than we budgeted. 

We remain in a stable position financially but we need to look at how to handle the reduction in LIR accounts and with that an are deduction in income for the future.

The financial story so far.  Our income is €38.9 million, 4% under budget.  We have a net decrease of 700 LIR accounts year to date.  But we can still report a slight net increase of 24 members.  Expenditures have been 8% under budget at 30.1 million.  And we have 183.3 FTEs employed at the end of October with an average for the year of 180.2.  Resulting in a surplus of 1.8 million year to date.  And as I said we do have three concerns. 

The balance sheet:   

We continue to have a healthy balance sheet which is a great thing looking at the world of today. 

The financial fixed assets continue to show a small decline which is explained by a government bond reaching end of term and a slight decrease in the portfolio values since the start of the year.  Total current receivability has increased significantly.  This is due to us recording €1.3 million to be received 2023 membership fees for ultra high risk countries.  This amount has also been recorded under the current liabilities as we cannot record this income in a profit and loss due to the high level of uncertainty regarding this income. 

An increase in cash explained by the government bond reaching end of term and the increase in LIR fees for 2023 and no redistribution over 2022.

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Capital and liabilities:   Steady clearing house reserve over the years.  The current surplus of 1.8 million, which is high, but we have an expensive month of November, the RIPE meeting, and December still to come. 

€332,000 to be redistributed, which is mainly for the ultra high risk countries. 

Other current liabilities include two months of unearned revenue, November and December, which is higher than the 2022 due to the increase in the LIR fee. 

And this includes a 2.4 million postponed income from the ultra‑risk countries.  This is for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023. 

All in all happy to report healthy balance sheet yet again. 

Moving on to our income. 

The income details.  A total of €31.9 million.  30.7 million in membership fees and this compares with 29.2 until in 2022.  Sign‑up fees at are €700,000 compared to €1.4 million in 2022.  So, yeah, less, considerably less new LIRs than we expected. 

RIPE meeting income and other income is also slightly below budget.

New LIR accounts and closures, we do see continued interest in the membership of the RIPE NCC as shown by the inflow of new LIRs.  But this is significantly lower than in 2022.  Looking at the closures, we clearly see the consolidation effect which is expected to continue for the remainder of the year. 

I do expect to end up at the 2024 budget amount of 21,500 LIR accounts. 

Members and LIRs. 

Starting point of the LIR counts in 2023 was 23,83, at the end of October this is 22,608. 

This reduction in active LIR accounts directly impacts our income, as said a concern moving forward. 

At the start of year we had 20,231 members and at the end of October, we had 20,255.  As I said a growth of 24 members. 

Payment behaviour:   

As always, we can report positive payment behaviour.  That being said, a significant part of our members pay their invoice after the 30‑day payment term.  In 2023, we closed 148 LIR accounts due to non‑payment, representing a value of €232,000, which is about 0.7% of the total. 

The remaining outstanding amounts for 2022 and 2023 represent a payment extensions we have granted for the Ukraine. 

Zooming into other countries that have received a payment extension in the past period.  Ukraine:   142 LIR accounts, with a 2023 invoice outstanding with a value of €262,000.  For Russia and Turkey, no invoices remain outstanding. 

An ongoing concern for us it is membership fee at risk.  Just a short recap.  Ultra high‑risk countries, as defined by the three major Dutch banks, Iran and Syria, these invoices have not been issued as our banks apply zero tolerance policy on funds from these countries.  The payment obligation still stands but has been postponed.  For the Ukraine all invoices have been issued, but the payment due date has been extended till the end of this year. 

We request all Ukrainian members to please inform us if they will not be able to pay, this will help us make an informed decision on any additional extensions.  Our current thinking is to extend to the May 2024 to align with the 2024 book invoices and revisit during 2024. 

To quantify, the membership fee at risk.  At this point in time, a total of 2.9 million euros.  Consisting of 1.3 million for ultra high‑risk countries in 2023 and 2.4 million in total.  For the Ukraine, €264,000 outstanding and till €81,000 for 2022.  And lastly, any members who are either sanctioned or pending sanctions or investigation. 

Overall, a significant amount of membership fee at risk with €2.9 million. 

So, what have we been doing to ensure that we can collect money from the ultra high‑risk countries?  Unfortunately we don't have solution yet.  We can, however, report significant improvement in our relationship with the Dutch banks.  Our efforts in compliance and know‑your‑customer have put us in a better position with these banks. 

All alternative options we have researched could possibly be workable, but would require us to take risks well outside of our risk appetite. 

It has been and continues to be a very complex problem with no easy solution.  So we will continue to monitor the developments and continue the search for any solution that fit within our risk appetite. 

