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Last year the ten-year anniversary of the RDG passed somewhat unremarked. To make some amends, I now light eleven candles and append, below, the very first posting, eleven years ago yesterday. We began with about thirty members; as of today, there are 329 subscribers. The geographic and juristic diversity has grown accordingly and the list shows subscribers on just about every continent. You might also notice in the message below that it asks members to "... spread the word about the group to colleagues who use email." Those were the days.

The home of the list has moved from Edmonton, to Oxford (in 1996), to Montreal (in 2000). Steve Hedley's web site added an archive in 2000 which goes right back to the start; this is great because the 'official' archive at listserv starts only at the move to McGill. Steve's archive shows a total of 1,507 postings, up to the end of August 2006.

I post less "news" than I used to, in part because the volume of news has risen so much over the last eleven years. But I encourage everyone to feel free to post what they consider news, as well as questions and comments.

Happy birthday RDG!

Lionel

Sender: Lionel Smith
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 1995 14:40:09 -0700
Re: Greetings everyone

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the restitution discussion group! Thank you for your interest and for signing up.

Some weeks ago I chose 30 September as the launch date for this undertaking, without realizing that it was a Saturday. As a result I am sending out this welcome message without much hope that anyone will see it until Monday.

I am happy to report that there has been an enthusiastic response to the idea of a restitution discussion group. The group begins life with about thirty members. I am especially pleased to report that the membership includes an excellent geographical and juristic diversity. There are members from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Canada, including both common and civil law traditions. I would like to thank those who helped to spread the word about the group, including Mitchell McInnes in Australia, Don Clark in New Zealand, and Peter Birks in the UK. I would ask everyone to continue to spread the word about the group to colleagues who use email.

Without further ado, then, I would like to open the floor. In case you no longer have the message you received when you subscribed, the address for postings is:

[deleted as outdated]

Actually there might be a little bit more ado. I will probably follow this message with a short note about two minor changes to the way the list works, which the computer people here have been working on this week.

Thanks again,

 

Lionel Smith
Faculty of Law
University of Alberta