ISPRS - Council Meeting April 2000

MINUTES OF COUNCIL MEETING

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

5-6, 11 APRIL 2000

Council Attendees

President: Lawrence Fritz (LF)

Secretary General: John Trinder (JT)

First Vice President: Shunji Murai (SM)

Congress Director: Klaas Beek (KB)

Treasurer: Heinz Rüther (HR)

Second Vice President: Marcio Barbosa (MB)

In attendance

Chair, Financial Commission (for Item 10) Armin Gruen (AG)

Journal Editor (for Item 7.1) Emmanuel Baltsavias (EB)

ISPRS Highlights Editor (for Item 7.2) Lucas Janssen (LJ)

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AGENDA

1. Opening (LF)

2. Approval of Agenda (LF)

3. Review of minutes of Council meeting in Delft, The Netherlands (JT)

4. Policy Discussions

4.1. Strategic Plan Implementation (LF)

4.2. Statutes and Bylaws revision (MB)

4.3. Resolutions-ISAC (SM)

4.4. Others

5. Amsterdam Congress Plans (KB)

5.1. Congress exhibition

5.2. Technical program

5.3. Plenary & Special Sessions

5.4. Other Matters

6. Review of Technical Commissions (LF/JT)

7. ISPRS Publications

7.1 Journal (LF)

7.2 Bulletin (JT)

7.3 Home Page (JT)

7.4 Logo

8. Inter-Organizational Activities (LF/JT)

8.1 COPUOS & UNISPACE III

8.2 CIPA

8.3 CEOS

8.4 FAO

8.5 Sister Societies

8.6 UN , OICC

9. ISPRS Membership (JT)

9.1. Ordinary Members

9.2. Associate Members

9.3. Sustaining Members

9.4. Regional Members

9.5. Action on Members in arrears

10. Financial Affairs (HR/AG)

10.1.Treasurer's Report

10.2.Financial Commission Report

10.3.Financial Commission Guidelines

11. Awards

11.1.Brock

11.2.Young Authors

11.3.Best Posters

11.4.Dolezal

11.5.Others

12. General Assembly Plans

13. Council Activities Reports (Council)

14. Actions of Council (JT)

15. Next Meeting (KB)

16. Adjournment (LF)

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MINUTES

1. Opening

1.1 Remarks

President Lawrence Fritz welcomed all members of the ISPRS Council and thanked them for their attendance. The purpose of the meeting is to:

· Finalise the Strategic Plan including the method of financing the proposed expenditures

· Discuss relationships with other organizations

· Review and finalise plans for the Congress

· Determine Awards to be presented at the Congress

· Review ISPRS publications.

· Plan the General Assembly agenda

2. Approval of Agenda

The Agenda was approved.

3. Review of minutes of Council meeting in Delft, The Netherlands

Comments were made on the following items by JT.

Item 3: the request for the Commission Presidents (TCPs) to supply draft Resolutions by mid-February for ISAC review was not fulfilled and hence will require completion at the Joint Meeting (JM)

Item 5.4: editorial corrections were made to the first line

Item 7.1: the experts requested to assist in the UNDCP project by UN-OOSA are not required.

Item 7.3: KB was not able to attend the CEOS Industry Forum meeting during the IAF Congress in Amsterdam in October 1999.

4. Policy Discussions

4.1 Strategic Plan Implementation

A summary of the results of the review of the Strategic Plan document is as follows:

Action 2-1: Combine ‘Very active participation’ and ‘Active participation’ and change ‘No participation’ to ‘Potential participation’. Some organisations within these groups were added, moved or removed.

Action 2-2: The Secretary General needs to maintain contact with the ISPRS representatives at the ISO TC/211 meetings, so that appropriate feedback from the meeting on items of specific interest to ISPRS can be obtained.

Action 00/296: JT to maintain contact with ISO TC/211 representatives.

Action 00/297: LF to redraft Action 3-4 on Individual Membership

Action 4-1b will be postponed until next term.

Action 4-3a: JT to place the completed color posters on the Home Page and to provide Council with the costs to create them.

Action 4-3b will be deleted.

Action 5-2 – a sponsor should be sought to support this activity.

Action 5-4a – this task has been completed, but it requires formatting to improve presentation.

Action 00/298: HR to request education database from Tania Sausen and arrange revision for improvements in presentation by hiring a student.

Action 5-4c - Commission VI to report annually to Council on implementation of database updates.

Action 6-1 – LF to add ‘Seek sponsorship’ for this item and the matter should be placed on the agenda at the Sustaining Members meeting in Amsterdam.

Action 00/299: KB to place Sponsorship of ‘end-to-end GIS applications database’ on Sustaining Members meeting agenda.

Action 00/300: Strategic Plan knowledge to be conveyed to new Council as soon as possible after the Congress to ensure continuity of purpose.

Action 00/301: The IPAC and ISAC terms of reference are to be added to the Silver Book.

Financing of Strategic Plan initiatives

MB described the process in IAF for developing a contractual agreement between the Federation and the organiser of the annual IAF conference. It was agreed that ISPRS should establish a contract between ISPRS and the Ordinary Members responsible for organising the Congress and mid-term Symposia, which would explicitly clarify the commitments and responsibilities of the Ordinary Members to ISPRS in organising such meetings.