The 2024 invoices.  We'll issue all invoices for 2024 with the exception of ultra high‑risk countries.  Any payment extensions in relation to war or conflicts will be reviewed in 2024.  And to make it as clear as possible closing of the LIRs is not the intended outcome. 

Another concern for us and everybody in the service region is inflation.  As already discussed here our only tool to cover inflation currently is the charging scheme.  We do not have any or option to index or fees on a yearly basis in relation to inflation.  And the luxury of high and new inflow of LIR accounts is a thing of the past. 

Moving on to expenditures. 

Total expenditures are €30.1 million.  8% under budget year to date. 

Payroll and personnel expenses are slightly over with €41,000.  We employed 180.2 FTEs on average compared to a budget of 190.6.

Other operating expenses are 20% under budget at 11.2 million euros. 

Depreciation has been 12% under budget and bad debt 22% over. 

Zooming in on the budget variances. 

Ever so slightly over budget in personnel costs with €41,000.  And over budget on bank charges with €65,000. 

Due to the uncertainty in the outstanding invoices for the Ukraine, we have increased our bad debt provision, resulting in 50k over budget year to date. 

All other cost categories are significantly under budget.  A direct result of the executive decision to already start cutting costs in 2023.  I am proud that we have been able to cut these costs already.  Putting the RIPE NCC in a better starting position for 2024 with the budget restrictions we have. 

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Related parties.  This was new in the financial report 2022 and replaced the procurement reports in my presentation.  The intent of the related party disclosure is to provide insight to our stakeholders in any potential conflict of interest based on financial transactions with a related party. 

All transactions listed are small amounts and with the regular scope of business.  An increase can be reported with Akamai and this relates to the cost for CDM for RPKI. 

And new in 2023, Internet Society.  Non‑profit membership of 50,000 US D.  As part of our support for organisations who have an important role, administrative role in the global Internet governance. 

Inflation in relation to costs remains a concern.  The effect in 2023 has been significant.  Inflation over 2022 was 10.2%.  Majority of the contracts have been indexed, meaning corrected for inflation, ranging anywhere from 6 to 10%. 

Looking back alt our, we have been for the inflation has been low in combination with the high historic inflow of LIRs we have always been able to cover these costs. 

Looking a bit forward, no matter what we do with future cost budgets and charging schemes, we will see increased costs due to inflation. 

Moving on to to treasury.  Overall, an uprealised negative financial result of €8,000 year‑to‑date or 0.17%. 

Please note this is the result from the start of the year until October.  We have not recovered the financial result of 2022.  Our investment portfolio of 6.6 million, we have a negative result of €88,000 and the cash we hold with our banks, we have a result of €80,000 positive. 

An update on the treasury project.  We are in the last steps of the on‑boarding with UBS Luxembourg.  Our investment partner will manage the portfolio via UBS.  On‑boarding with UBS has been slow.  We have been marked as a complex customer as we are with all banks.  This is due to our service region in relation to sanctions and ultra high‑risk countries and the high volume of small transactions, which is a concern for money laundering.  But the good news is that we are fully on board with our investment partner.  Any corporation with the Executive Board, we will start with a managed portfolio of 10 million euros and I expect to have this up and running before the end of the year. 

Return goal is 12 month Euribore.  Currently at 4% plus 0.5%, which could result in a projected €450,000 result on an annual basis.  Of course, it is investing, so there is no guarantees, but I am confident we have selected a very capable investment partner.  I will disclose more information in due time once we are fully up and running. 

Adding this all up brings us to the expected surplus for 2023.  The forecast based on the October numbers.  The latest forecast is a slightly more positive than the forecast as shared in the activity plan and budget.  Income is forecasted to be €1.7 million under budget as are the costs.  The financial result is projected to be €55,000 positive.  But we do still have two months to go.  Resulting in a forecasted surplus of €110,000 before taxes and this would result in a redistribution per LIR account of approximately €5. 

Please note, that as we are hovering very closely to the break‑even point, so any surprises could possibly bring us to a negative result over 2023. 

Capital and liquidity.  We remain balanced and healthy.  We have a clearing house buffer of €32.1 million to respond to uncertainties.  We are solvent and we still have a robust position financially, but we do have free financial concerns looking forward:  Membership fee at risk, reducing income and inflation. 

The redistribution of the RIPE NCC surplus 2023. 

Our advice to the Executive Board. 

Advice to General Meeting to vote no for the resolution to redistribute the surplus over 2023 to the membership.  And with that, add or deduct the €2,023 surplus on the clearing house reserves.  The reasoning for this advice is that the result will be very, very moderate, estimated anywhere between 150,000 positive and 150,000 euros negative.

