Uploaded May 8, 2002 to ncac/minutes as ncac0402final.html
Tuesday April 2, 2002
Location: Allie's American Grill, Bethesda Marriott.
Meeting following the Washington Section's Meeting and Dinner.
Wednesday April 10, 2002
Location: Allie's American Grill, Tysons Marriott.
Meeting following the Northern Virginia Section's Meeting and Dinner.
1. Call to Order, Welcome and Approval of Agenda
Call to order after the Washington Section's meeting at 8:45 PM (April 2)
and after the Northern Virginia Sections's meeting at 7:50 PM (April 10).
2. Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes
Concerning the minutes of the NCAC meeting of February 13, 2002.
Motion to Approve: Harold Stinger, second Howard Needham
The minutes were approved unanimously and are now on the NCAC website.
3. Chairman's Remarks April 2.
3a. NCAC Bylaws. Saj noted that the two Sections had prepared an MoA in December 2001, which included, inter
alia, an article about the functions to be assigned to NCAC. This requires a modification of the NCAC Charter,
which currently dates back to 1986 and has a different set of "assigned functions."
Actually the differences are rather minor. The Assigned Functions that were included in the old version but have
been dropped in the new MoA are: Awards Banquet, Finance, PACE, Membership Development, and Representation in other
professional organizations; the MoA keeps these functions within the Sections.
Functions that continue to be assigned to the Council (in the order listed in the MOA) are : Office Management,
Continuing Education, Publication of Newsletter, Conferences/ Job Fairs; Council Web Site, and Joint Awards.
Saj noted that Mike Cardinale had proposed two motions:
(a) Accept/ Not accept the MOA; and
(b) Structure of Council Steering Committee.
Saj said that this was a good approach to solving the problem, because the first motion allowed the NCAC to get
back to the two Sections with comments and/or recommendations about the MOA; at the same time, we can proceed with
drafting a revision of the Council's Bylaws or Charter.
After discussion, it was decided to
(1) Appoint a Bylaws Committee, with Don Rickerson as its Chair, and with one member from each Section appointed
by the Section Chair; and
(2) Ask the Bylaws Committee to review the MOA, draft a revised NCAC Charter in compliance with the MOA, and make
any other recommendations that are relevant to the issues.
This is the first step towards action on Mike's motions. Final action on the motions will be taken when the Bylaws
Committee has submitted its report.
3b. IECEC Conference. Received a report from Saj re: the IECEC. Bill Jackson is negotiating an MOA with
the Electron Devices Society, such that we (NOVA and WS) would share the surplus with EDS in the ratio of 10%:90%,
but would not share the loss, if any. Hopefully, we will get a decision in the next two weeks. Murty offered to
help with the EDS, if needed.
3c. Chairmans Remarks April 10.
During the meeting of the NoVa Section's AdCom, it was reported by Vince Williams that the NoVa Executive Committe
had voted 10 to one to 'withdraw' from NCAC. This action, sprung upon NCAC without prior notification, led to a
statement by Saj, briefly as follows: NCAC was instituted 15 years ago as a forum to handle areas of common interest
for its two sections. The initiative was taken by two visionaries, Jim Strother and TomDeoppner, who both recently
passed away and have been eulogized in the pages of the Scanner and elsewhere. If, in fact, the recent vote of
the NoVa executive committee reflects the desire of the majority of the NoVa members, then it may effectively eliminate
NCAC and and will require modifications of the bylaws of NoVa as well as of NCAC, which bylaws have to be approved
by the Region. The bylaws of NCAC, at present, reflect the concern of the NoVa ExCom to deal efficiently with enumerated
issues that concern the area. The MOA between the WS and NoVa sections of December 15 limits some of the functions
of NCAC and the purpose of the recently appointed bylaws committee with Don Rickardson as Chair was to align the
bylaws to the MOA and make any other appropriate adjustments. Considering the present situation, the work on this
committee should continue possibly with a different deadline than the three months first proposed.
Saj solicited comments which are restated here, in some cases after consultation with the commentor.
Amerjeet Basra, Chair Student Activities: " If the NoVa has voted to withdraw from the NCAC, I welcome all of you to our chapter and other standing committees as there is plenty of work to do and your experience would be valuable."
