1. IARU Region 1 General Conference 2020
An overview

2. The Plan
10-16 October 2020 in Hotel Park, Novi Sad, Serbia
Milestones:
May 2019: sign hotel contract and pay advance
10 October 2019: send advance notice and call for working papers
By 10 January 2020: MS to notify number of participants
10 March 2020: Applications for financial assistance from MS – tight criteria for support – must show real activity
10 June 2020: final attendance forms due date
10 July 2020: input docs submitted to secretariat
1 August 2020: docs published on conference server

3. The Conference Backdrop
Member Societies:
Struggling with growth/new members
Not getting enough young people engaged in amateur radio and reshaping society activities
Inadequate level of support from, and interaction with, Regulators
Increasing national demand for spectrum from other users
Increasingly hostile EMC environment
Limited/no involvement in National Standards Organisations
Historically IARU has been the prime focus for representing amateur view (to ITU, CEPT and other RTOs, CISPR, ETSI)
Now we need intense involvement at national level
IARU itself and some member societies under some threat from “second societies” like EURAO

4. Against that context, how do we spend our time at General Conference?
Lots of detailed papers for three days, many of which could probably be discussed via other forums? or
Focused discussion and workshops on a few “big” issues, with action-oriented outputs which will affect amateur radio for the next decades?
The Executive Committee believes it should be the second of these and will be asking Member Societies for support

5. Remember Landshut? Recommendation LA17_C2_Rec_02
If the number of members in the Member Societies of Region 1 does not increase significantly until 2020, the annual fee per member is going to be adjusted in order to balance the budget outline for IARU Region 1, which has not been done for the last 18 years

6. How it could work
MS invited to contribute papers summarising their progress on growth including youth programs, working on second society issues, and developing relationships with national regulators and national standards committees
Structured workshops addressing:
Implementation of youth activities in countries
Developing a working relationship with regulators/NSOs
Projecting the case for amateur radio
Outreach techniques for amateur radio
Strengthening member societies
Young people an integral part of the Conference

7. What this could do Get some real commitment to:
Actions that will support the growth agenda for amateur radio
Actions that will improve the standing of amateur radio with regulators, NSOs and the European Commission
Ways of keeping momentum on initiatives

8. Summary
The EC believes that the 2020 Conference should be a “new dawn” for our conferences, generating real energy to pursue strategic initiatives across the Region.
Do you support this?
If so, we will formally propose this to all Member Societies in the next two weeks, so that planning on the new basis can be done
If not – what do you see as the critical issues for discussion at Conference with a total cost for us of Euro 150,000 ?