Greetings from Brazil, Today the XVI Session of the General Assembly of IARU Region II concluded. Your ARRL delegation has been quite active in all of the activities and has provided valuable input to the various committees. The Final Plenary was held today and action was taken on the committee reports and recommendations. Tonight we will attend a banquet hosted by LABRE, our sister society in Brazil hosting the conference. Tomorrow, most of us will be returning to the U.S. tomorrow evening. Because of travel connections we won’t actually arrive back in the U.S. until Sunday afternoon. Frank Butler and I are on the same flight to Atlanta. We leave Brasilia at 10 AM tomorrow morning but then have an 11 hour layover in Sao Paulo for our flight to Atlanta. Here is a summary, prepared by Dave K1ZZ, of the action taken by the final plenary. Committee A dealing with administrative matters reported first and made a number of recommendations for Conference action, all of which were adopted. They include: * A Region 2 Relief Fund was established with an initial transfer of US$5,000.00 from the general reserve of Region 2, with additional contributions to be solicited. The Fund will be administered by the Executive Committee and will be available solely to assist Region 2 member societies whose club stations and buildings, including antenna systems, are damaged by natural disaster. * Several recommendations from the Region 2 Working Group on Emergency Communications were adopted. These include establishing an Emergency Communications Committee that will be responsible to the Executive Committee for carrying out planning, training, and the maintenance of equipment and personnel inventories for emergency assistance deployment. * To improve communication among the member societies and the Executive Committee, the Executive Committee is to develop a conference call process for Region 2 with objectives, action plans, due dates, and score cards. * An offer by Radio Club Argentino to be responsible for translation into Spanish of the IARU Region 2 electronic bulletin was accepted. * Terms of reference for the Amateur Radio in Education Project that was adopted by the 15th General Assembly in 2004 were revised slightly to simplify the grant application process and encourage applications. * The Conference recognized Wolf Baron, TI2BY, for outstanding service to amateur radio by conducting on-the-air training on Sunday mornings for more than five years. Committee A was chaired by Norma Leiva, HR2NL. Jonathan V. Siverling, WB3ERA served as secretary and interpreter. ARRL Delegate Dave Sumner was assigned to Committee A. The report of Committee B/C, a combined technical and operational committee dealing with both HF and VHF/UHF matters, was received next. This committee was chaired by Ramón Santoyo, XE1KK, with Paul Rinaldo, W4RI serving as secretary. ARRL Delegates assigned to Committee B/C were Kay Craigie and Frank Butler. The Plenary adopted all of the Committee’s recommendations, including: * A new Region 2 band plan for 160 – 10 meters was adopted, effective January 1, 2008. The new plan is modeled on one adopted previously by IARU Region 1, with regional differences taken into account. * Steps were taken to try to reduce interference to national emergency nets, including establishing an inventory of such nets and calling their importance to the attention of the radio amateur community. * An IARU Region 2 Diploma was approved, with some details remaining to be worked out by the Executive Committee. * Bill Hays, WJ5O was appointed Region 2 HF Beacon Coordinator, replacing Peter Jennings, VE3SUN, who wished to step down. The next report was from Committee D, the Finance Committee, chaired by Treasurer Noel Donawa, 9Y4NED. I was the ARRL Delegate assigned to Committee D. The Plenary accepted two recommendations from Committee D. The first is an effort to reach out to member societies that have fallen behind in meeting their dues obligations to Region 2. They are being offered the opportunity to pay their back dues through 2006 at a 25% discount if they do so by January 15, 2008. The Plenary also directed the Executive Committee to study the existing dues structure along with options and alternatives and to report to the next General Assembly. The Conference accepted the offer of the Club de Radio Aficionados de El Salvador (CRAS) to host the 17th General Assembly in 2010. The last order of business for the delegates was the election of officers and other Executive Committee members for the next three years. Rod Stafford, W6ROD, declined to stand for re-election as President but will remain a Director. Moving to the office of President is Secretary Reinaldo Leandro, YV5AMH. Dario Jurado, HP1DJ was re-elected Vice President and Noel Donawa, 9Y4NED was re-elected Treasurer and Director. Newly elected as Secretary and joining the Executive Committee for the first time is Ramón Santoyo, XE1KK. The other Directors were re-elected: Daniel A. Lamoureux, VE2KA, Pedro Rodriguez, CO2RP, Marco Tulio Gudiel, TG9AGD, Gustavo de Faria Franco, PT2ADM, and Ron Szama, LU2AH. A provision of the Bylaws was amended to permit the Executive Committee to consist of ten members rather than the customary nine. The conferees expressed their deep appreciation to LABRE, host of the 16th General Assembly, for its outstanding hospitality. The conference was attended by 40 delegates and observers representing 18 countries in the Americas, 11 in person and 7 by proxy. 73 Joel W5ZN ARRL President & Principal Delegate