The GIW 2008 conference is being held at the Marriott Resort, Surfers Paradise, from the evening of November 30. Travel from Brisbane to the Gold Coast is straightforward, and would normally take around 90 minutes, although there is some significant variation possible due to traffic conditions, and to some recent exceptionally bad weather. The conference Welcoming Reception will commence slightly earlier than we originally thought, at 5:30PM.

As a fall back position, it will be a simple matter to convey people and luggage from the QUT campus to Central or Roma Street Railway stations. Trains to the Gold Coast depart regularly, and a bus or even a taxi from Nerang Station to the conference hotel won't be too bad (it is about 8km away).

However, enquiries with the main taxi providers suggest that we should be able to hire a maxi taxi capable of seating 8 people with a fair bit of luggage for around $200 for the trip. This suggests to us an easy solution of around $25-30 per person door to door. Can you please contact Jim Hogan (j.hogan@qut.edu.au) if you are interested and we should be able to organise a booking if there are sufficient people to make it work. As a comparison, the shuttle from the airport to the Marriott is listed at around $39. So even if we were to get only 5-6 people per taxi it should work pretty well.

In order to get to the coast in time for the reception, we will need to leave promptly at or just before the scheduled end to the workshop. There are some issues here as the GIW reception is earlier than we had anticipated. The best way of handling this is to ask for preferences as follows. Can those interested please notify Jim Hogan and choose from the following statements:

• I would like to catch a taxi to GIW at 4PM and can't go later
• I would like to catch a taxi to GIW at 4PM, but 5PM is ok
• I would like to catch a taxi to GIW at 5PM, and can't go earlier
• I would like to catch a taxi to GIW at 5PM, but 4PM is
• I am happy with either time.