The Advisory Council was introduced in 1997 to provide fuller participation by the collaboration in discussions of decisions and priorites. In addition it was expected that the AC would provide a conduit for the collaboration to raise issues of importance not being addressed by the spokesmen, and to provide a feedforward and feedback mechanism between the collaboration and spokesmen, especially for those reluctant to raise issues directly.
In the past three years, the AC has given advice to the spokesmen and raised issues of importance to the collaboration in many areas. While we may not have always agreed completely with the advice given, and may not have followed it fully in every instance, the discussion and advice has been an influence on the choices we have made. The issues raised by the AC have ranged from problems confronting young physicists seeking jobs; through space issues, physics organization, software and hardware upgrade issues and the effectiveness of D0 institutions such as the speakers' bureau; to D0 interactions with the Lab, HEP community and media. It is worth noting that the AC has met without the spokes present; it sets the agenda with some items coming from the spokesmen, but others from the AC and in that sense has independence. There are also occasions (thankfully few) when it is inappropriate for the spokesmen to go to the collaboration for a public discussion of an issue. In such cases, the spokesmen have looked to the AC for needed advice and discretion.
We look forward to a continued useful dialog and exchange with the Advisory Council on all D0 related matters. To make this effective we also urge the members of D0 to make their concerns and opinions known to any member of the AC regularly, so that we can make the experiment more responsive to the needs of us all.