Jacki - I like your motto: "Trust, but verify." That is always a wise policy. And just because cautious investors want to be able to 'verify' that their directors are fulfilling their fundamental duty to look out for the shareholders, that does not mean that the shareholders inherently 'distrust' their directors.

I think your motto reflects what many might term as "cautious optimism". This is the way I feel. I still retain all my shares in Noront because of all the great things we have going for us. We have great geological expertise with Professor Mungall and those who work with him. We are the premier landholder in the Ring of Fire. We are way ahead of the competition in discovering and delineating rich ore-bodies of significant size. And I could go on and on, but these things have been pointed out very capably by yourself and others on this forum.

History shows that times of peace are more prosperous than times of war. When people are cooperating together, their energies and capital can be focused on bettering the situations of all involved. When people are fighting, energy and capital that could have been used to better peoples' situation, is now drained off and expended by opposing sides who now, instead of working to each other's benefit, are working to destroy the other side.

Consequently, peaceful relations is the best policy, as long as both sides are working for the mutual benefit of all involved. That is why the "trust, but verify" motto is a good one. However, the term 'verify' implies that if it becomes apparent that one's representative leaders are, instead of working for the mutual benefit of themselves and their shareholders, are instead working at cross-purposes to their shareholders detriment, then some action must be taken to rectify the situation.

This is a 'last resort' type of scenario. This is not something that wise shareholders desire, but something they want to avoid, if at all possible. Nevertheless, a willingness to elect a new director, or two, or three, to replace someone who has betrayed the trust of his shareholders, is something every savvy investor should be willing to do.

I do not think that time has come. I want to pursue peaceful relations between shareholders and the current BOD. But, unless someone is a Stalin or Hitler, they should expect to have some accountability to those who placed them in power. Part of accountability is transparency. Yes, you might keep some things "under wraps" for a short time as allied leaders did in WWII, so as to surprise the enemy on D-Day, etc. But every so often they would put out news reports or news reels to those they were serving, explaining and showing what was happening and what the military was doing and achieving.

We have waited a long time for assay results. I proposed a date of May 15, 2009 as a date when the most patient of investors should have expected to receive some assay results. If this deadline was not met, I was in support of another 'get-out-the-vote' campaign for electing some directors more responsible to their shareholders. Some might think May 31 is a more appropriate date, and some think June 30. I gave my reasons for the date I picked, but am willing to consider other dates, and to listen to reason, and try and achieve some form of concensus with others.

But, I think most of us can agree that at some point in time, if we have still been kept uninformed about where our hard-earned investment dollars have been spent, etc., there will be a sufficient outcry for a change of leadership, and getting agreement on this will not be difficult.

In the meantime, I remain very optimistic about Noront, though somewhat cautious, and, like yourself, wanting 'verification'. My optimism outweighs my caution, but does not nullify it. Let us hope our current Board of Directors earns the trust of the shareholders by timely providing some 'verification'. Peaceful relations are preferable to war.