Post-RIPE 80 Working Group Chair Meeting Summary

20 May 2020

Attendees:

Erik Bais, Fergal Cunningham, João Damas, Ondřej Filip, Julf Helsingius, Raymond Jetten, Shane Kerr, Mirjam Kühne, Florence Lavroff, Matina de Mas, Remco van Mook, Brian Nisbet, Benedikt Stockebrand, Brian Trammell, Martin Winter.

Chair: Hans Petter
Scribe: Antony Gollan

1) Evaluation of RIPE 80

Feedback from attendees was generally positive. However, it was clear that the virtual format had limited the social/networking aspects of the meeting.

Keeping track of the Q&A, IRC and chat as three separate channels had been difficult for session chairs. The new Q&A format had resulted in a greater diversity of people asking questions and making comments. However, some attendees felt that something was lost with people not able to speak at the microphones as at physical meetings.

With 45-minute sessions that started on the hour, it had been easy to follow the meeting agenda. However, many sessions had run into the breaks, which highlighted the need for better timekeeping. There had also been less time for discussions overall.

Presenters could have been better prepared in terms of being ready with their slides/able to screen share and other technical aspects. It would have also been more straightforward if they used an alarm to manage time themselves.

Several mentioned the lack of the community feeling from hallway chats.

It was noted that virtual meetings in the future might allow them to reach a wider group of people, even after COVID-19.

2) RIPE Chair Handover

Hans Petter said he had made a statement that he would step down as RIPE Chair as soon as the NomCom appointed a new RIPE Chair and vice-Chair. However, he would not be able to remain in the RIPE Chair role for an extended period due to the workload as RIPE NCC Managing Director.

3) RIPE 81

Hans Petter had stated in the closing plenary that he would like to decide on whether RIPE 81 should take place as a virtual or physical meeting when the new RIPE Chair had been appointed, but no later than the end of June. The consensus of the following discussion among the WG chairs was that it would be unreasonable to expect the next RIPE Chair and Vice-Chair to take this decision the moment they were appointed. It was agreed that Hans Petter would send a message to the RIPE list to state his intention to establish a consensus-advice from the WG Chairs and PC before the upcoming RIPE NCC Executive Board meeting on 15-16 June.

While this was a decision for the RIPE Chair to make together with the RIPE NCC, the RIPE NCC Managing Director and Executive Board were also responsible for the safety of the staff arranging the meeting, and needed to take this into account.