Dear all: I have made a motion for Dimitra Simeonidou to take on the co-chair role for this Group. Over the years, I have been very impressed with Dimitra's vision and dedication to advance emerging topics in an open forum. Among things, Dimitra spearheaded GFD.36 (optical infrastructure for grids) and the OBS draft underway. At the same time, I inform you that I will no longer act in the capacity of co-chair for the GHPN past GGF16. I took an active role in GHPN's operations shortly after GGF7, at the end of March '03. Throughout my 3-year term, I very much enjoyed working with you in advancing a networking agenda. I'm very thankful for your interest, stimulating contributions, and active participation. It's now time for me to hand off my role to new leadership. My plan is to pass the torch on to Dimitra. As you may know, the NOMCOM has elected me to serve as Area Director for Infrastructure and steering committee member for 3 years, starting on October '05. The GHPN group is one of the groups in the Infrastructure Area. As such, I will continue to be involved with the GHPN. As well, I have a mandate to expand activities in Infrastructure and liaise with other networking initiatives (such as ITU NGN, IPSphere, OIF, etc.). Should you have concerns or advices on the leadership changes, I encourage you to flag them to Cees de Laat, Area Director for Infrastructure, delaat@science.uva.nl. With regard to the upcoming Athens meeting, the planning phase is well underway. We will have two 90' sessions. The first session focuses on work directly related to the current GHPN drafts. The second session is a roundtable on Grid Networks research projects bearing relevance to standardization. Earlier in the month, you have seen Costas' call for presentations. Costas Kotsokalis and the Greek Research and Technology Network (GRNET) have kindly taken the lead in organizing the second session. The agendas for both sessions will be published shortly. -franco