As part of the Strategic Plan for the Society, a decision was made to levy all paid registrants (amount to be finalised) at each Congress and Symposia. The above contract would include details of this levy. The Chair of the Financial Commission recommended that the submission to the General Assembly (GA) for endorsement of this levy should be supported by appropriate documentation of a package of expenditure items from the proceeds of the levy. Typical examples suggested were:

(i) Cost of operating the ISPRS Headquarters

(ii) Young authors awards

(iii) Advisory support to Congress & Symposia

(iv) Support of persons from developing countries

(v) Projects undertaken by WGs

(vi) Supply of data for experiments

(vii) Development of CDs of education programs

(viii) Development of Web page links and the cost of operating the Home Page

(ix) Preparation of a book series

(x) Maintenance of the Education Database

(xi) Costs to collaborate with external organizations

The President’s document on the Strategic Plan for ISPRS will be printed for the Congress and provided to all participants in the Congress satchels. It will also be a topic of discussion at the Plenary Session following the Opening Session.

4.2 Statutes and Bylaws revision

The Bylaws mailed to Ordinary Members in January were modified as follows:

· Bylaw IX.2 was amended to: The National Member organizing the Congress shall sign a contract with the Society and be responsible for … The bidders for the Congress should be provided with a copy of the draft contract.

Action 00/302: JT to prepare a draft contract between ISPRS and organisers of the Congress and the Symposia

· Bylaw XI.2 was amended to include a second sentence: No alternates or proxies are allowed.

· Bylaw XI.10 (g) was modified slightly to: meeting and a summary financial …

- Bylaw XIII.2 was determined at the Joint Meeting (see JM minutes, Attachment A) and will be included in the document presented to the General Assembly.

There will be no changes to Bylaws, as recommended by the Ordinary Member from Germany, on the types of events at which awards will be presented at the Congress, because flexibility is required in the programming of the plenary sessions at the Congress. This programming of presentation of awards is the responsibility of the Congress organisers and the Council. However, the conditions of each award, in respect of the events at which they should be presented, will be adhered to.

The suggestion by the Ordinary Member of UK for a modification to the Bylaws to include responsibilities of Ordinary Member Commission Correspondents was not considered necessary and should be presented as a Resolution.

Council agreed that if further suggestions for modifications to the Statutes and Bylaws are received, there will be no Council dialogue about them until the GA. The amendments to the Statutes and Bylaws will be voted on as a block if there are no objections or recommendations for change. Items singled out by the General Assembly for further consideration will be discussed separately by a committee of the interested parties set up the President, before further consideration by the General Assembly. No further amendments to the Statutes distributed to the Ordinary Members in January may be made without assent for consideration by the GA. Any amendments to the Bylaws must be provided to Ordinary Members at the Congress at least 48 hours in advance of the GA at which they will be discussed.

Action 00/303: MB to finalise Bylaws with rationale and send final document to JT

4.3 Resolutions-ISAC

The Resolutions were considered at the JM, under item 3.3. Details and actions on the Resolutions also included in the JM Minutes.

The revised Resolutions as determined at the JM will be send to the ISAC for advice.

Action 00/304: JT to collect draft Resolutions and send to SM

Action 00/305: SM to send Resolutions to ISAC for advice

Action 00/306: JT to thank TCPs for contributes on Resolutions, and inform them that the final versions of the Resolutions for presentation to the GA will be determined at Commission Business Meetings at the Congress in cooperation with the Resolutions Committee.

4.4 Others

International Center for Remote Sensing of Environment

The next symposium of ICRSE will be held in Argentina in 2002. The proposal that ICRSE should become a Permanent Committee of ISPRS appears to be acceptable to ICRSE, as indicated by JT, who attended the ICRSE committee meeting in Cape Town on 30 March. The agreement between ISPRS and ICRSE will be finalised between LF, the new chair of ICRSE, Alex Tuyahov and Jim Weber in the near future. Terms of reference and structure of the agreement were discussed and modified by Council.

Action 00/307: JT and LF to redraft the ToR of agreement between ISPRS and ICRSE for consideration by Council.

MoAs with SDH and CMSC

No response has been received from these bodies to the proposed MoA.

Action 00/308: JT to follow up the MoA letters with SDH and CMSC.

5. Amsterdam Congress Plans

5.1 Exhibit Program

The exhibit will comprise:

(i) commercial companies who pay the prescribed exhibition fee

(ii) scientific exhibitors which have a product or results of research/development to display using special equipment, such as a monitor

(iii) bidders for the next Congress

(iv) national members that will display details of developments in their country

Traditionally national members and scientific institutions have been given free exhibition space. However, increased marketing by some scientific institutions have required Council to revise this policy. It was decided that national members will be provided with 3 square meters for a display in poster form and a policy guideline will be defined for others.

Action 00/309: CD to define guidelines for those organisations that will be entitled to free display space.

5.2 Technical program

(i) Received abstracts total 1400, from which about 1000 final papers are expected.

(ii) The proposed Workshops have so far attracted very low registrations and hence some will be cancelled. The final date to make the decision to go ahead or cancel Workshops is 1 May. Enrolments in tutorials are reasonable and most of them should be able to run.

(iii) The Web site is being improved with the help of Lucas Janssen and Andre Steilein.