Outgoing ONO President Ian Mayes was unable to attend this year's conference because of illness. This is the letter he wrote to his ONO colleagues:

Dear Colleagues:

You can't imagine -- you really can't imagine -- how miserable I feel at having to miss this conference of all conferences, adding to all the difficulties it has faced this year. I'm totally confident that this setback, like all others, will be overcome and that the conference will be the great success that we have all worked for.

I just want to wish you well and to mention the work of the three sub-committees that were set up in Sao Paulo last year.

One now has a proposed code of ethics for ONO to put before you.

Another is asking you to consider and agree the conditions under which ONO would accept outside funding.

The third was to look at outreach and I have no idea what progress was made on that one, which I considered to be particularly important.

This meeting at Harvard should serve the purpose that many were anxious that it should serve, of consolidating, and one hopes expanding the U.S. membership of ONO. That, just to repeat what I've said before, isn't in any way incompatible with the idea of outreach.

There is a demand around the world for the experience that ONO has accumulated. ONO has not found a successful way of making that available. In my mind, it has acquired an obligation to share it with those who ask to share it. I believe the conference in Sao Paulo demonstrated the interest that exists now in what we do and the opportunity we have to stimulate development in areas that are crying out for a more accountable and responsive media. In many of these countries, there are appalling obstacles in the way, and the conference is going to hear about some of those.

Since the conference in Sao Paulo I have spoken about ONO once more in Russia, this time in Kazan, a mainly Muslim city between Moscow and the Urals; I have been to a conference and spoken to students in Armenia (where I was with Jeffrey Dvorkin); I conducted workshops and spoke to a meeting in Jordan; a few weeks ago I told a huge media conference in Finland all about ONO. And a little before that I did what I promised George Claassen I would do at the Sao Paulo conference and visited South Aftica. While I was there, speaking in Cape Town and Johannesburg, George's entire group took a big step towards greater accountability and responsiveness even though it might have stopped an essential step short of what we would like. George will tell you about that. I urge you to maintain the commitment we made to having the conference in South Africa in 2010 -- or even before.

Paradoxically, I believe the difficulties facing this conference reinforce my view that the way forward for ONO is to seek funds for a small independent secretariat. Probably with a director, a secretary and an administrative assitant, working in conjunction with the webmaster. Gina Lubrano's huge contribution to the organization of this conference deserves an enormous debt of thanks as of course does all the work she has done for ONO.

But, Gina, I wonder if you would have been able to put in the time and effort that this particular conference has required if you had still been tied tot he daily task of ombudsman in San Diego?

I sincerely hope the idea of a small secretariat, able through a full-time staff to promote the things that ONO stands for more effectively, is something that you will keep under active consideration.

When you suddenly find that you can't get to one of our conferences, it's brought home to you very strongly how much they mean to us all. How important it is to share each other's company. What strong friendships we have formed in ONO and through ONO.

Please do all you can to make the Harvard conference a progressive one.

With best wishes to all of you, and particularly to my successor as president.

-- Ian Mayes