For a complete overview, I have added this slide.  The result of the redistribution vote on the 2024 LIR voices.  A yes vote would, with a positive result of €150,000, redistribute €7 on the voice or €2 with the result of €50,000.  A negative result would add the amount to the 2024 invoices.  So yes, to voting yes for this resolution in combination with a negative result could very well mean a redistribution of a negative surplus adding euros to your 2024 invoice.  Please keep this in mind this is an option now in the future.  We will consider splitting this vote for future redistributions to increase transparency. 

Forecast 2025‑2027.  Looking back with the charging scheme discussions, instability in our service region, multiLIR consolidation and the reduction of income as a result I wanted to share with you my outlook for the coming years.  Please note that this is a forecast only.  It is very conservative.  You might even say pessimistic because we can still take action. 

To be clear, I'm not presenting this information to argue for an increase in fees or to stop activities or to cut costs.  At this point in time.  But I am highlighting that something will need to change. 

We will ensure to continue a focus on cost efficiency no matter what happens. 

For any forecast, assumptions will need to be made and these are the assumptions I have made. 

The charging scheme will remain unchanged from 2024.  A decrease in income due to less LIR accounts.  As we expect continued consolidation of the multiple LIR accounts.  I expect a number of active LIR accounts to be equal to the number of members in 2027.  And I have assumed that the activities as stated in the activity plan and budget will be continued.  Staff levels will remain stable at the level of 2024 budget and continued inflation slowly returning to the European Central Bank's target of 2%. 

With these assumptions, this is my forecast for 2025‑2027. 

Decreasing income and increasing costs:  2025, a loss of 4 million.  2026, a loss of 6 million.  And 2027, a loss of 7.8 million. 

Totalling a loss of 17.8 which is more than half of our financial reserves.  Please note I have excluded any financial results in these forecasts. 

Expected average cost of LIR will raise over time.  From 1700 and 67 as bummed in 2024 to €2,040 per LIR in 2027.

A. In this forecast I have incorporated a reduction of income and increased cost due to inflation, but not the membership fee at risk. 

This membership fee at risk could potentially reduce the yearly income with an additional €1 million. 

Therefore, 2024 will be a very important year for us.  And with us, I mean the RIPE NCC and its members.  In May 2024, we will have the charging scheme vote for 2025 and the budget 2025 consultation in October/November.  We will continue our discussions with the Executive Board, as this is high on the agenda.  And continue our engagements with you all, the membership. 

Before I open the floor for any questions, a quick recap. 

2023:   Income and costs expected to be under budget.  We have taken action to cut costs already.  €110,000 positive surplus forecasted. 

Three main concerns for 2024 and beyond.  Membership fee at risk, reducing income and inflation. 

For 2025 and onwards, something will need to change in relation to a long term financial stability.  And we will need to find consensus with the membership in what that needs to be.  Very generally speaking we have two options:   Increase income or decrease costs. 

And with that, I'll try and answer any question you may have. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I have a short question regarding the investments you are doing.  If I understand correctly, there is an existing portfolio of €6.6 million, and we have already been hearing about the new investment partner, and is that another 10 million, like are we extending the investment portfolio or will it be a shift from the existing portfolio towards a new partner in the UBS? 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK: At this moment in time we will use 10 million in cash and invest that through the investment partner.  The existing portfolio will stay. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   How long are the ‑‑ or how quick can we get back the money in case we need it?  So how long are the running investments?  Can reretact at any time if there is any situation? 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK:  One of the most important things is the liquidity.  If we need the money we need to be able to access it, yes. 

BRIAN NISBET:  So the redistribution piece, you know, even cost of redistributing €7 is presumably higher than €7 per organisation.  The thing I think I missed is:  Does there have to be a vote on redistribution?  Okay, I missed the fact that ‑‑ I thought it was something that was an optional piece from the NCC.  But okay, cool.  That makes sense, thank you. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I have a question.  How much taxes does RIPE NCC pay per month and per year? 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK:   Well, it kind of depends on the redistribution vote.  Because we don't ‑‑ as long as we break‑even, so when we redistribute the money to our members and formally break‑even, we do not have any corporate tax liabilities.  Of course, we do have personnel tax, wage tax, we pay to the government, but that's ‑‑

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Could you give us some numbers, let's say, for 2022, for example? 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK:  On how much tax we paid? 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   What amount is going to the Netherlands government? 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK: Oh we pay about ‑‑ well, wage tax it's about ‑‑

