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Dear [MEI-L]isteners,<br>
I herby provide you with my personal summary of the MEI Council
Meeting held on Friday 24 from 3:30 pm to 6:00 pm at the end of
Music Encoding Conference 2013 at the Academy of Science and
Literature, Mainz May 21 to 24.<br>
<br>
Please respect the fact, that this is my personal sight on the
meeting and I was not officially appointed to take minutes, although
I think nobody was, and this is why I decided on sending this.<br>
<br>
Addition on corrections of my below statements are very welcome,
directly on MEI-L.<br>
<br>
=======<br>
<br>
The MEI Council Meeting was set to be open for everybody; not only
members of the council attended, but also others interested in the
discussion and willing to contribute. All in all more than 20 people
were present (please excuse if anyone attending is missing on the
list or any of the names are spelled wrong, feel free to correct me
on this):<br>
<br>
1. Johannes Kepper<br>
2. Gabriele Buschmeier<br>
3. Karen Desmond<br>
4. Christine Siegert<br>
5. Kristina Richts<br>
6. Maja Hartwig<br>
7. Anna-Maria Komprecht<br>
8. Daniel Röwenstrunk<br>
9. Sigfrid Lundberg<br>
10. Peter Stadler<br>
11. Nikolaos Beer<br>
12. Donald Byrd<br>
13. David Meredith<br>
14. Richard Freedman<br>
15. Eleanor Selfridge-Field<br>
16. Stefan Morent<br>
17. Joachim Veit<br>
18. Guiliano Di Bacco<br>
19. Craig Stuart Sapp<br>
20. Tore Simonsen<br>
21. Laurent Pugin<br>
22. Axel Teich Geertinger<br>
23. Perry Roland<br>
24. Daniel Pitti (chairing the meeting)<br>
25. Andrew Hankinson<br>
26. Benjamin W. Bohl<br>
<br>
In his introductory words to the question "Where to from here?",
Daniel Pitti (chairing the meeting) emphasized on the fairly
remarkable progress, that MEI had made in terms of making it a
community project. During the short amount of time from first
collaborations in 2007 and 2009. The funding received through
DFG/NEH Bilateral Digital Humanities Program from 2009 to 2013
helped disseminating the ideas of MEI and motivate additional
researchers. With quite an amount of growth during the past few
years MEI can proudly say to have something like a community, today.<br>
<br>
All in all the meeting was an open round of brain storming and
discussion of ideas brought up concerning, as main topics:<br>
<br>
1) funding development of MEI and the MEI Council<br>
2) current and future organization of MEI and the MEI Community<br>
<br>
1) funding development of MEI and the MEI Council<br>
<br>
In the light current funding ending this year and a third DFG/NEH
funding having been denied, the first topic discussed was future
funding of MEI community and especially face-to-face meetings of
Technical Team and Council. Many suggestions were put forward, but
eventually it became clear, that the funding programs mostly target
at individual projects considering implementations of MEI for
specific projects, and that they would not directly support
development of MEI the same way as in recent years.<br>
<br>
At that point discussion moved towards current structure and
organization and possible future forms or organization for the MEI
community.<br>
<br>
2) current and future organization of MEI and the MEI Community<br>
<br>
a) current organization<br>
<br>
Although there was general consensus that the current MEI Council
is a worthwhile group that is very helpful to have, certain problems
were put forward. A lack of transparency, especially regarding how
to opt in or out, and what exactly the Council's role is; acting
more like an advisory board, than as steering group for MEI or how
its work is related to that of the Technical Team. It was recognized
that this might discourage new potential contributors to MEI (MEI
Community) from getting in touch, which some of the guests
confirmed.<br>
<br>
b) future organization<br>
<br>
A multifaceted discussion and brain-storming of possible models for
future MEI Community organization followed. Topics of major interest
included questions as:<br>
- Whether members to a council/advisory board/steering group should
be elected?<br>
- How such a group should and could reflect the peer groups of the
community?<br>
- How could a legal status of such a group be achieved; in order to
for instance sign letters of support on behalf of MEI Community?<br>
- and many more<br>
<br>
Most prominent during this discussion was an offer presented by
Gabriele Buschmeier from the Mainz Academy. She put forward the idea
to install MEI as an "Arbeitskreis" (working group) at Mainz
Academy, which needs to be convened by a member of the Academy. She
promised to determine the possibilities of hosting MEI at the
Academy, and talk to Prof. Dr. Kurt Gärtner, whether he could
imagine to act as convenor for this. In this context the MEI
Community would be mostly free to organize itself, with the Academy
providing full support for all administrative issues and serving as
legal entity behind MEI. The offer was greatly appreciated by the
attendants.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, as sound reorganization of the MEI Community
structures needs thorough discussion and planning and should not
hamper the momentum that has caught the MEI Community. Thus Eleanor
Selfridge-Field's proposal to install the following two groups, in
addition to the current MEI Council, was accepted:<br>
<br>
I) An *Interim Steering Group* for MEI Community<br>
<br>
as a smaller group of people that could act on behalf of the MEI
Community until clearer organization and structures are developed
and decided upon. As one main subject to deal with, this group
should negotiate formal collaboration with the Mainz Academy as
described above. This group was decided to be staffed with Gabriele
Buschmeier, Perry Roland, Johannes Kepper and potentially Kurt
Gärtner (Member of the Academy, to be asked).<br>
<br>
II) A *Strategy Development Group*<br>
<br>
assigned to come up with proposals for a new organization of MEI.
This group should represent the complete MEI Community, including
delegates from peer groups that might not be involved at the moment.
For this reason, it was proposed to use MEI-L to gather interested
parties for this basically open group.<br>
For practical reasons, an initial group of volunteers was set up,
which consists of:<br>
- Axel Teich Geertinger,<br>
- Laurent Pugin, (@Laurent: as you were proposed while shortly
absent, is this your will?)<br>
- Christine Siegert, and<br>
- Benjamin W. Bohl.<br>
<br>
**Call for Participation** Anyone interested in joining this group
please communicate this by replying to this message via MEI-L.<br>
If there are no objections I would like to volunteer for
coordinating the formation of this group during this initial phase.<br>
<br>
The preliminary schedule for this group is to draft at least two
proposals for future organization of the MEI Community within the
next year; bringing these proposals to discussion both in MEI
Council and MEI Community, for decision.<br>
It was agreed, that transparency and avoidance of bureaucratic
overhead should be essential features of new structures, and
democracy and participatory aspects should be considered likewise,
but without neglecting efficient and simple structures. This might
include careful reconsideration of the current structures (MEI
Council and MEI Technical Team) that nevertheless have proved to be
very helpful and effective fostering the interest of MEI Community
and bringing it to ist current shape.<br>
It was also agreed that once new structures and forms of organizing
MEI Community should be established, these would be examined after a
number of years, with the option to revert or change to a different
model.<br>
<br>
=======<br>
<br>
With best regards,<br>
Benjamin W. Bohl<br>
<br>
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***********************************************************
Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar Detmold/Paderborn
BMBF-Projekt "Freischütz Digital"
Benjamin Wolff Bohl
Gartenstraße 20
D–32756 Detmold
Tel. +49 (0) 5231 / 975-669
Fax: +49 (0) 5231 / 975-668
E-Mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:bohl@edirom.de">bohl@edirom.de</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.freischuetz-digital.de">http://www.freischuetz-digital.de</a>
***********************************************************</pre>
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