Hi all, I'd like to share my position on meeting notes. Importance of taking minutes or similar kind of notes was recognised from the first days of the PGI, before it was even called PGI. Not that the notes were too informative, but Johannes did his best in his duty as a secretary. Sadly, this practice has all but stopped recently, and I even see rather aggressive opposition towards minute-taking. I find it strange, at least. I've been to countless number of working groups, boards and committees, and even the tiniest gender equality WG of my department has a secretary and minutes. The need for taking minutes is obvious: 1. (and foremost) it allows active participation of group members who couldn't attend a meeting 2. it prevents decisions being contested or misinterpreted by providing documented evidence of decisions made 3. it prevents the group from re-discussing things which were already discussed, or if a need of a new discussion arises, there is always a reference Now, I am sure all these three aspects are very relevant for the PGI. Taking minutes is easy, people do it since the moment they invented written languages, and OGF certainly has many (all?) people with sufficient literacy levels around. I can do it from time to time, but unfortunately I am not available full-time for PGI, and definitely not for the meetings overseas. Cheers, Oxana