Dear colleagues, The RIPE NCC Executive Board held its 104th meeting on 10 December 2015. The draft minutes of this meeting are now available: https://www.ripe.net/about-us/executive-board/minutes/2015/minutes-104th-exe... The Executive Board publishes the minutes of its meetings so that the workings of the Board and the decisions it makes are transparent for the membership that it represents. The following is a summary of the main items from the meeting. Further details are available in the minutes: - The Board decided to retain a 150 kEUR margin in redistribution of the surplus to ensure the RIPE NCC remains within the acceptable limit set by the tax authorities. - The Board asked the RIPE NCC to move forward in joining the SEED Alliance while keeping the RIPE Academic Cooperation Initiative (RACI) initiative separate from it. - The Board tasked the RIPE NCC with preparing substantive data and possible procedural changes for dealing with multiple LIRs per member. This is to be discussed with the membership in preparation for the May 2016 General Meeting. - The Board approved the draft RIPE NCC Activity Plan and Budget 2016 including the proposed changes. - Based on discussions at RIPE 71, the Board agreed to wait for further information from the IETF on details of the planned financial structure of the IETF endowment fund before moving ahead on any proposals to make a donation to the fund. - The RIPE NCC Board offered a tribute to the outstanding work of Rob Blokzijl, RIPE Chair Emeritus, and acknowledged his enormous contribution to both RIPE and the RIPE NCC since their inception. You can give feedback on the minutes by emailing the Executive Board directly at <exec-board@ripe.net>. RIPE NCC members can also discuss matters among the entire membership by emailing <members-discuss@ripe.net>. Kind regards Axel Pawlik Managing Director RIPE NCC