The Ada-Europe Board, through a nominated Ada-Europe Board member, provides a point of contact for all conferences and hence experience gained is retained and reused. The conferences and exhibitions are open to the Ada community worldwide.
All direct and indirect members of Ada-Europe
whose names have
been made known by their Associate member receive a discount at
Ada-Europe
conferences.
Ada-Europe has a Memorandum of Understanding with SIGAda regarding cooperation at conferences. As part of this cooperation, Ada-Europe invites representatives of SIGAda to the annual conference as guests of Ada-Europe and, similarly, SIGAda invites representatives of Ada-Europe to the SIGAda conference.
Current activity concerning standardization is at
an
international level and is focused on the national bodies that are
members of
ISO. Ada-Europe has established a category C organisational liaison
with ISO
JTC1/SC22/WG9, which allows for direct involvement of Ada-Europe and
its
members in the standardization effort.
In preceding years Ada-Europe has undertaken a major initiative producing a consolidated Reference Manual for Ada that incorporates the language changes by an Amendment to the language definition, now expected to be approved by ISO in late 2006 or early 2007. Ada-Europe is the holder of the copyright of this Reference Manual and will endeavour to promote its widespread availability. Electronic versions of the Reference Manual will be freely available. Ada-Europe will also cause a printed version of the manual to become available in the Springer LNCS series soon after ISO has approved the Amendment to the standard. At present, it is unclear whether the approved plan to distribute the revised Ada Reference Manual to all its members of the 2006/2007 membership year can be executed in the 2006 calendar year. It may have to be postponed into 2007.
Ada-Europe will consider providing grants to support activities in connection with the liaison with ISO JTC1/SC22/WG9 for direct involvement in the standardization efforts.
Another means of providing support is by grants to other organizing
bodies. For example, Ada-Europe has provided grants in the past to
workshops on topics of real-time programming. Conditions that must be
satisfied are that the organising body is based in Europe, that the
event is located in Europe, that the event promotes the use of Ada,
that it is run on a not-for-profit basis, and that a report of 4-6
pages is produced suitable for publication. Applications for grants
should be sent to the President.
The Board is concerned at the cost of holding Board meetings which results from the high cost of international travel which is inevitable given its constitution. Much of the work of the Board is carried out through electronic mail. Whenever possible, the Board meets at events, such as its own conferences, where many Board members are likely to be present. In electing directors to the Board, the members are urged to consider the likelihood of those elected being able to attend meetings without incurring additional costs for Ada-Europe.
Ada-Europe has a significant cash balance, in part due to profits from past conferences and the Sponsorship program established in 2002. Nevertheless it is prudent to retain adequate reserves for the future. Still, the Board recommends deferring the increase of the membership fees by 5 Euros, as proposed since 2001, to 2008.