Call for EPTS founding members

After some delays (getting everything through legal procedures in multiple big companies...) we are starting to prepare for the official launch of EPTS that has existed informally in the last couple of years. The founding steering committee consists of representatives of -

Coral8, Gartner, IBM, Oracle, Progress, Streambase, TIBCO and Professor David Luckham as an individual member, in the future members of the steering committee will be elected, so both company members and individual members can be elected; We are now issuing a "call for founding members", which means that any company, or individual person, that will sign the membership agreement by May 9, will be included in the list of founding members that will be mentioned in the press release notifying the launch. Here is the call - you may have already received it through other channel.

Call for EPTS Founding Members

EPTS - the Event Processing Technical Society - is going to be officially launched in late May or early June (exact date – TBD)
The EPTS goals are to:
Increase awareness (promote mindshare) about event processing, including understanding what its value is, producing a common glossary, and highlighting the current state of best practices,
Collaborate with various standards organizations making sure all standard efforts are in sync (EPTS will not become a standards organization)
Help establish Event Processing as an academic discipline
EPTS has existed as an informal group for the last two years, holding three Event Processing Symposiums to date; for details see: meeting 1, meeting 2, meeting 3

We invite participation of all vendors, individual participants (academic people, independent consultants, and employees of non-member organizations), and customers who would like to contribute to the evolution of the event processing area. There is no participation fee, but all members (organizational and individual members) must sign the EPTS Members Agreement.
EPTS activities will be performed through workgroups, and periodic general meetings. Examples of current workgroup tasks include glossary creation, use cases analysis, event processing meta-modeling, the study of event formats, and event processing academic education.
Benefits to members include the ability to identify new requirements or topics for discussion, lead or participate in workgroups and other community activities, being listed and potentially quoted in official announcements and press releases, and the ability to be elected to the EPTS Steering Committee,
Please respond immediately by email to Opher Etzion

If you are interested in becoming a founding member.
If you are able to sign the membership agreement by May 9th, 2008, you'll have the opportunity to appear in the list of founding members in the launch press release.
In order to join, please take the following actions:
1. Print the EPTS Member Agreement document

2. Sign (for individual member) or have an authorized representative of your company sign (for a company member) two hardcopies of the agreement. Keep one for your files. You will need to produce this copy if the EPTS Steering Committee ever makes a request for it at some point in the future.
3. Fax one copy to:
Attention: Mike Kaiser
Fax #: 1-845-489-9958
4. Courier the second hard copy signature to the following address for EPTS archival purposes:
IBM Corporation
Attn: Mike Kaiser (JGWA/062/M313)
3039 Cornwallis Rd.
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Phone: 919-254-7605
Note: Along with this hardcopy, please include the name, e-mail and phone contact information of the PR person that EPTS should coordinate with for the launch press release.