Dear Cohort 11 Associates,

Greetings from the LEAD India and LEAD International Secretariat! We are just two weeks away from the start of the Global Training Session Email Conference. The purpose of this conference is to help prepare Cohort 11 Associates and to connect Associates with each other before the Global Training Session on Environmental Governance in Bhopal from 21 February to 8 March 2006.

This is your online conference, and we hope you will use it to explore issues that will be on the agenda for the upcoming session. You may ask questions about the substantive issues involved, post relevant articles and materials, or express your views on a particular subject. The conference will be conducted by participants posting messages with a question or response. All messages must be addressed to: bhopalgts@myleadnet.org. We
encourage you to get actively involved and participate in as much of the discussion as possible.

The email conference will begin on Wednesday 8 February and end on Tuesday 14 February, however participants are welcome to continue the discussion using the email list-serve until the commencement of the GTS. The virtual conference will be moderated by Nupur Mishra from LEAD India and Saodat Pulatova from LEAD International.

The list currently includes all Cohort 11 Associates. We will send instructions on how to use the list serve, including an unsubscribe option, to everyone before the beginning of the email conference.

The schedule will be as follows:

DAY Time (GMT) Activity / Technology Notes

DAY 1: Wednesday 8 February 07:00 GMT Opening of Email Conference Discussion
Question Opening welcome note to Cohort 11.
Aims and objectives
Participants will be requested to engage in a discussion focusing on the question posed.

DAY 2-6:9 - 13 February All day Discussion Questions Participants will be requested to engage in a discussion focusing on the question posed each day.
Participants will have 24 hours to discuss each question.

DAY 7: Tuesday 14 February All day Discussion QuestionsWrap-up Participants will be requested to engage in a discussion focusing on the question posed. The moderators will summarise the discussion and identify questions and key issues to be addressed during the GTS.

It will greatly help if everyone posting a message to the e-mail conference begins the "Subject" line of your message with [econf]. This will allow everyone to see at a glance which email messages are part of the conference, and hopefully help deal with e-mail overload.

Use this virtual conference to gain information so that you can make the most of your time in Bhopal. We look forward to hearing from you and reading your messages!!