MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

As you know, an official council of SAPE was elected at the 5 meeting of the Society in Beijing. As the new President of the SAPE I would like to take a few words to explain the reasons for this action and to indicate what changes might come to SAPE as we move forward to establish a more formal organization. First, a short history of our organization. In 1985, CÉCILE MOURER-CHAUVIRÉ organized a Round Table at the Université Claude-Bernard in Lyon, France, on the subject of avian evolution as interpreted from the fossil record. In the course of that meeting, the late PIERCE BRODKORB suggested that there should be a society dedicated to the study of avian paleontology and evolution. I was unable to attend that pioneering meeting, but after discussions with some who were there I decided in 1986 to host the next meeting of the still nonexistent society at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Los Angeles in September, 1988. Although this was only three years after the first Round Table in Lyon, there was general agreement that alternating our quadrennial meetings with those of the International Ornithological Society would be the best means for spacing these two important international meetings, and the 1988 date put us on track. The dates of the second meeting also coincided with PIERCE BRODKORB’S 80 birthday. In 1987, CÉCILE MOURER-CHAUVIRÉ initiated our now familiar newsletter. She took on the responsibility of gathering news and information from the members of what had now become an informal Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution. She organized these accounts into a coherent newsletter and, despite the difficulties and time involved, she saw the process through to publication and distribution. As Secretary of the Society she faithfully continued to compile and publish the Newsletter through the 13 edition, which appeared in 1999. For most of these years she also served as Treasurer of the Society, receiving voluntary dues payments and the funds from our now traditional auction. These funds were used to cover the production and mailing costs for the Newsletter. The SAPE owes Cécile a deep debt of gratitude for her years of service to the society. We would certainly not be the strong organization we are today without her many years of dedicated efforts on our behalf. Following the Los Angeles meeting, STEFAN PETERS stepped forward to host our 3 meeting. This was held at the Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in June, 1992. STORRS OLSON and HELEN JAMES furthered the goals of the SAPE by hosting our 4 meeting at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., in June, 1996. And, of course, our 5 meeting was hosted by the IVPP and Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China, just a few months ago, thanks to MEEMANN CHANG, LIANHAI HOU, ZHONGHE ZHOU, and rest of the host committee. As you will see later in the Newsletter, members of the SAPE have the opportunity to choose between two venues for the next quadrennial meeting, to be held in 2004. Clearly, the SAPE has established an enviable record in its short history, even though it has been an informal scientific society. Time marches on, however, and the founding members of the SAPE have begun to retire from their official positions. The SAPE has also grown from just a handful of members to be a broadbased international organization with more than a hundred members. These two factors combined brought forth the recognition that it was time to establish a formal organization for the SAPE. Although we have operated quite successfully for many years as an informal society, it was time to establish a means of passing leadership within the SOCIETY OF AVIAN PALEONTOLOGY