Hi everyone

Apologies for such a long mail - please bear with me and give some feedback.
The highlights of the email are:

- an invitation to a meeting to discuss the future of the group (Tuesday 5th
September at 7pm (venue tba - will be a central London location)
- a request to send suggestions of potential sponsors
- a request for testimonials focusing on: quality of meetings, knock on
effects (eg influence on research, practice, thinking etc), value of
networking opportunity, value of membership of LVRG community + any others
that you can think of!

It is really important that we get support from group members at this
stage...think of all those impressive talks and glasses of chilled Pinot
Grigio!

As you know, we have not been holding meetings for a while, following
continuous meetings since April 1996 - as far as we know this is one of the
things that makes this group unique (thank you for all the enquiries and
encouraging emails :-). There are a few reasons....Following the 1999/2000
series 'Refocusing Virtual Reality' (see www.lvrg.org.uk for a record)  the
committee decided to propose a change of focus for the group. Below are is
the relevant section of the minutes from that meeting:

2. Next Year

2.1 The main discussion revolved around the upcoming year. All agreed that
the changes in the technology, markets and the group required a 'reframing',
to broaden its outlook from conventional VR, be it immersive or desktop. Now
that many of these technologies are out there, it was considered appropriate
to follow a more bottom-up approach. That is, see what users are doing with
the technologies and ideas, rather than looking solely to established VR 
practitioners. Terms such as 'virtualised realities', and 'changing
realities', were
used to try to capture the wider feel.

2.2 However also agreed that the name - LVRG - should remain, due to success
of the 'brand', and the burden of changing the logos etc. on the web-site
etc if
the name is changed.

2.3 One major aim is to increase sponsorship. It was agreed that an annual 
sponsorship of approx £10,000 would cover the costs of inviting
international speakers,
providing larger venues, documenting events and growing the 'value add' of
the LVRG
website. To achieve this, a good sponsorship proposal is required. This
requires
the web-site be updated, and a quality sponsorship proposal to be created. 
The committee agreed that:

- Simon to get testimonials from past speakers and members on the value of
the
group
- Mark to update past meetings section
- Mark to look at membership list and derive analysis of the community
- All to encourage members to join the website members database
- Josh to undertake graphic design for the pitch
- Avon to check existing links

2.4 Also agreed that in future the site would act as a 'supportal' for the
community. This requires new core content. All members to contribute to this
for
content. But also it would require a large, managed site. Mark & Josh to
budget for them to build and manage such a site, given funds available from
a large sponsor.

 2.5 If the sponsorship bid is successful, this would make it important for
the group to establish a more formal structure. Josh and Mark to look at the

rules for non-profit organisations.

2.6 Agreed to create a draft sponsorship bid document in two weeks from
meeting date.

The meeting was held on the 21st February 2000. As some of you know I had a
baby in March - spare time has disappeared! So this is one of the reasons
why we haven't made as much progress as we would like. Another reason was
the decision to expand and shift the group focus:

expand the focus from Virtual Reality to 'virtualised realities' and
'changing realities'...this aims to incorporate the emerging mass markets
that will be reached through wireless and broadband services (but which
would not fit into a traditional definition of VR). We feel the resulting
'virtualised realities' and 'changing realities' should be part of LVRG's
focus. These new areas will still be concerned with presence, the body,
community and narrative, so we will be extending some of the themes from
last years series. 

shift the focus from 'high end ', 'exclusive' technologies and ideas to
street technologies and ideas. We all know the convergence between these
poles is happening faster that predicted - our aim is to tap into the
creativity of the 'street level' as we believe much of the true innovation
is happening here. 

I know this is not a full description, the purpose of the meeting is to
share these ideas more fully and to get some sense of what the group thinks.
As a next step, I propose that we hold a meeting on Tuesday 5th September at
7pm (venue tba, but will be central London) for all those who are
interested, to discuss the future of the group. For those who can't attend,
please send comments by email. In the meantime, we will work on getting some
sections of the sponsorship document completed and making initial contact
with some potential sponsors. We ask if you could

- send suggestions of potential sponsors
- send testimonials focusing on: quality of meetings, knock on effects (eg
influence on research, practice, thinking etc), value of networking
opportunity, value of membership of LVRG community + any others that you can
think of!

It is really important that we get support from group members at this
stage...think of all those impressive talks and glasses of chilled Pinot
Grigio!

Best wishes,

Simon

Simon Warner-Bore
Chair, LVRG

Managing Director, okupi

t +44 (0)20 7739 0567
f +44 (0)20 7739 5797

e [log in to unmask]
w www.okupi.com

28-30 Rivington Street
London EC2A 3DX



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