Dear Colleagues,

In the wake of the September 11 tragedy, Americans, as well as our European friends, have had to make some very tough decisions. We try to go about business-as-usual, but we discover that reality has changed.

The strength of Quality Week Europe is that we really attract an International Audience and present an International Speaker team. In this year's program, 40% of the Conference Speakers are from outside Europe: 16 from the USA, 2 from Canada, and 1 from Brazil to be precise. We live in highly uncertain times and a significant number of speakers have expressed doubts -- or even outright unwillingness -- to travel. People just do not want to be away from their loved ones. Not now, when the US Attorney General talks about possible additional attacks.

Business-to-Business commerce spending has been hit hard by the current economic slowdown, forcing many firms to downgrade their earning forecasts and consequently, their spending. Linda Rosenberg, a QWE Keynote Speaker from NASA, has had to cancel: nobody at NASA may travel abroad "for the duration". We receive reports daily on how many companies have put severe travel restrictions on all their employees. This will not only affect our speakers but also the number of attendees.

No, these are not ordinary times.

We really want to do the right thing for the community. And, we want to make sure that Quality Week Europe meets the high standards you have grown to expect. After carefully considering how our decision could impact others, and after looking at the many sensibilities at play, we decided to reschedule the Quality Week Europe for the second week of March, exactly four months from the original date. We hope that in these months the world situation will have improved.

The Quality Week Europe Conference will be held from 11-15 March 2002, at the Sheraton Hotel, 3 Place Rogier, Brussels, BELGIUM.

May we invite you all to put the dates in your agenda! The conference material is put together; the program is made up; we are not changing the topics or the speakers. We are just pushing Quality Week Europe four months forward.

In light of the tragic events, and the many repercussions for so many people and in so many businesses world-wide, we hope that you can see the rationale in this decision.

I'm looking forward to welcoming all of you in Brussels in March.

With warm regards,

Edward Miller
QWE Chairman
(miller@sr-corp.com)