Today the RIPE NCC welcomes Mirjam Kuehne as new junior administrative staff member. Mirjam joins us from TU Berlin where she has both graduated as a MSc. computer science and worked in an international project in the field of knowledge representation. Mirjam will join Anne Lord, Geert Jan and myself in providing the NCC's core services from today. This will provide much needed relief. I ask all of you to welcome Mirjam and to help him get used to his new responsibilities quickly. Our current trainee Geza Turchanyi will leave us on the 15th of this month. Anyone interested in a traineeship for 3-6 months at the NCC is invited to contact us. The PRIDE and NCC staff work as one team. So it is quite possible that you might deal with Marten or Tony on NCC matters occasionally. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Regards Daniel Karrenberg RIPE NCC Manager