Dear Bill: As you know, there have been several years recently when there has been no general conference on Category Theory during the summer. We believe it would be beneficial for the future of the subject if there were some way of ensuring that such conferences take place more regularly (say at least once every two years), and so we should like to propose the establishment of an international Advisory Committee which would solicit and consider proposals from potential organizers of such conferences. We think it is important that individual initiative in organizing conferences should not be stifled, and so we envisage that the Advisory Committee would be barred from imposing conditions on the way a particular conference was organized, although it might of course offer advice to an individual organizer if it was requested. We also envisage that a number of conferences with categorical topics would be organized independently of the activities of the Advisory Committee, and that the successful regional series such as the Peripathetic, Octoberfest, Midwest, etc. will be organized independently of the committee. The same applies to meetings on specialized topics. We should be very pleased if you would agree to act as Chair of the Advisory Committee and to choose the other members of the committee soon. Our proposal of you as a Chair does not mean that we expect you to do most of the chores: we can imagine a model of rotating Vice-Chairs, one for every conference. In addition to a small Advisory Committee, all the colleagues who have previously organized such international CT meetings over the past quarter century should be considered as a larger committee to which younger would-be organizers can appeal for encouragement and concrete advice. The small committee could facilitate such contacts, thus providing a unified channel of communication which is however less public than the category network. We very much hope that you will agree to undertake this responsibility. Thank you for your cooperation, with best regards Jiri Adamek Bob Rosebrugh Francis Borceux Jiri Rosicky Dominique Bourn Ross Street George Janelidze Walter Tholen Peter Johnstone 26-Nov-2004 19:47:23 -0400,898;000000000000-00000000