1. Membership.
Membership in the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) continued to grow, for the second consecutive year, after many years of declining membership.
Some of this growth can be attributed to the "Section Rebate Program", introduced in 1996, which rewards those local "sections" that have positive growth in the 12-month period prior to the end of our fiscal year. The reward is a rebate of $60 per net new member (sections remit $105 per member to the CIPS National Office; so, that reduces to $45). This puts more money in the hands of those who deal directly with the membership.
Some growth is also due to more aggressive marketing to students.
2. WCC2000.
Promotion of this event to CIPS members has commenced via our electronic newsletter. Other potentially interested parties will be contacted shortly.
3. WCC2002.
The Organizing Committee (OC) has begun the process of creating some sub-committees, starting with the Budget, Sponsorship, and Publicity committees.
4. Representation in TCs and WGs.
The "clean-up" has begun. It is our intention to have active participants, to publicize the Canadian IFIP TC/WG network, and to have TC/WG participants inform the National Society (CIPS) of their work. Hopefully, this will answer the question "Why are we members of IFIP?", and provide arguments for industry support, thereby permitting us to re-establish funding of TC/WG activity.
5. Marketing.
Since 1996, our goal has been and continues to be to increase membership in order to increase our credibility. Consequently, we are striving to demonstrate to members the value of our activities. Concurrently, we are being more active in communities and using such activity to get media attention.
5.1. For the past year, we have been contacting journalists (from IT publications, radio, and television) to make them aware of the expertise within our membership. A list of experts, in a number of subject areas, is regularly updated and circulated to the media in order to assist them with their research. This has been very successful.
5.2. We are making available, to charitable organizations, a free Y2K service whereby qualified CIPS members offer advise on the readiness of the systems.
5.3. We are also making available a list of "great Internet sites for kids".
6. Informatics versus Engineering.
The Engineering Institute in Quebec has requested that the provincial government amend its laws so that many IT activities, for example, project management, would become the domain of engineers.
Obviously, CIPS, through its partner in Quebec (FIQ), is opposing such changes in legislation.
7. Other.
7.1. CIPS has been invited by the IEEE Computer Society to participate in the development of the technical base for the discipline of software engineering. The result will be recorded in a document entitled "Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge".
7.2. CIPS and the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) have joined forces to sponsor the introduction of the International Computer Driving License into Canada.
7.3. A Canadian version of the EISS was published in October 1998 ( I have a copy of the document with me). The question now is "what’s next?".
George Boynton