HANS PETTER HOLEN:   There are two things.  The taxes for 2022 you can find those in the financial report for 2022, we don't have that that in front of us here.  In general, the tax level for individuals in the Netherlands is half your salary.  So if you take the salary budget in the RIPE NCC and divide by two, that's what we are contribute can to the Dutch economy so to speak.  Then you can add VAT on all services which is 20%‑ish, so it's not that we are not participating taxes, but the agreement that we have with the tax authorities is that we don't have to pay tax on our reserves, the investment part, the declaring house so to speak, and the condition for that after that had grown to 20‑plus million some years back was that we put it up for a membership vote at the end of year whether we should redistribute to services.  It's not that we, per se, don't want to pay tax but it would be slightly ‑‑ it's a good deal to not have to pay tax on declaring house if we make gains on that because that's a safety network, but it was also the year when the financial market went down, that meant that we couldn't deduct that either.  So it's kind of like it's pros and cons. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I do have statistics about VAT that was paid because some LIRs have to pay membership fees with VAT.  And most of them I believe not.  So, just what is the statistics, how much VAT do you pay to the budget? 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK:  We actually claim back more VAT than we pay VAT. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   It's not only for the Dutch members, it's always time to time for Russian members and for other countries. 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK: The formal rule we apply ‑‑ the formal rule we apply with tax, indeed the Dutch, we pay off VAT.  Any individual that cannot prove that they have a business registration, they have, they are obliged to pay Dutch VAT but the majority of our members have business registration in the EU a VAT number then we can shift VAT liability to their country.  Countries outside the EU, as long as they can prove they are a business, we can also shift the VAT liability to that country.  But individuals in, for example, Russia or anything outside the UK ‑‑ the EU, they have to pay VAT. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Do you know the amount of members who pay invoices with VAT? 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK: I do not have the exact number. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Okay.  Thank you. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Got two questions here.  Lucas from CAG, "What is the reason behind entering an investment exercise with UBS Lux while you complain about a cash deficit?"   What's the reason behind entering into an investment exercise while you complain about there being a cash deficit? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  We have money in the bank and there is really no significant interest rate in the bank.  In the past, we have managed investments in government bonds and other things ourself, but this is not really our expertise, so rather than employing experts in investments, we are out sourcing this to a party that knows how to do this. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   So, Rotario Bogden Stefan, from C H route "instead of implementing a category based charging scheme, was there any discussion or proposal from the financial team about temporarily raising the charging scheme fee for a period of one or two years?  This approach could potentially ensure a more balanced financial impact on members of all sizes.  Was this option explored as a means to fairly distribute costs among all members?"   

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  So the vote on the membership fee is for one year at a time.  So, you know, we vote to increase the fee, then we increase it and then the next year we don't have a vote, it stays the same.  If we vote to reduce it, then we reduce it.  So, whether we make a vote in May for 2025, we make another vote in 2025 for 2026. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   A question about transactional cost.  So, when you move your reserve to third party management, what management fee you pay and to certain degrees, when you buy a lower tier investment product, for example, you actually pay higher management fee or a prescription fee and all that. 

And the second question about redistribution cost.  I understand there is always a vote about redistribution money back to members if you haven't used it.  But would it actually cost RIPE NCC in terms of personnel transactional cost to redistribute them and compare that with actual tax level with the Dutch government.  And is there any potential tax savings or tax deals we can potentially make with the Dutch government?  As a non‑profit member based in organisation are they partial to negotiate that down. 

A third question is:  Since we do have a considerable large reserve, can, let's say in a good year, you get 8, 10% of financial returns, can those financial returns be contributed back to the operation cost like some large Institutes do with a government?  For example, 25% of Singapore national budget actually comes from either investment portfolio instead of taxes, so that will actually save us money.  For example, Hans home country, Norway, get a lot of investment money ‑‑ probably the most in the world. 

Those are the three questions. 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK:  I think the first question of the management fee from the investment manager.  That's going to be 0.5% on the invested amount, that's excluding transactional costs. 

Then I think the next question was with regards to tax gains, why redistributing any excess funds we have at the end of year, we ensure we break‑even and then we do not break any corporate income tax ‑‑

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   That wasn't the question.  The question was how much cost you redistribute the money back.  Of course, you need a human to do that.  Do you do a bank transfer?  The bank going to charge you per transaction?  What is the actual transactional cost for 20,000 members?  As a person running a similar sized company, I know it's not going to be cheap and it's probably a lot of work to do.  And then if you remain that money in your bank account, can you negotiate a better tax deal with the government, maybe 5% or 10% instead of redistribute it to the members.  Like would that be a pension saving to that? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  The first question of how much does it cost us to return the money.  Well the way we do it is that we subtract it from the next invoice.  So when I was told that this is very expensive and costs a lot of work, it's probably a statement to insert in the database and it's done.  It's hassle to do it, but it's not a significant cost to refund the money.  But, you know, out of the principal, maybe we should contribute a bit. 

