--On Thursday, 14 March, 2013 14:03 +0000 Ted Lemon <Ted.Lemon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I think it might also be worth encouraging working group > chairs to have working group breakfast or lunch meetings (RSVP > required) where newcomers are invited to come meet the chairs > and chairs can strategically invite a few return attendees > (but fewer than newcomers so they don't get crowded out) to > establish a connection with the newcomers. If this became > common it would probably require tool work, but what do folks > think of the idea in principle? Fine plan if we can put a stop to having breakfast and lunch be the prime target for assorted management and coordination meetings. If I could have accepted every lunch meeting of that variety that was suggested, this would have been nine lunches in four days, and that excludes the ISOC presentation and Thursday talk. As an IESG member, your schedule is, or will rapidly get, worse than mine. I think that, if we wanted to do this in a serious way, we would ban both the ISOC (usually-Tuesday) presentation and the Thursday lunch talks and the IESG, IAB (and their various projects), and IAOC (and their various subcommittees) would need to stop treating breakfasts and lunches as the target of first choice. I would, however, favor conducting a lottery among, say, first-year attendees (but not first time unless they qualified by useful mailing list participation -- see my earlier comment and Spencer's response)-- and inviting the winners to sit in on IESG or IAB breakfast meeting, ideally with a mentor who could explain what is going on when needed. A similar lottery on the WG Chairs list or in a leadership training session might be equally helpful. It would provide an early and illuminating view of sausage-making. john