[WB-Discuss] Meeting Reorg

[Clayton Carter]

	Well, aside from a few out-of-towners, the only people on this
discuss list are those who were at our little prehearing meeting
yesterday (Wendy excepted).

	First things first, what happened at the hearing?  Anything
exciting?

	Secondly, to our problem of reenergizing the group, here's my
list of problems and possible solutions:

	1) Day/time
	2) Location
	3) Formality
	4) Work

	So, for (1) (2) and (3), I think the idea of different people
hosting the meetings at their home might make the meetings more
welcoming and interesting.  Not just to outsiders, either, but to us
as well.  To (1), week nights are bad for me, but that may well just
be me.  To (3), I think that staging the meetings with a social focus
would be good for our spirits.  We could have limited agendas for
business, and the rest would be open for discussion and/or eating.

	But (4) is really the key.  I think that if we scrapped our
focus on larger issues and events, we might be able to have larger
coverage.  For instance, if we had a five minute brainstorm at every
other meeting, we could think of small projects that one or two people
could tackle.  This is along the lines of Jai's idea.  I'm thinking of
things like letters to the editor, position papers, and endorsment
letters to other organizations, but Jai's idea of smaller events would
work just as well.  Projects that would help to make us more visible,
which then might help to bring in new blood.  I think that this is
important because it would let us feel like we're actually doing
something, but it can also give new folks a place to do some work with
having to commit to a lot of work.  Even if these smaller projects are
just pieces of larger ones, I think it would help tremendously.

	Well, OK, my thoughts are petering out now, but that gives you
the gist of my thinking.

C


-- 
Clayton Carter   crcarter at cs dot indiana dot edu