As far as I can tell from the records, no dues were collected for ARCO members either in 1998 or 1999. ARCO is dully registered as a 501C3 for organization according to the Tax code in Maryland and in the United States, and therefore, any donations to ARCO will be tax deductible. This certainly does apply to any American members and depending upon the tax rules of your individual countries may apply to other members as well. Given the fact that no ARCO member has paid dues in over two years, it will be greatly appreciated if some members were willing to step up to the plate and make a charitable contribution to ARCO. If the tax laws of your country indicate that this will be tax deductible as a business expense, then the checks could be made out in the form of dues for 1998 and 1999 if this will qualify for the deduction. With this letter goes the appeal for dues for 2000 which is set at $100.00 U.S. per person. In the past, payment of dues has been somewhat difficult due to the banking laws, but we now have a Visa/MasterCard account, and if you have either Visa or MasterCard, you can pay your dues by submitting your name as it appears on your credit card, the number of the credit card and the expiration date on the accompanying form which we need back from all members. I would appeal to you to get your dues in as quickly as possible so that we will have some operating funds. Michael Mont and I are working particularly hard to get corporate funding for the activities of ARCO. It will also be very much appreciated if members in other countries would approach manufacture and drug companies to solicit contributions for the support of ARCO activities.

ARCO now has a website or at least we have a URL, which has been reserved for us under www.arco-intl.org. If you go to this site you will not find anything at this particular moment but we will be populating that site within the next few weeks. One of the things that we want to do in the coming months is to create ARCO as an electronic community and facilitate communication between and among the members. We can do this best if you will fill out the attached forms and indicate to us how much of your personal information we have your permission to post on the website. This will be, at least for the moment, an open website, although if there is strong feelings about it, we can have a section on the website that will be assessed for members only. We want to encourage each member in ARCO to make the organization known among your peers, to refer people to the website for information about Circulation and Bone and all of it's glory in osteonecrosis particularly. We intend to distribute the newsletter on a quarterly basis electronically via the website. We hope the posting of e-mail addresses by the members will facilitate communication at every level.

The meeting for ARCO 2000 is scheduled for Baltimore, Inner Harbor, October 4th, 5th, and 6th. We have secured a very satisfactory site for the hotel, which is within walking distance of the Baltimore Inner Harbor, and our meetings will be held across the street at The Engineers Club. The meeting will begin on Wednesday, October 4th, with a reception. We will have the banquet and an all day scientific session on the 5th, a half-day scientific session on the 6th with a tour to a surrounding attraction in the afternoon of the 6th. We plan to have the business meeting ARCO on the morning of the 7th and individuals will be free to travel back home in the late morning or early afternoon on the 7th. However, I would point out that the Midatlantic region in October usually benefits from very attractive weather with warm days and crisp nights. The fall colors in the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania will be coming into their own. New York City is only a 2-hour train ride away. Washington DC is a 35 minute train ride away. There are lots of activities. We will be communicating with the membership some of the things that are available for people who are coming from a distance that they might want to consider. For those of you who are orthopaedic surgeons we could arrange for you to be visitors to the Good Samaritan Hospital on the 4th and 5th of October to view some of the things that we are doing in the surgical management of osteonecrosis. That could be extended also to October 9th and 10th for those who would desire to come in for the meeting on the 4th and perhaps stay over the weekend for local attractions.