On October 27th and 28th P&L Committee Co-Chair, Michelle Baugh, Ad Hoc Committee member Cindy Reinheimer, SDIT Treasurer Dennis Shine, Karen Frost and I met again with Marcia Selva and Dick Schonberger at the Global Spectrum offices.  At this meeting we continued to develop the time line, announcements, survey forms and other forms of information to be disseminated.  We also began to define the responsibilities of each party and the support volunteers.  On January 26th, while attending a VVA National Board meeting, Michelle Baugh and I had an opportunity to meet, once again, with Marcia Selva and Dick Schonberger.  The main purpose of this meeting was to discuss the special events and activities to take place during the trip and to finalize the itinerary of the first site visit.

    The site visit team will arrive in Vietnam on March 28th and depart on April 4th.  The team consists of Marcia Selva, Dick Schonberger, Michelle Baugh and I.  One purpose of the site visit is to begin assessing accommodations and begin booking hotels for the larger groups.  This has to be done about one year prior to the actual trip.  We will be selecting and securing transportation, drivers, local guides and interpreters.  We will also begin notifying U.S. and Vietnamese officials concerning the actual trip itinerary and request their assistance.  There are many other areas of concern we will be addressing on this site visit.  At least one other site visit will take place in January 2003. 

     I feel we are pretty much on schedule according to the time line we have established.  I also want to assure you that the SDIT Board of Directors, the Planning and Logistics Committee and Global Spectrum are doing everything possible to make this a safe, meaningful and successful trip. 

Bill can be reached at Duker@sdit.org.