Practical Information - Timeline/ Operations Please Comment

Expected Timeline

· Preliminary Meeting 26 Dec 2009

· Steering group meeting on inception/workplan 30 Dec 2009

· Feedback through blog/other means 3 Jan 2010 – 10 Jan 2010

· Review by steering group 10 Jan 2010 – 16 Jan 2010

· Presentation to wider audience feedback 16 Jan 2010

· Refinement/ Revision 16 Jan 2010 – 31 Jan 2010

· Presentation to wider audience for adoption 1 Feb 2010

· Registration of organization 01 Feb – 15 Feb 2010

· Open for member registration 15 Feb 2010 – 28 Feb 2010

· Election of executive Week of 01 Mar 2010

· Inauguration of organization Week of 08 Mar 2010

Operations/ Funding

· We propose that functional areas of operation – such as Membership, Public Awareness, Research and Standards be the responsibility of separate council members and that within a certain period from election the council should present an action plan for their term of office within the broad mandate assigned to them by the general membership.

· With many different professions under the organization it would seem to make sense to have some groupings within the organization to look at issues specific to such a grouping. E.g Construction and Project Management; Energy including Mechanical and Electrical Engineering; Architecture; Environment.

· We propose that a dedicated secretariat be responsible to run the daily affairs of the association under the direction of the President/Council. This could initially be a single part-time person which could be enhanced on a demand basis.

· Office space should be provided for the association. We propose an office space which can house a secretariat and a small meeting room for council meetings. If it makes more sense to have this in the offices of one of the professionals, this could be done.

· Manning the office and having dedicated office space obviously entails a significant funding requirement. We suggest that a monthly operational fund of around d 10,000MVR would be required.

· Other activities could probably only be funded through sponsorship during the initial months