This was an informal meeting, as such no minutes were taken. I record brief notes here from memory, for the purposes of working from them.
We discussed the possibility of teaming up with DGAB people for an ImmInst conference in Europe:
Pros: Share cost, enjoy greater publicity, more hands-on-deck, promotes cooperation between immortalist orgs.
Cons: Less flexibility, dates already set, German language of many presentations may be an issue
We discussed the possibility of teaming up with Timeship for an ImmInst conference in America:
Pros: No extra cost, greater publicity, very high profile speakers, promotes cooperation between immortalist orgs.
Cons: Less flexibility, current inabilty to make concrete plans due to the uncertainty regarding the release date regarding the location of Timeship.
We also discussed the possibility of ImmInst teaming up with HEALES for the European conference if we don't team up with the DGAB people.
Pros: Share cost, more hands-on-deck, promotes cooperation between immortalist orgs
Cons: Most (all?) HEALES members are ImmInst members anyway, so extra publicity would be limited
We also discussed options for conference locations in Europe and America for consideration in the event that we do not team up with another org. We agreed that the ideal place should be a large city, good air links, cosmopolitan culture. Suggestions included Amsterdam, Brussels, or London for Europe, and New York City for America. Obviously we have the home advantage in Europe as we are Europeans. I know plenty of Immortalists in NYC and surrounding areas whom I could easily rope into helping with a conference if needed, though.
We discussed content; presentations should be informative and related directly to life extension. We hope to include a level of interactivity that is greater than that afforded by questions and answers at the end of a presentation.
One question to which we have not yet found a suitable answer is how we should balance scientific depth against lay comprehension in terms of presentations.
I think that was it for discussion directly relevant to the conference planning. As this was an informal meeting, we also branched off here and there to discuss related topics (cryonics as one example, socio-religious issues as another, metformin as a third).
I daresay Sven will comment with anything I missed that he feels should be included here.