Welcome to the website for the 2002 UCAR October Meetings! Dear Trustees, Members' and Affiliates' Representatives, and URC Members, This has been a busy year for the UCAR community, and the agenda for the upcoming Annual Meeting is a full one. In addition to the regular business items, committee reports, and election of Trustees and Members' Committees, you'll hear updates on the HIAPER project, the implementation of the NCAR Strategic Plan, the NSF reviews of NCAR, the COSMIC program, and plans now underway for a new campus that will ease the space problems we've been grappling with over the last few years. We are especially pleased that NSF approved our purchase of the new campus, Center Green, on 29 August! Even though refurbishments on the buildings won't have been made by October, we'll hold the upcoming meetings there so you can see the space for yourselves. For the first time in recent memory, we'll have enough room in an auditorium to comfortably accommodate all of you. As you'll see, the auditorium and conference space will be a great resource for the whole community in the years ahead. It is an exciting move for UCAR, and, while we have at least a year of concentrated space planning and adaptation ahead of us, we're looking forward to being able to accommodate all of the programmatic, administrative, and conference and community workshop needs in the years ahead. (The new campus is located just west of Foothills parkway--quite close to the Foothills Laboratory. A map is included on the website to help you find your way more easily.) Regarding the meeting agenda, I want to call your attention to a proposed by-law change that will be discussed on Tuesday afternoon. At the June Meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Trustees adopted a resolution to increase the number of Trustee-at-large positions on the Board. A memo from UCAR Board Chairman, Otis Brown, the resolution, and the proposed changes in the bylaw language are being forwarded to you for your consideration. I also want to mention to this year's Forum, which is planned as the beginning of a multi-year dialogue on the challenges and opportunities for partnerships among the private, public and academic sectors of the weather and climate communities. We're pleased that John Lumsden, Chief Executive of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand will give the plenary talk. An open forum will follow with a number of participants from the private, public, and academic sectors joining the discussions. These partnerships are, and will be, increasingly important in coming years, and we're looking forward to an interesting exchange of ideas. And finally, some of you will be staying on for the Heads and Chairs Meeting, Thursday and Friday, 10-11 October. For the first time, this year's Heads and Chairs Meeting is being held jointly with the AGU. Increasingly, there are many common interests and concerns, and our hope is that this joint meeting will be a productive coming together of both communities. Through all of the week's activities, I hope we can find time to exchange ideas, meet new friends, and connect with old ones. We look forward to seeing you at our new campus in October, and in the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions.
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