Monday June 23, 1997 at McLean Hilton at Tysons Corner during WAdaS
Notes by Currie Colket, John McCormick, and Terry Westley
Hal Hart, Steve Grimaldi, Currie Colket, John McCormick, Terry Westley, Mike Feldman, Roy Bell, Jean-Pierre Rosen, Bob Munck, Bard Crawford, Ron Oliver, David Harrison, Brad Balfour
Chair
Attend ACM Business Meetings (2 per year)
Lead Extended Executive Committee (EEC) meetings
Call and monitor meetings
Lead 4 year ACM SIG review
Chief Financial Officer
Vice Chair for Meetings and Conferences
Member TRI-Ada Committee
Recruit TRI-Ada Chair, lead site selection (18 months ahead)
Oversee TRI-Ada organizing
Oversee working groups
Work "in cooperations" (Ada Europe, WAdaS)
Vice Chair for Liaison
General "outreach"
Oversee and support SIGAda Local Chapters
Oversee institutional sponsors (ACM SIG Services helps)
(Many comments were made to the effect of "Local chapters are the future of SIGAda")
Secretary
Encourage/stimulate bylaws revisions
Minutes of Meetings and events, Follow-ups, AI’s
Owner of SIGAda web site (15 topics, about half maintained by secretary)
Brad Balfour was thanked for doing an outstanding job on creating and maintaining the SIGAda website over the past few years. As it currently stands, some of the "pages" are maintained by Brad; some are delegated as appropriate. Opposition was expressed against depending on non-ACM (specifically government and especially DoD) resources as exclusive sources of information on Ada job postings and other information. A suggestion was made that the website could be effectively maintained via the web itself. Bob Munck offered to make some specific recommendations on how to do that.
Maintain e-mail lists (move from sw-eng.falls-church.va.us to ACM)
Initiate and maintain listservers (include all SIGAda members)
Treasurer
Co-author fiscal year budget with Chair
Monitor financial monthly reports to ACM
Financial status to Executive Committee
International Representative
Liaison to Ada Europe and 8 National Societies
Maintains lists and contacts to other non North American groups
Identify and recommend cooperations
Although many speak of the International Rep as being a representative to non-North American countries, it was suggested that there is significant Ada work in Mexico and that SIGAda ought to investigate how it can serve Ada users there.
Past Chair
Provides historical continuity
All around good guy and mentor to Executive Committee
Head of nominations
Upon request to and approval by the SIG Board, re-election by acclamation of all 7 officers effectively extends the normal two-year term to four years. A petition of 1% of membership automatically revokes such a request. This has never happened in SIGAda and was not encouraged by current officers present, although there are advantages since two years is a short term.
A bylaw revision to change the officer structure to three specific offices and three at-large positions was discussed by current EC. Further discussion and a decision were postponed to allow new officers to discuss it. The purpose of such a change would be to make it easier to field a complete slate of candidates. Since ACM regulations require a choice in each position, changing to three at-large seats requires only 7 candidates instead of the 12 required for the current 6 positions. Also, it was speculated that recruitment for an at-large position might be easier than current officer positions. Discussion ensued as to whether the Int'l Rep should be preserved as a fourth position rather than an at-large position.
Executive Committee (7 elected officers)
All Working Group (WG) chairs
All Chairs of local SIGAda Chapters
Ada Letters Editor and Technical Editor
TRI-Ada Chair(s)
Others appointed on an ad hoc basis
ada-letters-keys
sigada-elected
sigada-prev-elected
sigada-elected-plus (sigada-elected, sigada-prev-elected, ta-committee)
sigada-extended (sigada-elected-plus, sigada-wg-chairs, sigada-local-chairs, sigada-liaisons, ada-letters-keys
sigada-interest (40 to 60 people. Convert to all members?)
sigada-liaisons
sigada-local-chairs
sigada-wg-chairs
ta-committee
Doing Now
Booth (SIGCSE, Object World, Object Expo, OOPSLA, SEI, STC etc)
Ada Letters
Walnut Creek CD ROM give-aways
Success Stories
Call for papers and other conference activities
Web site
In cooperation with other SIGs
Not Doing Now
Press relations (a contact? a plan?)
