In April of this year, SIGAPL was put into transition status by the SIG Governing Board (SGB) of the ACM, because of our difficulties in producing Quote Quad, and because of a perceived decline in member participation and interest. Guy Larocque agreed to chair the committee to develop a transition plan, which was submitted to the SGB on June 1, 2006.

The members of the committee held meetings through teleconference on a regular basis to discuss the forthcoming actions and activities. We plan to resume the publication of APL Quote Quad on a regular basis, add new information and content to the SIGAPL web site, conduct a web survey to determine what the members expect from SIGAPL, and organize a joint conference with Array Programming Language companies. The last item is particularly important. The executive committee is making an effort for SIGAPL to strengthen its position as an organization that sponsors the use of many array programming languages, including APL, J, K, matlab, Gauss, and APLus. In addition, we want to re-activate the relationships with local APL user groups and initiate relationships with users of other APL dialects.

Several elements were included in the transition plan submitted to the SGB, including membership benefit fulfillment, a communication plan for now and the future, a vision for the future of SIGAPL, and a volunteer development plan. If you want a copy of the transition plan, please, drop me an e-mail to one of the members of the executive committee. As mentioned above, new elements will be added to the SIGAPL web site. For instance, the Waterloo APL archive site will soon be stored on the SIGAPL web site and links with other APL related sites will be updated. We plan to develop a library of APL programs that will be easily accessible to members. As a group, the members of the executive committee agreed to produce a special issue of Quote Quad on Ken Iverson and the current status of array programming languages. The success of these efforts depends on volunteers, so we urge you to become an active participant in producing this special issue and/or the SIGAPL website.

Your participation in our survey will be extremely important because the executive committee wants to know what you expect from SIGAPL. This survey will also be an excellent opportunity to update your membership status information with ACM and to offer your services as a volunteer.

The SIGAPL Executive Committee