I would like to start by wishing you all a happy New Year. As I write this column, 2008 is about to begin – a new year and a new LEOS President. However, as a result of relatively recent changes to the way LEOS operates, the President is now appointed every second year; in fact I am the third President to be appointed for a two-year term. Such changes are part of the ongoing development of a vibrant society, and in 2008 the LEOS vision and strategy will be coming under detailed examination and more change is expected, with some already underway.

LEOS Vision and Strategy
Over the last two years, the Long Range Planning Committee, led by Scott Hinton, has developed a quite detailed strategy for LEOS. However, there are now only two meetings a year of the Board of Governors, and therefore of Long Range Planning, and it was clear that more time was needed for this most fundamental activity. A series of annual Strategic Planning Retreats has therefore been initiated as part of the long range planning process and these are intended to develop strategy across the Society, identifying common themes between publications, technical committees, membership, finance and conferences. The first of these one day Strategic Planning Retreats was held in August and I believe its conclusions are worth sharing.
At the August meeting it was agreed that the vision for LEOS is to be a pre-eminent global photonics society. Above all, it was recognized that LEOS is a community – a vital, active, international community of photonics engineers and scientists. A successful LEOS will have a visible and measurable effect on their careers and endeavors and individuals will recognize that there are significant benefits from being a LEOS member.
There are three ways LEOS involves and builds this community:
• Firstly, LEOS is a forum, where critical and fundamental advances in the field are shared and nurtured. The LEOS forum takes many forms, the more obvious being conferences and publications. The less obvious are no less important and include Chapters, careers meetings, tutorials, short courses, this Newsletter, and the web portal. Involvement comes from reading, referencing, and writing articles for journals, attending meetings of all types, serving as committee members, editors or referees, but also through informal interactions – ranging from offering career or technical advice and mentoring to building inter-institution and international projects. I have found these informal interactions are usually initiated at face to face meetings, such as conferences, workshops or chapter meetings, and are of immense value.
• Secondly, LEOS activities are perceived to be of high quality. Engineers everywhere around the world choose to attend LEOS conferences and publish in our journals because of their high quality, visibility, prestige, and peer perception. This high quality does not come easily – it is the result of hard and focused work by all of the LEOS community and depends as much on individuals submitting their best work to LEOS conferences and journals as on the willingness of volunteers to serve the Society in formal positions.
• Thirdly, LEOS has to be an influential advocate of photonics by articulating its value and contributions to the technical community and the general public. As photonics becomes more pervasive in all kinds of applications and products, one of the most immediate ways in which LEOS can promote photonics is by working with other IEEE societies. LEOS already works extensively with several societies and is a member of the Nanotechnology Council and of the newly formed Biometrics Council. It also works closely with Societies outside IEEE such as OSA but there is opportunity for it to become more visible as a source of informed advice to Government and public bodies around the world.

LEOS Membership Organization
There has been one immediate change resulting from the Strategy Planning Retreat. Given LEOS is first and foremost a community, it was felt that the Membership structure should be reformed. LEOS has had three Vice Presidents for Membership and Regional Activities covering the Americas; Asia and Pacific Rim; and Europe, Middle East and Africa. This structure has served LEOS well, particularly in building a presence in new countries and forming Chapters. It has been less good at identifying and building member benefits across the Society. A new structure has been put in place, starting from January 2008, with a single Vice President for Membership and Regional Activities supported by three Associate Vice Presidents for Regional Activities covering the same geographic areas as before. The web portal and Newsletter are the primary media for communicating with members and these have been moved from being the responsibility of Publications to the new Membership VP.
This change was made with the strong support of the three existing Membership Vice-Presidents and supported unanimously by the BoG. I am delighted to report the new membership team will be
Vice President - Membership and Regional Activities
• Amr Helmy, University of Toronto
Associate VPs for Regional Activities
• Selim Unlu, Boston University (Americas)
• Roel Baets, Gent University (Europe, Mid-East, Africa)
• Jagadish Chennupati, Australian National Univ., (Asia and Pacific)
Both Selim and Jagadish are continuing for a third year, having previously served as Vice Presidents in the old membership structure.
In addition the BoG gave its strong support to the formation of a GOLD committee under the leadership of Lianshan Yan who already represents GOLD on the BoG.

Building the LEOS Community – a Plea for Help
I would finally like to renew a request made by Phil Anthony when he was President in 2001. Although the organizational structure of LEOS is important to the working of the Society, its members are its community. The best recommendation in recruiting new members is a personal one, and I would like to invite you recruit one new member each in 2008. When Phil made this request in 2001, the photonics industry was close to melt-down, but LEOS membership still grew by 20%. If we can focus again on membership growth in 2008, against the background of a robust and growing international photonics industry, it should be possible to exceed the 2001 growth rate by a large margin. As I hope I have illustrated above, the LEOS community is built from small as well as large personal contributions – and by recruiting only one member each the impact of the LEOS community will be enormous.