To:      Region 3 Committee
Subject: 03/26/2004 R3 Section Report - ENCS
From:    Dave Ruden, Vice-Chair, ENCS, IEEE

Region 3 Meeting, SECon Greensboro NC, March 26, 2004

IEEE Eastern North Carolina Section Report  www.ieee.org/enc
Prepared by: Mary Ellen Randall, Section Chair; David Ruden, Vice-Chair

Overview: The Eastern North Carolina section has over active 3000
members, several of them participating in regular activities.  We have
our 2004 Section Leadership in place, and there is good cooperation
among the 'core' officers:
  * Section Chair:      Mary Ellen Randall
  * Section Vice Chair: David Ruden
  * Section Treasurer:  Roger Lawrence
  * Section Secretary:  Thomas Jepsen

Most Significant Issue This Quarter:

Three years ago, the Section leadership determined that the large
Section cash surplus should be used for greater Section-oriented
activities and benefit, and we planned for having greater expenses
than we had income.  The result has been very positive: greater
program attendance; a large, active and motivated Executive Committee
volunteer staff.  However, such deficit budgeting can not continue
indefinitely, and we have reached the point where we must once again
look to:
  1. Fitting our expenses to our income,
  2. Searching for supplemental income for the Section.

Toward that end we have:
  1. Notified our Section Executive members of the expense-discipline
     we must all now exercise,
  2. Been working as one of our highest priority action items, on
     evaluating subcommittee, chapter, affinity budget submissions
     into an overall balanced Section budget,
  3. In order to develop some supplemental income (and of course,
     provide value to our membership), we have since the middle of
     2003, been in planning for a regional conference in our Section
     on BioTechnology.  Thomas Jepsen is very effectively chairing
     this effort.

New Initiatives and Proposals:
  * We are in the planning towards an NC-based Conference on the theme
    'Technology for Life,' in October 2004 at RTP area to put the
    focus on North Carolina in Biotech field, encompassing several
    areas in Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering. Thomas Jepsen
    has the lead on organizing, helped by Subroto Bhattacharya and
    David Ruden. By making a presentation on the conference proposal
    at R3 meeting, we wish to explore the funding opportunities and
    support that the NC Council and R3 can provide.
  * ICEVT: the proposal on 'IEEE Center for Excellence in Vision of
    Technology' is being presented to the Region Leadership for
    approval of $20,000 (or available funds) as a special section
    project. ICEVT is to research in identifying the direction for
    technologies of the future towards creating a better world and
    expected to help the Section Membership professionally in several
    ways. Preliminary proposal was presented at NC Council Meet in
    Sept 2003.
  * The Section Virtual Community, facilitated by Charles Lord, has
    been quite successful.  In fact, the Section's Embedded Systems
    Affinity group relies on its own independent Virtual Community
    site for management and program promotion.


January-March Activity Report:
(details can be viewed at www.ieee.org/enc Calendar)

Section/Chptr/Affinity     Mtg Count
-----------------------    --------
SECTION                     5
    TechForLife(conf)       2
PACE                        2
EMBS                        0
    BHP JHC                 1
EMC                         0
PE/IA                       0
ComSoc/SP/IT                0
GRS                         1
EMS                         1
WIE                         0
R&A                         0
ACME                        0
NNS                         0
Computer                    0
    EmbSystems              5