For 40 or 50 years, we have sat on the various committees, for example on the committee on testing methods which I mentioned earlier. My colleague mentioned 60 years of participation in that committee.
There have been a lot of changes over the years and the committees are much more effective. Recently we have tried to combine several meetings because when the committees get together, the meetings can take up to an entire week. We try to have all of the experts from the industry there at three same time so that they can help establish or revise standards in various committees, whether it be the committee on verification methods or the committee on oil, gas and alternative fuels. Usually it is the same experts who participate in all of those committees. We need to have a series of meetings. However, in recent years, we have managed to reduce the number of formal meetings to two per year. The rest of the work is done by conference call, depending on what is required with respect to the particular standards.
Last week our spring series of meetings were held for 2014. To make things more effective, we suggested reducing the lengths of the meetings from five days to four days. We try to condense the working groups and the main committees as much as possible.