NASA's Swift mission was launched into orbit on November 20, 2004. A blast of gamma-ray bursts rapidly followed and bursts are now being "caught on the fly." The first exciting results from the mission are presented, together with initial results from the follow-up observations. All three instruments on board are working well, and details of the hardware for the Burst Alert Telescope, the X-ray Telescope and the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope are described.

The Global Telescope Network (GTN) is an informal association of scientists, students, individuals, and observatories interested in observing high-energy astronomical objects (black holes, active galaxies, etc.) in optical and near-optical light.

The main goals of the GTN are 1) to support the science missions of NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), Swift, and XMM-Newton observatories by obtaining and reducing ground-based observations for objects related to the primary science goals for these missions, and 2) to educate students about how digital astronomical data is obtained, reduced, and analyzed.

In this presentation we detail these goals, and call for people to join the GTN either as observers (partners) or as data analysts (associates).