Dear all,
I have three topics to talk about at the AIW business meeting:
1. Finances
I want to inform our members about the financial situation and the balance of our bank account (this takes ca. 1 minute).
2. Server and Internet-Security
I need to inform participants on how our virtual server is set up by Patrick, incl. spam and hack protection. When AIW mailing list members get spam mails they often write to me that our server was hacked, which is not the case. I want to inform them about the security level of our mail server. Moreover, I want to inform them about the AIW the function and limitations of our email service, e.g. that it cannot be used as a discussion platform (this may take 5 minutes).
3. AIW initiative for participants with disabilities
As I am personally affected by that, I would like to raise the awareness towards people with disabilities. We have participants who cannot walk very well or who have hearing problems. Up to now the AIW has mostly ignored these problems. E.g. whether conference rooms are accessible by stairs only or whether there is an elevator, whether the stairs have handrails, whether wheelchairs are available, etc.
It is also important that people can follow the discussion. If persons in the first row talk to the presenters, the rest of the room often can hardly hear what they say. Chairs should be aware of that problem and make sure that everyone on the room can hear, what people are talking about. Maybe seats in the first row can be reserved for participants with disabilities. The same is true for online participants. Programs for virtual participation often have a subtitle function for persons with hearing problems, which is rarely activated.
These are complaints that were communicated to me in the past.
US conferences usually have an information on a contact person with email address for participants with special needs, and this is already mentioned in the call for papers. European conferences rarely do that. For the AIW general management, I can serve as a contact person for persons with disabilities, but for the annual workshops a member of the local organizer should be that contact person.
These are my suggestions. For all this I may need ca. 10 minutes to talk about.
We can talk this out at the committee meeting.
Best, Renate