This edition of Dialogue is a perfect opportunity to reflect on our progress as a Network to date and to begin talking about the upcoming year. Last month marked our first anniversary.

In 2001 we were busy distributing funds for our first year of the Research Program; organizing our Project Leader’s retreat and building the legal and administrative infrastructure required to support The Network’s world-class research. We are now officially incorporated as a not-for-profit institution and each of our Member institutions has signed the Network Agreement. We have recruited an excellent Board of Directors and the staff members have been hired in London to help administer The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network.

Over the next several months, our efforts at the Administrative Centre will shift towards collecting some baseline data from everyone involved in the Network. This collection is critical to the future of the Network and will tie directly into our performance indicators. Not only is the data a requirement of our continued funding from the government but also the data collected will be used to build a case for our mid-term review scheduled in the Spring of 2004. More details will come soon with completion deadlines slated for the end of June 2002.

This summer we will be conducting our first financial audit; creating an annual report; continuing to develop strategic partnerships with industry, government agencies and other not-for-profit organizations and award our post-graduate student supplements. The most exciting project ahead will be developing and launching the second phase of our Web site to include more interactive and collaborative tools. We will continue to strengthen our communication efforts and outreach programs with more newsletters and posters. Finally, in September we will begin the process of reviewing and administering the next round of research funding.

There is still much to achieve, and a key part in making The Network a success is your feedback. I welcome any comments, suggestions, or feedback you would like to give, either in terms of Network management, scientific direction, or otherwise. Please call 519.850.2535 or . If nothing else, it would be really helpful if you could identify two (or more) things you think we have done well, and two things you think we could really improve on. We will publish an anonymous aggregation of these comments on the Web site for everyone to view.
In closing, I want to wish everyone a happy and safe summer. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at the conference.

Dan Sinai, Managing Director