Dear RIPE NCC members, The RIPE NCC Activity Plan and Budget 2018 is now available. This definitive document has been approved by the RIPE NCC Executive Board with input from the RIPE NCC membership. It outlines the work we will undertake in the coming year and the associated costs for each activity. The document is available at: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-693 An overview of the main points from this year's Activity Plan and Budget are: - The RIPE NCC’s Budget will increase by 7% (largely due to Registry Maintenance, Training, IT and Information Security, DNS and K-root Operations, and Finance and Administration) - There is a forecast revenue increase of 15% in 2018 due to the increasing membership - The RIPE NCC plans to increase its FTE count by 4% in 2018 (from 149 to 155) - The membership fee will remain at EUR 1,400 - There is an anticipated surplus of EUR 6.3 million to potentially be redistributed to the membership - The cost per LIR is expected to be EUR 1,435 down from EUR 1,569 in the 2017 Budget Based on developments over the past few months, feedback the Executive Board received from the membership at the General Meeting (GM) and through other feedback mechanisms, changes were made since the draft Activity Plan and Budget was introduced in September. On the final page of the Activity Plan and Budget is a new Appendix 5, which outlines the changes that were made to the draft version published in September. Appendix 5 notes that there is additional Income of kEUR 491 in service fees and independent resource fees based on actual membership levels, as well as additional sponsorship income for MENOG meetings. It also notes additional budget of 481 kEUR for Operational Expenditures. Full details on all the changes are available in the Appendix. The Executive Board notes that questions arose at the RIPE NCC General Meeting in October that ask for more information on the RIPE NCC's longer-term outlook and strategy to ensure scalability and efficiency, including financial analyses and scenarios for the coming years. The Board is committed to providing information in this area and we will inform the membership when we are ready to present this. We are examining current market trends and we will provide scenarios and analysis based on this in 2018. Kind regards, Axel Pawlik Managing Director RIPE NCC