Advertise in CACM
Booth to Embedded Systems Conference
ACM Crossroads (ads and articles)
STC Crosstalk
Student SIGAda only membership (perhaps $10)
Sponsor print want ads featuring Ada jobs
Job brokering - how to bridge the gap of perception about lack of Ada jobs and lack of trained Ada developers.
Get members to write articles in trade publications (mentoring / helping them)
Publications strategy - have a publicity chair?
Review lectureships (University colloquiums, Vendor presentations at conferences)
Revitalize and advertise lectureship program to local SIGAdas
Revitalize and advertise lectureship program to academia
Proposals
Action Items
Doing Now
TRI-Ada
WAdaS
Ada Europe
Not Doing Now
Workshops for working groups
Local SIGs (Lectureships, Professional Development Seminars (PDS))
Encourage local SIGAda functions
SIGAda summer Working Group Meetings
Joint meetings with other organizations (ACM and non-ACM)
Some specific ideas proposed
Organize/offer mini Tri-Ada events to be sponsored by local chapters as Professional Development Seminars.
Benefits:
Re-energize local chapter
Generate revenue
Bring more benefits of SIGAda membership to those who won't travel to or attend Tri-Ada
Active Local SIGs
Baltimore
Boston
Huntsville
Los Angeles
Phoenix
San Diego
Twin Cities
Washington DC
Criteria for Conference Site (Not in any order Do we need a scoring system?)
International airport
"In" a city (can walk to sights)
Local SIGAda support
Cost
Hotel size and space
Heavy commercial orientation in area
Weather (decent in early November)
Not a resort
Possible cities for TRI-Ada ’98
Austin, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, New York, Washington DC
TRI-Ada
Conference Management Contractor (CMC)
Approximately $90K in payments to CMC ($60K for contract, $11K for exhibit management, $19K for registration)
Viability issues
Attendees
Exposition
Tutorials
We would like $30K - $50K surplus
Every two years, WG chairs must give a report to EEC (including newly elected officers) so that they may review the viability of the WG.
Sentiment was expressed that the practice of reviewing WG viability should continue and probably at the current frequency, but that non-viable WGs should be actually terminated.
Completed their mission
NUMWG		ARTWG
ALIWG
Inactive (need to determine viability)
ABWG		OOWG
WEBWG ?		AIWG
PIWG			CAUWG
SDSAWG		ENVWG
SASWG		PATTRNSWG ?
Active
ASISWG		EDWG
REUSEWG
Membership in SIGAda is approximately 1000 paying individual members. This is down from a peak of approximately 2200. The decrease is in line with the trends in most ACM SIGs.
Although down in numbers from previous years, the Institutional Sponsors program is a great success in the sense that SIGAda has as many sponsors as all other SIGs combined. A suggestion was made that efforts should be made to recruit divisions of companies as separate sponsors (with the appropriate benefits including a separate line item in "Ada LETTERS").
SIGAda student members - can we have such members independent of ACM student membership?
Tri-Ada finances "dwarf" SIGAda budget, although the surpluses are not what they used to be
Membership dues and Tri-Ada provide the core revenue streams
Membership dues pay for publishing "Ada LETTERS." Tri-Ada provides additional discretionary funds.
ACM "tax" is on gross revenue, including conferences
Tri-Ada goal is 30-35K surplus after ACM "tax"
There is a 2 1/2-year "disconnect" between knowledge of Tri-Ada actuals and the effect on the budget. This is because of the budget cycle, Tri-Ada schedule and the use of surplus balances to fund annual budgets.
Current ACM regulations require SIGAda to maintain a minimum 130K fund balance. This currently stands at 200K. ACM recommends drawing on only 1/4 to 1/3 of the difference in any one-year budget.
Big topic for SIG Chairs Board meeting is electronic publishing and copyrights.
Ron Oliver will contact Richard Riehle to ask him to serve as SIGAda’s first publicity chair.
ACM conducts a in-depth review of each SIG every four years. The review of SIGAda was scheduled for February 1997. This review was postponed for 6 months and will take place in August 1997.
John McCormick, Steve Grimaldi, and Ron Oliver to assist Mike Feldman on ACM Programming Contest and getting Ada into it.
Bard Crawford took on action item to find Membership Initiative person.
Suggestion was made to redirect lectureship money to use in university colloquia and other conferences.