<html><head></head><body>Dear All,<br><br>As promissed yesterday, I have created a doodle poll for us with the purpose to identify the best date and time for the proposed GEM monthly meetings. You can participate in the poll by following the link below:<br><a href="http://www.doodle.com/2d77imrgtxwi34ns">http://www.doodle.com/2d77imrgtxwi34ns</a><br><font face="tahoma, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Considering the very inconvenient time difference between China and the US, I have proposed time slots with rather fine granularity in the doodle poll and limited everything only to two time periods: a morning period of 7:30AM to 11:00AM and an evening period of 7:30PM to 11:00PM, since I don't see any reasonable times beyond these ranges that would work for both sides of the Pacific. And the meeting length is tentatively set to 2 hours. Of course it may be subject to adjustment in the future when we have had a certain number of actual meetings. A couple of things to note before you go to the poll:</font><div><font face="tahoma, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif">(1) All the times appearing in the poll are in Beijing time zone which is 12 hours ahead of the time in Virginia. </font></div><div><font face="tahoma, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif">(2) The dates indicated in the poll are by no means meant to be anything exact. I simply can't get rid of them on the doodle webpage. What I would really like to propose about meeting dates is that we take a same last day of each month as the meet dates. For example, if the outcome of the poll were some time on Wednesday, then we would have a monthly meeting on the last wednesday of each month. This may cause </font>ununiform intervals between meetings in some cases, but is simple and easy for practical organisation. However, please let me know if this won't work for you due to some hard constraints in your schedules. </div><div>(3) for each proposed time slot, there are 3 options: Yes, (Yes), NO. I guess there is no need to explain the first and the last options. So only a few words for the middle option of (Yes): by taking this option, you are supposed to say "the proposed time is not perfect for me but still acceptable". Given the large diversity in home institutes and geographic locations, finding a date/time that works for everyone would be only possible if you could indicate the full potential in your schedule to attend the meetings. So I encourage everyone not only to say Yes or No but also to consider (Yes) whenever possible when taking the poll.</div><div><br></div><div>Lastly, I would say your participation in this survey is crucial to a successful start of our monthly meetings and therefore is highly appreciated. So please go to the poll and fill the survey table out with your preferences on the meeting date and time. Also don't hesitate to let me know if there is still anything unclear to you (including any technical issues concerning the use of the doodle poll) </div><div> </div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Jianbei</div></body></html>