.

I looked up a bit in the financial report for last year, and the actuals for 2022, it says €403,000 in income taxes.  In 2021 it said €124,000 in income taxes.  So it's not a substantial amount of money.  We do have an agreement with which is what we're following whether it's possible to negotiate a better one, I don't know.  The Dutch seem to claim that they are the world's best in collecting taxes, I don't know if that's the case, but... but it's definitely something that we will look into, and, you know, it would have been beneficial if we had a significant surplus to look into that.  But with the current setup, I think what we have is a pretty good deal. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:  And the third question:   Can you get the investment going into the operation budget to subsidize that? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  I don't think we have explored all areas of that, but I think the Board, we have a forecast for an income budget, we have a forecast for a cost budget.  If the Board approves a budget that goes with the deficit, we will have to take it from the reserves.  If we see that we have a million in dividends from the reserves and wants to spend half of that on operations, I don't see why the Board can't do that.  That's not the current situation. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   But why don't we make a policy.  In Singapore government put half  of it into the reserve and half contributed to the operation of the budget.  Why don't we do similar things? 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  I think that's possible for the Board to decide for each year's budget going forward if they want to put something in there. I don't think we are yet in the position of Norwegian wealth fund that can fund 3, 4% of the national budget.  But it would be cool. 

SIMON‑JAN  HAYTINK: Thank you everybody. 

(Applause)

ONDREJ FILIP:  Thank you very much.  And next up is Athina. 

ATHINA FRAGKOULI:  Hello everyone.  I am going to present you the proposed amendments to the Articles of Association. 

I must say that these amendments actually are part of a series of amendments that we have been introducing to the Articles of Association regarding the Executive Board members and candidates.  It started in 2020 when we increased the number of the Executive Board members that could jointly represent the organisation from two to four members. 

In 2022, we clarified who has the authority in the organisation in case there are insufficient number of Executive Board members, and who can call for elections if there is no Executive Board member left or there is only one left. 

Regarding Executive Board candidates, in 2020, there was an Executive Board elections task force that was formed, and put forward some proposals for amendments to the articles which will actually were incorporated, and according to this proposed amendments, the candidates would have to submit a certified copy of their ID and a signed statement that they adhere that to the Code of Conduct for candidates as well as that they have never committed fraud or financial misconduct in any jurisdiction.  That was incorporated into 2020. 

In 2023, we organised an open house in May where we discussed Executive Board requirements, and various options were explored.  Based on this discussion, and the input we received, we now propose this new requirements as follows:   

.

Two Executive Board members, at least two Executive Board members, cannot be employees or significant shareholders with a controlling interest of the same legal entity or fillet it's an of this legal entity.  And what do we mean by affiliate?  We mean a subsidiary group company or participation according to the Dutch law. 

Also, it shouldn't be possible that one Executive Board member is an employee and the other one is a significant shareholder with controlling interest of the same legal entity or an affiliate of this legal entity. 

Accordingly, they cannot be partners of the same partnership or employees of the same partnership, or one being partner and the other one an employee of the same partnership. 

Additionally, Board members cannot be in the Board of another RIR of ICANN, of ISOC, and they cannot be members of the ASO AC. 

Now, how these amendments are incorporated, proposed to be incorporated in the Articles of Association. 

The candidates:   Executive Board candidates will have to submit a signed statement where they declare that they don't have any of the conflicts I just mentioned.  When it comes to conflicts with existing Executive Board members, this is not applicable to Executive Board members whose term expires at the same GM where they are candidates. 

Now, what happens with multipleseat elections; that can be a little bit tricky because two candidates may have this conflict between them and wouldn't like those two candidates to enter the Board where there is conflicts. 

To solve that now, the nominees must sign an agreement where they declare the legal entities where they are employees and affiliates this legally entities.  The legal entities they are significantly shareholders with a controlling interest and affiliates of this legal entities and the partnerships they are members and employees of. 

And then at the elections, if one candidate is the winner of the first seat, and then the winner of the next round has submitted a declaration that a ‑‑ where a statement is no longer true because of the first seat winner, then this candidate is dropped.  And using the round of mechanism votes, the votes go to the next preference and we have a next round with the same ballots but the next preference of candidates. 

