Subject: Please volunteer to keep minutes for IAOC and IETF Trust

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2011 15:54:26 -0400

Dear colleagues,

At IETF-80 in Prague, there was a call for volunteers to be an
occasional scribe for the IAOC and IETF Trust.  Until the IETF-81
meeting, I was one of the three people who produce the minutes for the
IAOC and Trust; but I can't continue to do it because of some
conflicting commitments.

I'm writing to encourage you to volunteer.  The IAOC and Trust both
perform an important role in the operation of the IETF.  (You can
learn more at http://iaoc.ietf.org/).

The work isn't terribly onerous -- meetings happen every two weeks,
but with three people on the team you have to take a meeting on
average only once every six weeks.  There is an important commitment
of time immediately around a meeting, however, where you need to get
the minutes into shape to send out fairly quickly.

If you think you might be interested in serving on the IAOC and Trust,
taking minutes would be an excellent way to get prepared to do it.
And if you just like to know secrets (you get to learn what meeting
sites are under consideration, for instance!), it's an excellent way
to learn about the inner workings of the IETF.  On top of that, you
get to work with the clever and IETF-experienced members of the IAOC
and Trust.  If you are not deeply experienced with the IETF, this is a
great way to understand what is going on under the hood.

The meetings are conducted on the phone in English.  You don't need to
be able to do transcription; rather, what you need to be able to do is
summarize the thrust of a conversation and capture conclusions.  If
you were the sort of person who had the notes everyone else wanted
when you were in school, you'll do fine with this.  Note that meetings
are conducted in English, and if fast-paced discussion in English is
hard for you to follow on the phone, you might find this task very
taxing.

I hope you'll consider volunteering.  The other scribes will be nice
to you if you do!  The IAOC members, the IAD (Ray Pelletier), and the
other scribes (Suresh Krishnan and Karen O'Donoghue) have certainly
been nice to me.  They have also been extremely patient with me when
my other obligations caused me not to produce my minutes in a timely
fashion.  I'm grateful.

If you want to do this, and want more information, send me email or
corner me at the meeting this week (I arrive Sunday night well after
the reception, but I'll be around until Friday).  I'll tell you
everything I can.  If you just want to volunteer and don't need any
more information, your best bet is to contact Ray at <[email-masked]>.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]