The CCC has been working on the protocol and associated documents.

Here are some items for ADHO Steering Committee approval.

1. Existing Conference protocol

No changes except for membership of the CCC. Last year's minutes noted 'to add last 2 years' PC Chairs and Local Organisers as listening members of Conference Co-ordinating Committee'. Next year's LO and PC Chair were also added. There have been some useful comments from these individuals who should be more than listeners.

2. Existing Annex

This seems to consist of some big picture points of principle plus some details.

3. New Documents

The suggestion is to remove some of the detail from the annex and to provide the following guideline documents:

1. Guidelines for LOs - to include information for prospective hosts
2. Guidelines for the PC
3. Guidelines for presenters
4. Guidelines for reviewers
5. Guidelines for session chairs

The CCC has prepared drafts of 1, 3 and 5. A possible volunteer has been found to work on 2 after next year's cycle. 4 is related to 2 as it involves Conftool.

A revision of the annex is also provided. At some later stage the information in it could be incorporated either into the protocol or guideline documents.

Guidelines for submitters are not thought necessary as there already is a lengthy call for proposals and abstracts from previous years are available.

The model call for papers should be an appendix to the PC Guidelines.

New draft versions of these documents are at:

4. Memorandum of Agreement

The CCC was also actioned to produce a draft MoA with the LO selected for the conference two years on. This is still being worked on, but I do have some concerns that what has been discussed so far appears a little one-sided with a lot of rights and responsibilities for the LO. There needs to be some for ADHO as well. We also absolutely need to make sure that this is not treated as a legal document by any host institution - otherwise it will not been seen again for months.

5. Funding for PC Chair

The CCC supports the need to fund the attendance of the PC Chair if s/he has no other support.

6. Items under discussion beyond the CCC

I am aware of two:

• Revisit the question of non-anonymous reviewing (raised by ACH).
• Possible funding support for the LO and host institution (also drawn to my attention by ACH).

If there are any more it would be helpful to know about them in time to get some input from the CCC before the ADHO Steering Committee meeting in Oulu.

I will send out the bids to host 2010 as soon as possible after tomorrow night (Monday 16 June).