Dear All, I did not announce the topics for discussion for November because I could not get confirmation from a number of people who have said they will provide introductions for me. I am finding that this job of organizing the topics is getting to be a bit of a challenge for me, especially as I spend a fair amount of time on the list and the wiki as well. I understand when our idea got transferred to Alpine-l they decided to have four people involved, not one. My husband says that because so many of our introductions have been so complete and wonderful that people are reluctant to commit to writing one because they don't feel they can provide anything that matches the standard. In addition I know we are all busy and there are times of the year that this is more true than others. And some people are buried in spam or behind in their email. All of this no doubt contributes to my lack of responses when I write about providing an introduction for us or try to find out when one that was promised might be ready. I have decided to bring my problem to the group and hope that you can all help me find some solutions so we can continue to have the topic of the week. I know I find it to be really interesting. When I stopped doing it after a year the first time I did it on the IBS list, so many people kept telling me how much they missed it. We could go back to doing the topic of the week as Kelly did it for IBS in Genera 52. He just announced the topic without much of an introduction and hoped that people would share their experiences. Often they did, but not always. I have saved most of the introductions I was able to obtain when I did the topic of the week for Robert Turley's forum. If that topic has been requested on this list, I could see if the previous introducer would be willing to let me use that introduction again. I am sure some of them would. A few already given permission. We have different participants on this list and those archives are only available to a selected few and never were easy to access. Our discussion would be different from whatever discussion came before and I expect enough time has passed that even the introduction would seem fresh. Some of you who do not want to see this die could write me privately and tell me topics you would be willing to introduce and when. Or you could offer to write someone you know is an expert and see if they would provide us with an introduction. Since a lot of people on this list are lurkers I have no idea what your area of interest or expertise is so I can't write and ask you if you'd provide us with an introduction. When I asked people to tell me what they like as topics here are some of the genera people requested: Alocasia/Colocasia/Xanthosoma, Amaryllis, Ammocharis, Amorphophallus, Anthericum, Arum, Begonia (tuberous), Bellevalia, Boophone, Bulbinella, Canna/Musa and Hedychium, Chlorophytum, Colchicum (several votes), Crinum (several votes), Crocosmia, Cryptostephanus, Cybistes, Cyrtanthus (many requests), Dierama, Ennealophus, Eriospermum, Ferraria, Fritillaria (one vote for varieties to be grown in the ground, one for Mediterranean varieties, a couple general), Galtonia, Geissorhiza, Gelasine, Gesneriads, Gladiolus (one general vote, one for species, one for summer growing varieties), Gloriosa, Gynandriris (now part of Moraea), Hippeastrum (several votes), Homeria (now part of Moraea), Hyacinths (not sure exactly what this one includes), Hymenocallis, Ipomoea, Kniphofia, Lachenalia, Ledebouria, Leucocrinum, Lycoris (several votes and we do have some experts on this list and I have saved Kelly's intro from before), Neomarica, Nothoscordum, Nymphaea, Pancratium, Paramongaia, Paris, Phaedranassa, Pleione, Romulea, Scilla, Sinningia, Species tuberous Solanum, Species tulips, Sprekelia, Stenomesson, Tradescantia, Trillium, Tropaeolum, tuberous Salvias, Tulbaghia, Urginea, Watsonia, Worsleya. In addition I still have a number of the general topics that people have suggested that give me breathing room as they mean I don't have to have an introduction ready. So you see it's not that we don't have suggested topics. Please everyone, help me out. If you are an expert or just intensely interested in a genus that isn't on this list and are willing to start out the discussion write me privately and volunteer to do an introduction. I'd schedule your topic right away. It is one way you can be sure we will talk about a topic dear to your heart. Others have told me in the past they learned a lot just by looking up material and thinking through their experience. So there are some benefits to this. The introduction doesn't have to be long, nor does it have to be scholarly. It just gets us started on our way. So far for November we have for next week Oxalis which Robin Attrill will introduce and Steve Marak has told me he will provide me with an introduction for an Aroid topic for the last week in the month. I can probably fill in again with topics that don't require an introduction if I have to, but hope this plea for help will generate some responses, both public and private. So I suggest that our topic for the week this week will be ideas for continuing the topic of the week. Thanks. Mary Sue