Jacob Malthouse wrote:
back when I was doing environmental work, we used to jump at the chance to meet in person. In my experience it's always better to sit round a table and hash out the issues face to face, agree on next actions and jump into the next meeting on the front foot. Plus you get a chance to meet interesting people, have a couple of beers, and make friends!
Hi Jacob, I share your sentiment. As part of an newer ALS with next to zero travel budget of its own, we want to maximize our participation. We don't regularly attend these meetings so we need them to be meaningful and have some planning behind them. The social element is important, but I would expect that in face meetings have specific deliverables and are usually the end of a process rather than the start of one. To get maximum value out of the few face-to-face meetings, I would suggest making more use of tools such as conference calls. It would also be nice to have some more confidence in the funding process for the meetings deemed important enough to subsidize; there is a subtle but real difference between "it would be nice if you could attend this meeting" and "we really want you at this meeting; we'll cover travel costs". Cheers, Evan Leibovitch Executive Director CLUE