Minutes of project meeting March 1996 AAIR Project No PL 94-2392

Present:

Activities of the Meeting

1. Opening

2. Review of the last 6 months.

It was noted that progress has been extremely good over the last six months, reflected in the interesting presentations of results by participants and the ensuing discussions.

3. Reporting, coordination and meetings

a. Following the production of the annual report, the feedback from Brussels was that they were very pleased with progress so far.

b. It was agreed that there should be a longer time for inter-Task discussions at project meetings, and that perhaps an half day, or a full day should be added to the meetings to allow this.

c. Some difficulty was noted in summarising Sub-task reports by Task Leaders, particularly with respect to the highlighting of aspects outwith the Task Leaders area of expertise. It was concluded from the ensuing discussion that the responsibility for drawing out key points for inclusion in the Task report lay with individual Participants. Participants should therefore highlight the key aspects and ensure that the report has been sent to the Task Leader with sufficient time for checking and feedback. It was suggested that there should be longer gaps in time between the various submission stages and the production of the report. Two weeks was deemed to be an appropriate time delay between Sub-task submissions and submissions by Task Leaders, to allow task leaders to produce Task reports and have them checked by Sub-task leaders.

• ACTION: All. The Participants should highlight any aspect which should be mentioned in the Task Leader's report in advance and should inform the Coordinator, Task and Sub- task leaders of any problems, delays and modifications well in advance.

• ACTION: Task Leaders. Task summaries to be sent to Participants for checking and editing.

• ACTION: Seppo Kellomaki. To produce a timetable of submission dates of reports for the next deadline.

  
  

  d. Problems were reported with the conversion between word processing packages with respect to maintaining the layout and formatting. There was some discussion about the value of passing text only files. To facilitate this, it was agreed that Participants reports should retain complex formatting and equations, but that submissions of Sub-task reports to Task leaders should be done via plain text files. It was also agreed that provision of a common template would ease transfer and collation of the reports.

• ACTION: All. To submit Sub-task reports as plain text without equations and complex formatting, but to retain equations, diagrams etc in the Participant Report.

• ACTION: Seppo Kellomaki. To provide a template for Participant Reports. e. Signed copies of the Financial reports should be provided to the Coordinator by those Participants who have not yet managed to do so. Those Participants know who they are.

• ACTION: Certain Participants. Send signed copy of Financial report to Seppo Kellomaki.

  
  

  4. Mid-project Meeting in Brussels.

  The next project meeting is planned to be a mid-project presentation to DGVI in Brussels. The proposed timetable is: Saturday 8th June Arrive Sunday 9th June Discussions Monday 10th June Meeting with DGVI Tuesday 11th June " " " Wednesday 12th June Depart Presentations will be grouped by Task with presentations by Sub-task leaders being chaired by Task Leaders. It was agreed that reference should be made to the original timetable and the list of deliverables during presentations. It was also proposed that presentations could be followed, at the end of the meeting, by demonstrations of Models and Web pages.

• ACTION: Seppo Kellomaki. To be responsible for booking accommodation for Brussels Meeting.

• ACTION: David Miller/Richard Aspinall. To send information on reduced hotel rates to Seppo Kellomaki.

• ACTION: All. Participants should notify Seppo Kellomaki, Task leaders and Sub-task leaders of problems well in advance of the Brussels meeting.

• ACTION: MLURI. To check on availability of access to the WWW in Brussels, or the possibility of Web presentations via netscape and files on a PC (no connection required).

  
  

  5. Programme Committee?

  It was agreed that current arrangements for the organisation of the Brussels meeting were appropriate and that no special sub-group was required.

  
  

  6. Allocation of Funds.

  The next allocation of funds should be approximately 30% of the total and is due in March or April of 1996. Seppo Kellomaki will hold back funds until April if requested and permitted to do so.

  
  

  7. Meeting in Sweden.

  The next Project Meeting after Brussels is due to take place in Sweden. Provisional dates are: 22nd to 27th October 1996.

  
  

  8. End of Project Conference.

  The proposed year for this Conference is 1998. The topic is likely to be "abiotic disturbances to forests". There was some discussion as to whether such a meeting might be timetabled too close to other relevant meetings, particularly those on Forest Fires. More detailed discussions about this conference will take place in Sweden in the Autumn. It was a greed that no circular should be sent out at the present time.

• ACTION: Maria Vasconcelos. To check on potential links or conflicts with a conference on fire.

• ACTION: Barry Gardiner. To check with IUFRO on their "official" support.

• ACTION: Heli Peltola. To check on possible conference links when at a meeting in Quebec later this year (1996).

  
  

  9. Closing

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