Haik Biglari, Director Washington Section: "My concern in regards to dissolving the NCAC is coordination of joint chapter activities. Currently, NCAC being an umbrella organization, provides some means of coordination and cooperation between the chapters in the Washington Section and NOVA Section either through the Scanner or through the NCAC liaisons. Without NCAC, the joint activities may continue for a while, but it is just a matter of time for the chapters to drift apart. It is not only prudent, but it is expected of us to find an alternative way which serves our members better, before we embark on dissolving the NCAC."
Valorie King: Expressed concern that NCAC "bleeds" the volunteer power available for the Chapters and the Sections. Saj responded that on the contrary, assigning functions to NCAC relieves the Sections, because performing these funtions at the Section level would require more volunteers. Also, NCAC could be seen as a step on the Career path from Chapter to Section to Region enabling the creation of slots of responsibility to be filled by new volunteers.
Jan Aminoff felt that as far as he had seen NCAC had done a good and necessary job both with regard to the Scanner and the Conferences, with which view several persons concurred.
Vince Williams said that there was nothing personal in the vote to withdraw. Any NCAC officer would be welcome
to join NoVa as volunteers.
4. Treasurer's Report April 2
Howard Needham presented the Treasurers report for February.
NCAC has not yet been billed for any Scanner printing costs this year which is why we still have funds ($9,683.69)
in the account. We expect invoices for these expenses as well as for the May/June costs of Scanner/Postage/Editorial
Services. We have received the quarterly assessment from Washington Section and expect to receive the same from
NoVa Section next week.
5. Other Reports
5a. NCAC Officers (Vice-Chair, Secretary)
5b. Publications - SCANNER
Saj said that Bill Kelly was on travel, and Ed Gordon would attend the meeting on 4/10 to give a report. A brief
Report was given on April 4, but any discussion was preempted by the discussions rearding the NoVa withdrawal from
the NCAC.
5c. PACE
Harold Stinger said that he intended to attend the PACE Workshop in Texas on April 12-14 as an Area Representative.
Saj said he will check with the Region 2 PACE Coordinator to determine how much of the cost would be reimbursed
by the Region. Harold said he was willing to absorb the difference, and Saj expressed his appreciation for this.
5d. Conferences
Jerry Gibbon reported on the Officers Training conference on March 2 at Oracle in Reston. The conference had many
and active attendees. Vince Williams did an excellent job of handling the impressive presentation facilities. Saj
thanked Jerry for producing the successful conference.
The SC 2002 IEEE Sections Conference was discussed at the Section meeting. Here is the conference URL: www.ieee.org/sc
6. Liaison Reports:
6a. Consultants Network
Received report from Jim Allen re: Consultants Network https://www.ieee-consultants.org
and the Web addresses of the (High) Tech Councils in Virginia and Maryland. (This info will also be available on
the NCAC Web page.):
NVTC: Northern Virginia Technology Council: https://www.nvtc.org/
HTCM: High Technology Council of Maryland: https://www.mdhitech.org/
9. Next Month's Meeting:
TBD
10. Adjournment
Motion to adjourn April 2 by Harold Stinger; Second Howard Needham
Meeting adjourned at 9:15 PM.
Motion to Adjourn April 10 in due course. Meeting adjourned at 8:30 PM.
Respectfully Submitted
Jan Aminoff
Secretary, NCAC
j.aminoff@computer.org
The following persons attended the NCAC meeting of April 2, 2002.
Saj Durrani, Chair, NCAC
Howard Needham, Treasurer, NCAC
Jan Aminoff, Secretary, NCAC
Harold Stinger, NCAC Chair of PACE Standing Committee
Jerry Gibbon, NCAC Chair of Conferences Standing Committee
Greg Strutt, Director WS
Murty Polavarapu, NOVA Treasurer
The following persons attended the NCAC meeting of April 10, 2002.
Saj Durrani, Chair, NCAC
Jim Allen, ViceChair, NCAC
Jan Aminoff, Secretary, NCAC
A.S.Basra, Chair Student Activities
Valorie King, Director, NOVA
Ed Gordon, Associate Editor, Scanner
Haik Biglari, Director, WS
Mike Cardinale, Chair, NOVA
Pete Sypher, NCAC Chair of Finance Standing Committee
Fred Newberry, Director NOVA
Mike Scheidt, Scretary, NOVA
Vince Williams, Past Chair, NOVA