Face to Face Meetings - NEED FUNDING/COMMITMENT

[Elysa Jones <ejones@warningsystems.com>]

Friends,

As you know we have been planning and hoping for some extended F2F 
meetings to be held along with the upcoming TCIP conference.  The 
purpose of these sessions is to further the technical work on 
Situation Reporting and the Distribution Element.  We had hoped and 
have need for 2 full days for Sit-rep and one full day for the 
DE.  While much good work is done in the conference calls, it has 
been our experience that meeting face to face for an extended period 
typically allows us the time to make huge progress.  Both the Msg/Not 
SC for Sit Rep and If SC for the DE felt they were ready for such a session.

We have learned that DHS/S&T will be able to provide one full day of 
meeting rooms on Monday 1/1/09 at the TCIP conference.  No other 
support for travel, expenses or amenities for the room are going to 
be available.  I am willing to bring a speaker phone, overhead PC 
projector and Evotechs is able to provide a VOIP phone line for the 
day if the hotel cost for a phone is prohibitive.  The hotel has 
meeting rooms over the prior weekend that I could secure for $500 per 
day and the hotel rooms are $153 per night.  I am going to continue 
to pursue any funding source available to try to get the full time we 
need to move our work forward.

The Sit/Rep group have agreed to provide their time all day Sat and 
Sun to further their work.  Given the lack of funding, I'm asking 
this group two things:  1) Are you or your companies willing to also 
fund your travel and expenses to go to Philadelphia on Fri, work Sat 
and Sun on this Specification?  2) Do you know of any organization 
that will help with funding any part of this, e.g., meals, travel, rooms?

The DE meeting will be all day on the Monday prior to the 
conference.  Again two questions 1) are you able to attend this 
meeting from 8-5 on 1/1/10?  2) Are you aware of any organization 
that would help fund any part of this?

Many agencies and of course the public serve to benefit by the work 
we are doing in the Emergency Management Technical Committee, 
DHS/S&T, DHS/FEMA, D0D, DNDO, NOAA/NWS, DHS/CIO, Environment Canada 
as well as all the member companies.  We have the OASIS Member 
Section (MS) that is structured to allow for any organization to put 
money in the MS to further the work of the technical standards.  I 
will likely be able to get the Member Section to provide $2,500 
toward the meeting rooms for the weekend and possibly some food 
during the sessions.  That is the full amount currently budgeted for 
technical work given the money we have.  However, I will lobby for 
more during our meeting this Friday.

We are not asking for money to pay travel expenses for those already 
planning to attend TCIP, just for those who are not.  We are asking 
for money to support the meeting rooms, hotel rooms and expenses 
associated with the travel.  For the key participants, my rough 
estimation is $8,500 to conduct both Sit/Rep and DE technical 
sessions.  The DE only would be on the order of 2,500.  These are 
very rough estimates as I do not know how many of your are able to 
find some funding source on your own.

If you are a key contributor on either of these Specifications, 
please let me know the following:
1) are you planning to attend TCIP in any case?
2) do you have funding to cover the full day meeting on 1/1/10?
3) do you have funding to cover the full days 1/30, 1/31 (Sat/Sun)?

Question to all:
4) do you know of any company or organization that is willing to 
share in these expenses to promote the important work of Open 
Standards for Emergency Management

Thank you for all the hard work you do.  I know much, if not all of 
it for many of us, is volunteer time for which we have no contract 
support.  Your contributions are invaluable and are making the world 
a better place by promoting the open exchange of data sharing.

Kind regards,

Elysa Jones, Chair
OASIS EM-TC
CTO Warning Systems, Inc.
256-880-8702 x102
256-694-8702 mobile