Call for Nominations - meetings

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

Meetings:
In the year following its proposed formation, the TC is expected to meet at 
[host, location, date; host, location, date; ... or other language 
describing meeting plans].
[OPTIONAL] The TC also intends to meet regularly by phone, [name of 
sponsoring company or other agency] having agreed to provide phone 
conference services.


This is going to be an interesting topic.

NIST have already volunteered their facilities to host meetings (thank 
you!), and there may be companies willing to host the costs for telephone 
meetings (please speak up!) ... but we first have to determine the nature 
and timing of these meetings.

The two kinds of meetings I think we need are:

   (1) - informational meetings where public is invited
   (2) - a meeting of voting members where motions are made, voted on, and 
recorded

I don't see why we can't conduct (2) during (1), though we may want to 
deliberate in private and only publicly record the decisions.

We need to schedule (2) but we needn't schedule (1) because these aren't 
formal committee meetings (let's call them get-togethers) ... though I 
still would like to publish the schedule for get-togethers so that the 
public can know when they can meet with the committee for input.

GCA conferences and other venues where OASIS meets would be excellent 
places for get-togethers.  We have a slot already reserved in Paris June 14 
at GCA Europe.  I will be at the Paris meeting so I can receive interested 
parties.  Is anyone else planning to be in Paris?  I am unable to attend 
the Montréal GCA conference August 13-17 and I'm *sure* there will be 
interested people there ... is anyone planning to be in Montréal?  We can 
play these by ear and whenever any of us are attending a conference we can 
let others know and see if it makes sense to have a get-together.

The schedule for voting meetings should, I think, be regular, but I don't 
think they have to be very frequent.  We can (theoretically) do a lot of 
deliberation by email and then only meet to do the voting.  Thankfully, we 
are only preparing a report and we do not need a lot of voting regarding 
the content of the report.  We aren't a process committee where we have 
numerous decisions to make on a constant basis.

We have to consider our international members as well:  it isn't as easy 
for them to attend a face-2-face, but also the teleconferencing 
capabilities are typically restricted to North America.  Travel may be a 
problem for some of us (I, for one, am independent so I don't have any 
company funding my efforts) ... thankfully, it isn't too much for me to 
make the odd trip to NIST's facilities near Washington D.C.

How about a voting meeting once every 3 months (should it be 2?)?  Say we 
finish this Call for Nominations by May 8, close the call by May 22, we 
could have our first meeting the week of June 5.  Perhaps our first meeting 
should be a face-2-face.

Early September we could have a teleconference.

Early December is XML'2000 in Washington ... we could do both a voting 
meeting and a get-together there.

Early March would be another teleconference (winter weather could interfere).

That would make 4 meetings in the year ahead ... provided our work even 
*goes* that long.  It would be nice if we had a deliverable by December so 
we could announce it at XML'2000.  I don't think it is reasonable to expect 
to be completed anything before then ... XML Conformance proved the process 
to be long and tedious.  The March meeting could address issues that come 
up from public comment on our December delivery.

So, then, I propose:

   Early June - face-to-face - Washington, D.C. - NIST
   Early September - teleconference
   Early December - face-to-face - Washington, D.C. - XML'2000
   Early March - teleconference

This, of course, depends on someone being able to sponsor the 
teleconferences.  If they were willing to support two additional 
teleconferences, then we could have a meeting every 2 months:

   Early June - face-to-face - Washington, D.C. - NIST
   Early August - teleconference
   Early October - teleconference
   Early December - face-to-face - Washington, D.C. - XML'2000
   Early February - teleconference
   Early April - teleconference

I think Roberts allows us to call extraordinary voting meetings with 
appropriate notice, so if something is really necessary, we can convene a 
meeting.

What are your ideas?

............... Ken

--
G. Ken Holman                    mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
Crane Softwrights Ltd.             http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/m/
Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0   +1(613)489-0999   (Fax:-0995)
Web site: XSL/XML/DSSSL/SGML services, training, libraries, products.
Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath      ISBN 1-894049-04-7
Next instructor-led training:    2000-05-02,2000-05-11/12,2000-05-15,
-                                    2000-06-12,2000-06-13,2001-01-27