Hello group,

Thanks for all the updates made to Google Drive so far, here come some important news and updates:

· Your arrival to Leipzig. We are working on the arrival instructions which will be circulated to you in early July, i.e. very soon. I understood that most of us are staying the hotel Balance Leipzig.

· Food intolerances. There won’t be too many eateries open on weekend around iDIV, so we are thinking to order some sandwiches for lunch on Sat and Sun. We can have warm meals in the evening, and the breakfast should be ok in the hotel. If we go for the sandwich option, we won’t lose time wandering around, and we anyhow have close to two, not three days after all. Please inform on any food intolerances and allergies so we are sure about that.

· Survey draft. Please let me know who of you is still working or plans to work on the draft? Is it intended to have it that short, or do you plan to expand it later? My practical questions is to move it to Survey monkey now or later this week? Remember to browse the earlier GBIF surveys and survey summaries for inspiration and ideas (earlier surveys https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzrSPi8wkHZ8Qnk0X3NuSmVhblU, agrobiodiversity report includes survey summary, distribution modelling report is separate from the DM survey summary).

· Doodle for the II meeting dates. Because of the travel limitations in the group the 2^nd in/person meeting will need to take place as originally agreed, sometime in October and very likely in Australia. We will know the state of our travel budget after you claim your Leipzig costs after the meeting, but we need to agree on the dates soon. Remember that we need three full days, excluding travel dates, so choose option with enough dates around for your travel. Here is a link to choose the options: http://doodle.com/poll/6kv5x2ng7sst32nr Please choose asap.  

Plus here are various additional points:

· You can find minutes from the latest Skype call here.

· In/soon after Leipzig, according to ToRs, and we are expected to produce a short intermediate report in July 2016. In addition to here-we-are-we-started-to-work, we could include the section structure and some early recommendation that would take shape after Leipzig. This can be very short, 3-4 pages, and it is likely to be included to the document package that is distributed before the GBIF Governing Board meeting, which will take place in October in Brasilia. As Shyama will be attending an IAS meeting in Samoa in August, the key points from the intermediate report could be packed into the presentation. We are working on a GBIF slide doc template that could be a nice way to pack the intermediate report.

· The expert list for use in survey is nearly complete, only names from Gregory are missing. Feel free to add more than 10 key names!

· Please don’t postpone adding your topics, ideas, section to the report draft, the texts do not need to be perfect and final, it’s a working document. Use and contribute to collection of resource documents and references.

Thanks,

Dmitry Schigel, PhD

Programme Officer for Content Analysis and Use

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
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