FORCES Project - Management Committee Minutes 08-09/09/98
The meeting was held at the BT Angel Centre, Islington, London with the participation of:
Action points arising from meetings are identified as AP/meeting/action/owner. This meeting was number 1.
It was agreed that role of minute secretary should be rotated between the committee members. R. Kett agreed to act as secretary for this meeting.
M. Calder (MC) is currently in hospital. The committee wishes her a speedy recovery. C. Grealish (CG) was unable to attend due to a previous commitment to attend a conference.
The agenda was approved, with the addition by D. Marples of consideration of a FORCES mission statement under AOCB.
The minutes of the 21/04/98 meeting were agreed, with no matters arising.
AP/0/5/ALL It was planned that project members set up collections of web pages (e.g. on their local work or on a subject of interest to them) that can be referenced from the main pages. It may be difficult for members from BT to set up pages outside their firewall without a considerable `BT quality overhead'. K. Turner stated that Stirling would be willing and able to host WWW pages on behalf of BT if required. Ongoing
AP/1/1/KT K. Turner is to register a site name such as www.forces.org.uk.
AP/0/6/KT&ALL K. Turner was to merge and unify bibliography entries on service creation and engineering for a central page. All partners are asked to contribute entries in whatever form, including URLs for documents that can be referenced. Ongoing
AP/0/7/EM E. Magill was to consider how workshop/colloquium money could be used to prepare a good quality `flier'. E. Magill will prepare the textual content. Ongoing
AP/1/2/DM D. Marples will organise the design of some reusable artwork (including a new FORCES logo) and an agreed mission statement to be used for the flier, the web-site and announcements in the press. S. Corley offered the use of BT's printing facilities. There was some discussion on the purpose of the flier and the best approaches to advertising. Mailshots were rejected as a way of attracting new members but the use of fliers as hand-outs at conferences was approved. The committee will try to have the flier ready for FIW'98 and the Programmable Networks Workshop.
AP/0/8/MT M. Calder was to prepare an initial announcement to be published in the Software Echo. M. Calder will prepare a 100-word summary ready for publication in any trade magazine willing to print such an announcement. K. Turner offered to take responsibility for this action if M. Calder is not well enough to do so within the next week. Suggestions were discussed for suitable trade magazines or news groups. The FITS List and the Communications News were proposed. Some consideration should be given to what kind of services the project wishes to cover, in order to determine suitable publications. Ongoing
AP/1/3/DM D. Marples to contact Fran Kruc at BT with regard to obtaining a list of appropriate trade publications.
AP/0/10/DM Atlantech was mentioned as a possible new SME partner. It was suggested that CITEL might have some ideas for new SME partners. D. Marples agreed to contact some SMEs that he had in mind. However, he was keen that FORCES agree a mission statement soon, so that he can approach the SMEs with a concise statement of what the purpose of the forum is. Ongoing
AP/0/11/MT M. Calder was to approach Scottish Enterprise for new SME partners. D. Marples suggested that M. Calder contact Ken Sutherland (01506-497-496) who is now working at Scottish Enterprise. Ongoing
The next meeting will be held on/between 4th and 5th February 1999. The formal meeting will probably occupy a single day with the option of having a more informal/social gathering on the afternoon/evening before. This will provide an opportunity for business to be conducted `in the bar', so to speak. D. Marples felt that this would aid the exchange of information and ideas.
AP/1/4/RK R. Kett offered to arrange meeting rooms in one of BT's central London sites again.
AP/1/5/EM E. Magill agreed to propose a plan for the format of meeting to the members of the committee. It was felt that in general terms the meeting should act as a workshop rather than a formal conference with the objective of generating discussion.
The meeting will be held over a day or two days between the 6th and 10th September 1999.
AP/1/6/KT K. Turner will investigate the possibility of holding the meeting at the IEE premises in Savoy Place.
There was some discussion as to the best format for the colloquium. One suggestion was to advertise a debate, with the topic(s) being published well in advance. An invited panel would consider arguments from key speakers and the floor and respond with a considered judgement. An invitation to a senior figure from BT's R&D programme was raised as a possibility. Other suggestions included having a poster session and organising a dinner/cocktail evening.
The project has funds to support two new academic partners as full members. There is money available for SMEs also. It was agreed that existing members have 1 month (until 5th October) to nominate to K. Turner any academic establishments that they would wish to approach with the offer of membership. K. Turner will collate and circulate these suggestions. A transferable vote will be used to decide which two establishments are approached. The `next choice vote' will be used in the event that an establishment is unable or unwilling to join the project in the role of full member.
The committee discussed the possible ways in which members could communicate in a conference. Academic partners have access to ATM video-conferencing, but connectivity to the industrial sites may not be possible.
AP/1/7/ALL All partners to investigate video-conferencing facilities and interoperability.
S. Corley suggested that the members use Text Chat, a freeware IRC client that is easy to install (2 minutes on a PC). The reflector distributes text to all members of the conference in near real time.
AP/1/8/SC S. Corley to distribute the instructions for obtaining and installing the client software to all members.
The wording of the FORCES mission statement was considered without reaching an agreement.
AP/1/9/DM&SC D. Marples and S. Corley will formulate a mission statement from the text on the Web site, and circulate to the committee members for comment/approval.
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