As a final proposed amendment of this package, we propose an additional reason for ending the Executive Board membership if all the documents that have been submitted by a candidate became a member are proven to be falsified or containing false information, then the Executive Board membership is terminated.  And the document submitted, of course, I mean the ones that are introduced, but also the already existing documents that need to be submitted, the copy of an ID and a statement where they declare that /HEF never committed fraud or financial misconduct in any jurisdiction. 

Last but not least, this time we realise that our Articles of Association are very outdated, they are very old‑fashioned.  So, the last proposed amendment has to do with the pro nuns of he and him to be replaced by the gender neutral they and them throughout the document.  Thank you. 

If you have any questions. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Peter Koch.  I have an engineering question about the previous situation ending the Board membership.  I didn't hear you say that if one of the Board members decides to join a company that would induce a conflict, that that would terminate immediately. 

ATHINA FRAGKOULI:  That is correct. 

PETER KOCH:  I didn't hear you mention that. 

ATHINA FRAGKOULI:  No.  This is about the candidates.  This is not about the Board members, the existing Board members. 

PETER KOCH:  So they can conspire to be candidates and then later join and they will both sit on the Board?  Cool!

ONDREJ FILIP:  You know, Peter, we understand your concern and we discussed this as well but, you know, it's kind of complicated to ‑‑ who would stand down and, so on, you know, who would need to resign.  It's not easy to prepare it and I think it needs some time to adjust.  So we started the change with this round.  I think that improves the election process a lot.  And I know it doesn't solve all the problems of the association but at least this is a step forward. 

JOB SNIJDERS:  If separately running candidates manage to get elected, which would demonstrate broad community support, and then conspire in a joint activity, it would mean that that aspect is resolved within the span of three years because in order to restand as candidates, they would need to split up the partnership or take other steps. 

So, if that corner case happens, it would be a temporary nature.  And if the corner case is problematic to the point where the community feels the Board is not doing a good job, it is possible for the Board to call for a motion at an AGM to evict the Board member pertaining to the particular situation.  So I think the amendment as proposed, it's a huge step forward compared to the current situation to avoid Board stacking, and there still are edge cases, but I think that already today, this community has a number of tools to take action if needed. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Rudiger Volk.  Well, for me, it comes to mind one could actually mandate that the event that such a thing happened, not the collusion in advance but a conflict happens, it should be disclosed.  Probably that's going into next year's amendments, but I think...

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Tobias.  Just on the point of figuring out who would have to stand down, as an idea, it could be both. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Jan a from Hungary.  Actually, I think that this could be handled easily, not necessarily now because we can't change the wording but whatever declaration the candidate signs could contain that he will not ‑‑ well first of all, he will publicise or declare that he has joined another company, or whatever, which would not let him to become a candidate if it was before election.  And that he is not planning to do so.  And if he chooses to do that, then he steps down automatically.  So, this could be handled technically I think quite easily. 

ONDREJ FILIP:  I understand your point, but the situation also can occur with some mergers and acquisitions and stuff like that.  It doesn't have have be to under the control of the Board members, that's the problem but I understand your point.  Thank you. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Just to clarify, Peter Koch:   This shall not prevent anybody to vote for these proposed amendments.  It's ‑‑ I agree it would be a significant step forward.  However the Board might want to consider this in a bit more depth, because as we have learned, the threat left hand escape has changed.  You can be paranoid enough.

** TECHNICAL FAULT **

General Meeting, file 2. 

The first one is the more criteria putting forward towards the election process, wouldn't that be a potential way to keep in to scourge the participation, the first one, but here in the second one. 

The second question is that as you mentioned in this criteria, does that come down to any intergovernmental organisations?  Because you are talking about a shareholder or major stakeholder but who is the major stakeholder of the Dutch government, if there is seven Dutch government employees get elected to the RIPE NCC Board, does this become a subsidiary of the Dutch government agency, do you have a gate keeping for that kind of scenario, or inter government organisation, for example, nobody really is in a controlling interest of an institution because they are intergovernmental in nature, therefore nobody owns it.  And then there is some international united nation organisation in play, do you have a way of dealing with that?  And the threat mostly in this community is not really coming from private certificate, and that a lot of people here should agree.  And all this seems to me is having the private sector instead of where the actual problem is. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  If you are looking are to the control there you would be the king or the president.  But I think that would be a bit farfetched but for the ‑‑ I think there are ‑‑ as already mentioned here, we have not written a five page what if and if then else to cover all corner cases, we have taken the ones that were simple to get in place, but I'm sure that both we and the Board are interesting to hear about other corner cases that are ‑‑ or not so corner cases that could be easily handled for future amendment, because I think making sure that the wide membership has good representation on the Board and that it's not easy to take over under corporate mergers and acquisitions or government interventions is really important to the RIPE NCC. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I have got two questions:   Peter Hessler Flow Label ways "In the event that a Board members do become in conflict, what sort of notification can we expect?"   

