Dear SACO Task Group, Thanks to Hugh for his message which is very helpful towards defining our responsibilities and also items outside our responsibility. He has offered a very good list of topics as a workplan. I suggest that we expand it just a little and tie it to some dates to facilitate our email discussion. Given that we are on varied schedules and time zones, I am thinking that allowing one week for each given topic will help us to all get our ideas in relevant to that topic before moving on to the next topic. I think the first topic needs to be a general view of our work and verification from each participant that we are receiving the messages on the list. If anyone plans to be unavailable for a whole week during this schedule, please let me know so that we can revise the schedule. Week 1. (March 3-7) General views on charge and workplan (including any amendments), and verification of email receipt. Week 2. (March 10-14) Membership criteria. Week 3. (March 17-21) Membership responsibilities and benefits. Week 4. (March 24-28) Contributor perspective on contribution and distribution mechanism. Week 5. (March 31-April 4) Utilities' role in contribution and distribution mechanism. Week 6. (April 7-11) LC perspective on contribution and distribution mechanism. Week 7. (April 14-18) Supporting documentation. Week 8. (April 21-25) Training support. Week 9. (April 28-May 2) Feedback. Week 10. (May 5-9) Review of discussion and plan for next steps. Week 11. (May 12-16) Drafting preliminary report. I am looking forward to hearing from each of you during the next week or so to hear your ideas on the charge and workplan and to make sure you are getting these email messages. By the way, my usual email address failed to allow me to send to the list and I want to thank David Williamson for very quickly replacing it with another one that I hope will work. Thanks and best regards, Jimmie