Good morning Werner, Brian's experiences always make for interesting reading. Maybe it is just from getting up way too early to take my daughter to volleyball practice, but your comment rubs me the wrong way this morning. I know that most IPC chairmen would love to increase participation from all levels of companies and are looking for ways to do so. The IPC staff diligently explores alternatives to costly travel to meetings so that more can participate. There have been increases in teleconferenes, netmeetings, videoconferences. More review is done by e-mail. As a member from a large company, we "dominate" because it is often we may have more resources, we may have made a better case for participation, or because or management sees the value in participation. In my view, participation is more limited by the fact that we are all 125% tasked (on a light day). Is there anyone out there that has free time to devote anymore? People can be very active participants in any IPC activity, regardless of company size or travel budget. In fact, all you in Technet land have participated in my committees when I ask survey questions. I am the vice chair on the solder mask committee and the committee working on a solder mask handbook. The Technet archives have been data mined (it is SO nice to have intelligent co-ops students) for experiences on solder mask. Questions that get asked are topics that need to be covered. All of the committee activities have home pages on the IPC web site. Minutes from meetings, including suggestions from my favorite Canadian about hitting Hillman with a frozen beaver, drafts of documents, some of which contain Sven and Ole jokes, etc, are all there. ALL it takes, all it takes, to participate in an IPC committee (with a few exceptions) is a phone call or an e-mail to one of the committee chairs or to the IPC staff saying "I would like to be part of this work", and you can do so. You can review drafts, participate in research, etc, without ever once travel to a meeting. You want to particpate, by God we will find a way to work you in. Let me give you an example. A young lady who was once one of my co-op students, works for an EMS provider where travel funds are a little scarce at times. She may not be able to attend the meetings, but she is willing to review drafts, participate in IC round robins, etc. She recognizes the educational value in participating and how it will make her a more valuable resource to her company. Although, it could be just my sauve and debonair charm as a chairman (not a word, Whittaker). Nah. I cannot begin to list how IPC involvement has made me valuable to my employers over the years. It is an education in itself, and in todays world of electronic communication, the only real barriers to participation are time to devote and individual initiative. You know, I will look over this response in about an hour or so, after a Diet Dew or two and wonder what the hell got me so riled up this morning...... Doug Pauls Werner Engelmaier <[log in to unmask] OM> To Sent by: TechNet [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> cc Subject 08/25/2005 06:30 Re: [TN] IEC Specifications AM Please respond to TechNet E-Mail Forum <[log in to unmask]> ; Please respond to [log in to unmask] M Hi Brian, You are so right. It needs to be added, that participation is also very costly with meetings taking place all over the globe. This excludes small commpanies and consultants reinforcing what you said about domination by large companies. Werner --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------