ATHINA FRAGKOULI:  Yeah, so, if the conflict occurs after the candidate became a member, then there are no repercussions until they become candidates again.  But if their submitted documents are proven to be falsified or having fake information, then the end of their membership is there with immediate effect. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   From Cynthia:  "Commenting in a personal capacity.  Thank you for proposal to use gender neutral pro announce."

And just one more from Dmitry:  "What will be NCC for LIRs from Russia?  It would be impossible to pay in the EU this year.  Last year we had to open a new bank account.  Now, that's under a sanctions too.  We are not sure we can find a way to pay."

ATHINA FRAGKOULI:  Thank you for the question.  It's not about the amendments to the articles, it's about perhaps a previous discussion we had.  I don't know if anyone wants to address that.  I think we're going to have to take at that along with the review payment for 2024.  (Start a new catalyst file.  I have switched off the first one.  I don't know if you are still getting this.)   Start a new catalyst file.)   

ATHINA FRAGKOULI:  Unless there are any other questions.  Thank you very much. 

(Applause)

.

ONDREJ FILIP:  Now, the explanation of the voting procedure. 

RUSS WHITE:  I am a communications officer at the RIPE NCC.  And I am going to take you through the voting platform and procedure. 

So, registration overview. 

We had 1,532 voters out of a possible 19,786 eligible voters.  The voter turnout was 7.7%.  Which was, in comparison, quite similar to the last ones, apart from May.  And then registered votes per country.  You can see these slides on the NCC website if you want to have a better look at that one. 

How to vote.  The part you have all been waiting for today. 

Voting takes place once the Chair declares it open.  It's available to all members who have registered to vote electronically.  Votes can be cast until 9 a.m. on Friday, that's UTC plus 1, and there are no paper ballots at this GM. 

Important:   You need to complete the whole process in assembly voting in a little bit.  Otherwise your vote won't be cast.  So if you leave the platform, no votes will be registered. 

So, how do you vote?  You will receive two e‑mails from assembly voting.  The first e‑mail contains voting code 2.  Which is the GM registration number.  In another e‑mail, you'll receive a link to the election platform and the voting code 1.  That will already be pre‑filled.  So you won't have to do anything.  You just have to click vote now.  And voting code 1 is pre‑filled as I said.  You will need voting code 2 which is in the other e‑mail and then you just POP it in that bottom box just there. 

So, you can choose yes, no or abstain but you must choose one option.  It won't let you move on.  So type one in there, confirm selection. 

And then if you have several votes, if you have got a weighted vote you can assign them differently.  So you can just tap that little one and it will come down and you can put your numbers in there.  And then confirm and assign.  You can assign each one.  So if you put two in and you have got five, you can then put in three. 

Now, confirm your choices.  Tap that button.  And then you can cast your ballot.  Hopefully it's very simple.  I have done it many, many times in the testing and I can do it, so I think it's okay. 

You can track your ballot using the tracking code.  So it's highlighted there.  So just copy that one and make sure you save it before you close that page.  And then you can tap that track your ballot and you can see what's happened. 

Troubleshooting:   

If you have not received the voting e‑mails by 7 p.m. UTC plus 1, please contact me at this e‑mail address.  The e‑mails will come from the very catchy e‑mail here.  Please check your spam for this kind of e‑mail.  If you are using Safari on mobile, the pre‑filled code sometimes doesn't appear.  So if that happens, you will need to copy and paste that other code into the platform.  And be aware that Internet Explorer cannot be used to access the system, which is ‑‑ I was expecting that. 

And for any other questions, e‑mail, this address.  I do like to think I am very helpful, so I will help you with anything.  I am also at the registration desk hovering, if I'm not there one of my colleagues can ping me a mail and I will come and help with you any queries you have. 

So.  Voting on the resolutions.  There are two vote resolutions to be voted on. 

Resolution is requires more than 50% of yes, sir votes to pass.  And resolution 2 requires more than two thirds of the yes votes to pass.  Abstentions are noted but they don't count. 

And we'll announce ‑‑ well I won't, Ondrej will, will announce the results on Friday the 1st December.  And the announcements will be streamed live. 

Any questions about the platform or procedure?  Oh I have one.  Yes. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Just a quick one.  Blake.  Thanks for switching to assembly voting.  My experience with it has generally been better with it than BigPulse.  I hope it goes well. 

