This post was first published in ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz.

In January the ICAI Board began to develop its Business Plan for 2014, based on the strategic framework and budget included in the 2013 plan that were re-affirmed by the General Assembly in December. We aim to finalise this and circulate it to members for information in February.

We are grateful to 40 respondents so far who have offered their feedback by our online survey on the December online regional gatherings and GA, and particularly the 21 who had not participated in those meetings. This was designed to help the ICAI Board to make this year’s gatherings and GA more inclusive and more effective. Our conclusion at the January Board meeting is to keep doing the Adobe Connect meetings this year, because those who attend appreciate them and are increasingly familiar with the technology. We will try to make them more inclusive by looking into free-phone audio options and by supporting people to improve their internet access or to attend the meeting from somewhere where access is better. However we will do this format of adobe meetings only twice in June and twice in December, instead of three times in each of March, July & December, to allow extra time to support the regions to experiment with other approaches such as google hangout, Skype or simple tele-conferencing.  For the GA we will use adobe for the meeting but do the voting by surveymonkey over 10 days to allow everyone to vote.

The Board has announced a special General Assembly meeting to be held 1-2pm UK time on Wednesday 26 February.  This special meeting will be to discuss and vote on a resolution to revise the ICAI Bylaws, as discussed at the GA in December.  Some minor revisions are needed in order to comply with new requirements under Canadian law  for all Canadian-registered non-profits such as ICAI to obtain a ‘Continuance” in order to continue. The one hour meeting will be held online using Adobe Connect, to allow for questions and discussion as needed, and representatives of statutory ICAs in particular are encouraged to attend.  For the voting we will use surveymonkey, and allow 10 days for responses from the time of the meeting, so that all statutory ICAs are able to vote even if they cannot attend the meeting. Please ask for details if you are interested and have not received them.

I was in New York last week attending a conference, and was able to take the opportunity to collect a UN grounds pass and attend a briefing session on behalf of ICAI for NGOs with consultative status. Also I was glad to meet with Larry Philbrook and Seva Gandhi on Monday, as they were there also to deliver a course.

We have been shocked and saddened by the sudden and unexpected death last week of Wayne Nelson of ICA Associates in Canada. Our thoughts are with Jo and his family, and also his close ICA colleagues in Canada.  Wayne has been greatly involved and supportive of ICAI over his long years with ICA globally and in Canada, and will be sorely missed.