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 This year's third and last VTS Board of Governors meeting was held at VTC2016-Fall in Montréal. The meeting started with a minute of silence in remembrance of long-standing Board Member and Standards Committee Chair Dennis Bodson, who passed away in July.
President Javier Gozálvez announced that the new VTS Resource Center has now gone live, and will host a wide range of educational material and videos, which is free for VTS members. Executive Vice President Alex Wyglinski was named the new Editor-in-Chief of the Society website, and has been assigned to replace Dennis in overseeing development of the new website, scheduled for launch by the end of the year. The aim is to also revamp the conference websites with the new look and feel if finance is available in 2017.
Treasurer Tom Rubinstein reported that the Society's finances were healthy. VTS had a number of proposals for 2017 under the IEEE rule that allows a portion of society reserves to be spent on new initiatives. However, this was subject to a limit across all societies, and since so many societies want to undertake initiatives next year, the amount that VTS can spend had been cut slightly.
The IEEE Baker Award has been discontinued, for which VTS was a sponsor. There was a proposal that VTS take over this award as a Society award, but it was felt that some of the kudos of being an IEEE award would be lost. We will be investigating the reasons for its discontinuation.
All VTS Editors-in-Chief—Mike Fang (Transactions), Klaus David (Magazine), Abbas Jamalipour (e-Newsletter) and Dave Michelson (Press series)—were present at the meeting and reported on their publications, which are all in good stead. Discussions focused on reducing the backlog in the Transactions, whose page budget was more than doubled this year to 9500 pages. It was agreed to publish an extra 500 pages in November, and, assuming the end-of-year budget is favorable, an extra 500 pages in December as well. Dave Michelson noted the opportunity for more people to get involved in the Press series. An ad is being prepared for the VT Magazine; to get involved please contact Dave directly at davem@ece.ubc.ca.
VP—Conferences JR Cruz reported that no cost-effective venue was available in Chicago, the chosen host city for VTC2017-Fall, so the BoG approved Toronto to host. The VPPC committee will decide between Beaufort, Eindhoven, and Newcastle for VPPC2017. For VTC in 2018, the Conference Committee is looking at Chicago for the fall and Portugal for the spring. Two outline proposals have been received for 2019—one each for spring and fall. Finally, the proportion of electrical papers at the Joint Rail Conference has increased from about 10% to about 30%.
Fabrice Labeau, VP—Membership, reported on a number of membership development activities that had taken place in conjunction with VTC2016-Spring in Nanjing. These events have been very successful in increasing Society membership.
Doug Coates, Publicity Chair, reported on recent social media activity. LinkedIn seems to be the platform of choice for members discussing relevant issues, with more activity than Twitter or Facebook. Members can join the LinkedIn group here.
VP—Motor Vehicles Loic Boulon reported on the VTS Motor Vehicle Challenge. One of the aims of this challenge is to increase VTS membership amongst VPPC attendees. The challenge will be launched at VPPC2016. The prize is a trip to VPPC2017.
A significant part of the afternoon was spent discussing various IEEE initiatives that VTS is involved in. These include the new 5G Initiative, the Smart Cities Initiative which is entering a transition stage, the Internet of Things Initiative which is in transition, a new initiative on Environmental Engineering, and Transportation Electrification which transitioned at the end of last year.
BoG Member James Irvine attended the first meeting of the 5G Initiative in Princeton, NJ. Activities in this initiative are just getting underway: its website http://5g.ieee.org/ launched in September. James has been appointed to the steering committee responsible for this portal. VTS members are encouraged to assist in the portal, or other initiative activities. Contact James (j.m.irvine@ieee.org), or VP—Mobile Radio Jae Hong Lee (jhlee@snu.ac.kl).
James also attended the Smart Cities transition meeting, but it is currently unclear what the transition option for this initiative will be. Discussions are planned to continue in the run-up to the IEEE Board Series in November. Javier reported that VTS had been invited to join the Transportation Electrification Initiative. VTS had originally declined involvement due to the high costs involved. Some of these costs had been reduced, but it was still unclear as to the financial arrangements surrounding conferences. No decision was taken pending further investigation. | 
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