I want to pass the ID of the Contact from my VisualForce Email Template up to the Controller, via the Custom Component, so that the Controller can query Events for just this Contact.  However, I seem to be getting stuck at Component to Controller.

Per the VF Developer's Guide, under "Custom Component Controllers", step 3 says, "In the <apex:attribute> tag in your component definition, use the assignTo attribute to bind the attribute to the class variable you just defined."  However, I am finding this never sets the value in the Controller - just within the Component.  Is the Guide wrong or do I have an error?

Here is a snippet of the Component code:

<apex:component controller="EmailApptController" access="global">

    <apex:attribute name="ToID" type="ID" description="the account ID" assignTo="{!contactID}"/>
    <apex:attribute name="Something" type="String" description="something to assign" assignTo="{!something}"/>

And the relevant Controller:

public class EmailApptController {
	public List<Event> appts {get; set;}
	public String message {get; set;}
	public ID contactID {get; set;}
	public String something {get; set;}
	
	public EmailApptController() {
		datetime yaynow = datetime.now();
		appts = [SELECT WhoId, WhatId, OwnerId, Subject, StartDateTime, Result__c, Confirmation_Status__c, Location_Map_URL__c, Location__c, Location_Address__c, Location_City_State_Zip__c, Location_Directions__c, Location_Directions_2__c
					FROM Event
					WHERE WhoId = :contactID
					AND StartDateTime >= :yaynow
					AND Result__c != 'Cancelled'
					AND Result__c != 'Rescheduled'];
					
		if (appts.isEmpty()){
        	message = 'There are no pending appointments for this client: ' + contactID + ' and something is: '+ something;
        }
	}
	
}

contactID and 'something' always return null from the controller, but when I access them in the Component they are fine.

I have found this post in the wiki re Controller Component Communication, but it's way over my head and seems overkill if all I want to do is grab this one ID.  Any thoughts?