Meeting Fee

[Daniel Karrenberg <]

A successful, healthy and happy 1997 to all.

We have received a number of questions about the RIPE meeting
registration fee.  Here is the story: For the last (and first ;-) 25
meetings the rooms, coffee, lunches and other facilities have been
sponsored by the local host.  For the majority of the meetings this cost
has been bourn by NIKHEF.  They certainly deserve credit for this and we
are open to creative suggestions from all of you on how to express our
gratitude to them specifically even more so since the RIPE NCC is
planning to move to a different location in Amsterdam.  More details on
that at the meeting. 

With the growing size of the meetings such sponsorship had to come to an
end at some point and 25 sponsored meetings seemd a good number even
though it is neither divisible by nor a power of two ;-).  While the
administrative support for the organisation of the meetings is part of
the RIPE NCC activities funded by the NCC contributors, the direct costs
of the meeting are explicitly excluded.  Thus these costs have to be
recovered from the attenders.  In consultation with the RIPE chair we
have determined that the fee should be roughly the same for all meetings
and that for the present around ECU 50.- is appropriate to cover the
costs.  While seperate from other NCC funds all monies will be accounted
for in our the standard open way. 

And yes, we will try to organise a different style of lunches for a
change.  Since Blasco is the one who suggested a change most
consistently (made me think of Cicero ;-) we are currently aiming for
Italian style. 

I hope this answers all questions.

Daniel