Chikao Fukuda
President, LES International

At the International Delegates Meeting held in Vancouver, Canada, in late October, Ron Grudziecki handed over the gavel to me for the year 2007-2008. Ron and his Board have done a great job in improving the accessibility and visibility of LESI in this past year, including the development of the LESI Web site and the 2007 CD membership directory, both of which could not have materialized without the valuable contributions of the Communications Committee. LES Chile, our newest society, received the LES flag in Vancouver, and LESI is now composed of 32 member societies with about 12,000 members worldwide. Since there is practically no way for all the members to get together in one place, it is becoming more important to have effective communication and networking means among LES societies and among individual members. For this purpose, one of my objectives this year is to improve our Web site with special attention to its contents, regular updates and the accuracy of the information therein. However, such improvement will not be accomplished without having cooperation and assistance from each member society and individual members at large. There are many ways to do this, but effective and punctual communication between LESI (both the Board and the various committees) and representatives of the member societies (at both their board level and international delegates level) is the key to this goal.