On 07/11/2011 10:52, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
In most businesses I know of, when there is an expected revenue shortfall, cuts are made - either in salary, amount of manpower or in projects. I hope RIPE NCC has contingency plans in place.
Or, rather than cutting services to members, we use some of our reserves. That is likely what will happen here, although we will obviously have a look at trimming budgets where that doesn't affect member services. The RIPE NCC isn't strictly speaking "like most businesses". Our membership have a great say in what we do through the activity plan, the draft of which is usually published in May of every year. Membership discussion is always invited, and very seldom received. Next year we will be making the activity plan much clearer and will be showing the financial cost of at least each type of activity. Where warranted we will go down to the individual activity. The RIPE NCC has committed to this. In return, I would like members to commit to reading the activity plan and commenting on it. The activity plan feeds into the budget, which in turn feeds into the charging scheme. We need to get it right. Nigel