The 38th meeting of the IETF was held in Memphis, Tennessee from April 7-11, 1997. Federal Express did a wonderful job as the local host for the meeting. In addition to the significant effort that went to providing the terminal room, Federal Express provided many volunteers.
This meeting was well attended with 1,319 registered attendees, a good 600 less than the number at the San Jose meeting (whew!). There were 401 (30%) first timers. The percentage of first timers is probably the one item that has been constant over the past number of years.
We instituted some changes at this meeting, and there were two sets of compliments we received over and over throughout the week. The first was an overwhelming approval of our distributing pre-paid attendee packets all day on Sunday, eliminating the need to stand in line (which explains why so much was consumed during the registration reception Sunday evening). We plan to continue doing this at future meetings.
The second group of complements focused on the selection of items at our morning and afternoon breaks. The warm pretzels were great (especially while watching the March of the Ducks!), but most of the compliments were about those wonderful sausage biscuits, consumed (very) quickly every morning they were available. That might explain why the morning meetings seemed to start on time.
I would like to thank Federal Express for hosting this meeting of the IETF, for providing the terminal room facilities, and for arranging the social event. I would especially like to recognize the phenomenal efforts of Keith Johnson who worked around the clock coordinating all the components of the terminal room (and who probably tested each and every workstation – just to be sure). Keith attended a number of IETF meetings just to see how terminal rooms work (or could work). I would also like to recognize the efforts of Joe Cutrell for his efforts in configuring and running the terminal room, and providing support for the attendees (and telling Keith to go home and get some rest… although we’re not sure if he did).
Special thanks also to Marie McVay of Federal Express for all the support she provided, well above the call of duty. She functioned as an executive assistant for the Secreatariat, including arranging for the massive number of volunteers provided to ensure a well-run meeting.
Of course, thanks go out to Evi Nemeth and her band of hungry graduate students who operated the multicast stations for the Memphis IETF meeting,. Evi has provided this service to the IETF since the Los Angeles meeting (March, 1996). More recently, she has contributed to the Newcomers’ orientation by sharing local discoveries (good restaurants, the closest computer supplies store, etc).
The configuration of the terminal room depends a great deal on the generosity of equipment vendors and service providers, and I want to thank the following organizations for their contributions and assistance:
Bell South Local T3 links and hotel wiring
Hewlett Packard Printers and PCs
Anixter Transceivers and cables
WRQ Windows Stack and X-Term server
Mills Morris Business Products Transparencies
Cisco Configuration and Accessories
As this was the first IETF meeting of the year, the terms of some Area Directors and IAB members concluded. The IETF/IAB Nominations Committee, working almost non-stop the prior three months, announced the new slate of IESG and IAB members who assumed their duties during the Thursday IESG Open Plenary session.
The current members of the IESG are:
Fred Baker IETF Chair
Harald Alvestrand Applications
John Curran Operations & Management
Mike O’Dell Operations & Management
Joyce K. Reynolds User Services
Allyn Romanow Transport
The current members of the IAB are:
Brian Carpenter - Chair
Jon Crowcroft
John Klensin
Charlie Perkins
Radia Perlman
With Gratitude and Appreciation
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank Frank Kastenholz, Deirdre Kostick, and Allison Mankin for their service to the IETF community as members of the IESG. Thanks and appreciation also go to J. Allard, Elise Gerich, Yakov Rekhter, and Chris Weider for their service to the community as members of the IAB.
The IETF will meet in Munich, Germany during the month of August. The final 1997 meeting will be held in Washington, DC from December 8-12, 1997. Our local host is Newbridge Networks.
In 1998, the IETF returns to Los Angeles from March 30 – April 3, 1998 and then travels to Chicago on August 24-28. The final meeting of 1998 is still in the planning stages. For information about future meetings, visit the IETF Web Page. Our URL is http://www.ietf.org.
Steve <scoya@ietf.org>