Planning Committee Meeting, January 2000

Twente, The Netherlands 
January 20-23, 2000

December 8, 1999

Dear Colleagues,

We are now pleased to announce the meeting of the Planning Committee for CSES in Twente, the Netherlands, on January twenty-first and twenty-second, in the new millennium. Our colleague Jacques Thomassen has been generous of his time and energy in making this meeting possible, and we are all grateful to him.

Since the Madrid meeting, subcommittees of the Planning Committee have been working on final editing and drafting of the theoretic framework for module II, the micro-questionnaire, the macro-questionnaire, and the socio-economic background variables coding and questions. That work should be completed very shortly, and once the documents are set, I will send them out immediately to all collaborators for comment. Thus we will have our colleagues’ comments to work from as we develop final versions of all documents at Twente.

In addition to completing the plans for module II, we can discuss a number of other matters: the website, and delivery of data; coding of the macro-data; incentives to collaborators to cough up their data; financial support of the central operations of CSES; and any other matters members wish to place on the agenda. It looks as though we will follow our usual tradition of working very hard during the day and enjoying each other’s company in the evening.

I look forward to seeing you at Twente.

Sincerely, 
Phil Shively

Dear Colleagues,

It will be my pleasure to welcome you next month in Twente. For a change we will not meet in the conference hotel on campus where some of you have been before, but at the Dish hotel in the city of Enschede. As a conference facility I would have preferred our own hotel, but certainly this time of the year it is not a place where you would like to spend your evenings. Therefore, we will meet closer to the local pubs.

I noticed that some of you have tried to find the city of Twente on the map. Actually “Twente” is the name of the region. The university is located between the cities of Enschede and Hengelo, but is still part of Enschede.

I am afraid this is not the ideal time to come here. If you are lucky it will be cold and sunny, but more likely it will be grey and rainy. Therefore, I can promise you that you will not be distracted from your work.

I look forward to an effective meeting and seeing good friends again.

Jacques Thomassen