RUSS WHITE:  Thanks for that. A lot of research went into that.  Thanks for that. If you have no ‑‑

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   David Lawrence, sales force.  Just one quick question.  So the e‑mails already went out?  They are already posted.  The vote isn't open yet. 

RUSS WHITE:  The platform doesn't open until Ondrej says that voting is open.  Leave a few minutes after he says it so that we can open it. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Lars Liman here, remotely.  A quick question.  For us who vote from remote places, which URL or which room in Meetecho will this be posted in or where will you be when you give out the results?  The main room, General Meeting link which links should I use? 

RUSS WHITE:  That is a very good question. 

RUSS WHITE:  The main room. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Ranney bush IIJ and Arrcus.  My usual security line.  The mail you get has a tracking pixel. 

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  I am afraid somebody will have to repeat that for the Board and us because we did not catch the message other than the going afterwards.  Also, I see that the stenographer screen is dark, so we're slightly at a disadvantage here. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   Randy Bush.  The mail you receive from assembly voting has a tracking pixel.  You open that mail without, in a mail user agent that doesn't have safeguards against such things and you have your identity taken off your system and your system footprinted and all that wonderful stuff. 

RUSS WHITE:  Thank you. 

JOB SNIJDERS:  As a work around I recommend using the MAT no client. 

AUDIENCE SPEAKER:   I was going to make a similar comment.  Use a telecommunications based editor and cut and paste. 

RANDY BUSH:  E Max works pretty good too. 

ONDREJ FILIP:  Thank you very much Karla for the explanation.  It's clear for everyone I guess.  So, now the voting on the resolutions.  I will read those resolutions in my shaking voice. 

So, the General Meeting approves the redistribution of the excess contribution/deficit paid in 2023 by redistributing the RIPE NCC 2023 surplus/deficit to the membership in 2024."

And again, the recommendation from the Board is to vote no. 

Resolution number 2 is slightly longer:   

"The General Meeting, in accordance with Article 21 of the Articles of Association, adopts the amendments to articles 10 and 11.5 of the Articles of Association as proposed and announced by the Executive Board on 1 November 2023. 

Furthermore, the General Meeting instructs and authorises the Executive Board to perform or to have performed all that is required to have the amendments executed before a Dutch civil law notary."

And the recommendation of the Board is to approve the amendments. 

So, with that, I declare the voting open.  And the General Meeting will reconvene on Friday, 1st December at 10:30 here, local time.  Thank you very much for your participation.  Thanks. 

(Applause)

HANS PETTER HOLEN:  So a clarification on the room on Friday, I see in the staff chat that a reminder that on Friday there is only one room so the physical room is the side room, we will not be here on Friday.  So how the streaming people are handling that, that's I guess is a technical question.  I assume there is only one room to choose virtually, but we will clarify that.  But physically, we will not be in this room we will be in what's today's labelled as the side room on Friday. 

LIVE CAPTIONING BY

MARY McKEON, RMR, CRR, CBC

DUBLIN, IRELAND.

RIPE 87

1 December 2023

General Meeting Results

ONDREJ FILIP:  Before you leave the room, especially if you are interested in the results of the General Meeting so give me a few seconds of your attention because this is the second part of the General Meeting and I have results for you.

So, there were two resolutions that we voted on, and let me show you the first one so the resolution was

"The General Meeting approves the redistribution of the excess contribution/deficit paid in 2023 by redistributing the RIPE NCC 2023 surplus/deficit to the membership in 2024."

And it seems to be that majority of you believes there will be a surplus and want your money back, you voted ‑‑ so the contribution or the deficit will be redistributed to the members in the next invoices.

So resolution is approved.

There was also the amendment of the Articles of Association.  Let me read it:

"The General Meeting, in accordance with Article 21 of the Articles of Association, adopts the amendments to the Articles of Association as proposed and announced by the Executive Board on 1st November 2023.

Furthermore, the General Meeting instructs and authorises the Executive Board to perform or to have performed all that is required to have the amendments executed before a Dutch civil law notary." 

And I apologise, not just internet exchange has glitches, we made some mistake in the text.  It was corrected by e‑mail that was sent later so again I apologise for that but I guess all the changes were very thoroughly explained in the presentation and also in the background documents so I believe it couldn't lead to any confusion.  And the resolution was approved so the changes will be adopted.

That's all from my side.  The General Meeting is closed now.  Thank you very much, thank you, and see you in spring. 

(Applause)

LIVE CAPTIONING BY AOIFE DOWNES, RPR

DUBLIN, IRELAND