Greetings from GGF18 at GridWorld in Washington DC! Throughout the week, we have been introducing GridWorld participants to the newly launched Open Grid Forum. We've handed out hundreds of OGF coffee mugs and celebrated the exciting future OGF has to accelerate grid adoption world wide.  I wanted to take a moment and send a brief update of some important developments:
1) Launch Documents
2) Membership Activation
3) Next OGF Events 

Launch Documents
- OGF delivered the first edition of its newsletter (see: http://www.ogf.org/News/ggf_newscal_newsletter.php)
- Mark Linesch delivered a white paper describing the new organization (see: http://www.ogf.org/ogf_overview/merger_docs/OpenGridForum-Overview.pdf).
I would encourage you to take a look at both and send feedback to either myself or Mark on its content.
- We also launched the "ogf.org" website and invite you to visit (see http://www.ogf.org)

Membership Activation
We also launched a new membership activation page (http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=100256).
Now that the organization is launched, we wish to encourage greater engagement in our existing work and new work of the organization. The brief membership activation process collects contact information and some interests you have that would enable our leadership to point you to work that fits with your expertise. If you are already engaged in that work, we still wish to have your most recent information to get important announcements and updates to you. Whether you are an employee of an organizational member or an individual not affiliated with an organizational member, please visit the site and activate your benefits. Upcoming OGF event discounts and other member benefits will be tied to membership activation, so please take a couple of minutes and complete this form today. For more information on the membership program, please visit: http://www.ogf.org/Members/members_become.php.

Next OGF Events
Please mark your calendar for these events:
- OGF19 January 29-February 2 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA. This event will focus on OGF group sessions and workshops. 
- OGF20 May 7-11 in Manchester, UK where we will join forces with UK eScience and collocate with the EGEE in a week-long set of activities.

We are grateful for your interest and participation in the Open Grid Forum.

Steve Crumb
Executive Director, OGF
scrumb@ogf.org
+1 312-895-5931 (new)