Executive Committee and Council News
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Dear Crystallographers,
The year 2007 features as our big highlight the ECM24 to be held in Marrakech, Morocco. We are also engaged as your Executive Committee in various matters, both routine annual matters as well as long term development strategy; in mid February I will host the ECA Executive Committee at a weekend meeting in Manchester. In this website report I concentrate on ECM24 but indicate the agenda items for the Executive Committee meeting.
I visited Marrakech in mid November to work with the very hard working Conference Chair Professor Abdelmalek Thalal and his local colleagues. The purpose of my visit was to help him with finalising details of the scientific programme and match to the Congress venue (eg room sizes). ECA Past-President Hartmut Fuess joined us via telephone- and e- conferencing. Abdelmalek, Hartmut and I are very enthusiastic that ECM24 promises to be a most memorable event. The Congress Centre is superb and is adjoined by the Congress Hotel and several of the other hotels are nearby. I obviously also visited all the lecture rooms, the commercial exhibition area and the poster areas. I stayed in the Congress Hotel and even enjoyed a practice run of the conference banquet and associated entertainment! [Like a good mystery novel I wonft tell you the plot, you must attend to find out for yourself!]. I will mention though that the Congress Hotel had superb quality facilities; it even had an amazing swimming pool which was hot, and next to it a very cold plunge pool ie the other way around to cold pool + hot jacuzzi combination. The food in the breakfast and lunch buffets I had was plentiful and varied, hot and cold, and superbly done. There are several themed restaurants as well. The ECM24 website details all the Hotel and accommodation options and travel advice as well as pre and post Conference tours. General travel advice is of course readily searchable via eg google.
Finalising the Conference Programme was a very tough job. As you can imagine with 13 SIGs, and on average each suggested 5 Microsymposia, that yielded approximately 65 ideas that came forward for the available slots! Indeed the vitality of the ECA has been clearly demonstrated to me by the vigour with which the SIGsf elected officers have provided firm feedback in the convergence on the final programme details these last weeks, and whereby we have decided to expand the number to 48 Microsymposia. The Congress Centre is readily able to provide the extra room through the week at a reasonable cost.
I attach a few photos as images of my visit to Marrakech (click on a photo to get a larger view).
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| The entrance to the Congress Hotel | Part of the Congress Centre exhibition area |
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| A visit to the shops in Marrakech | A cobalt mineral pod from the Sahara; this is one half, the whole being the size and shape of a lemon |
My whole visit gave me a very positive expectation for the big success of ECM24. I would also like to mention that an exciting satellite meeting programme on mathematical crystallography has been brought together by Prof Massimo Nespolo. Also Abdelmalek and myself, with Carmelo Giacovazzo, will lead an Advanced Training Workshop on Crystallographic instrumentation at and access to centralised facilities (including telepresence developments) and software for data and crystal structure solution; this is aimed at students and anyone interested in training/retraining on such topics for their research. Ideas and suggestions for content and/or speakers is very welcome in the coming month or two ie while we again converge on the 1 ½ days content details.
Overall my message to all European crystallographer colleagues, and our crystallographer friends in the North and South Americas and in Asia, of all scientific fields, is:- please continue telling your friends and colleagues about ECM24, now with these extra details to hand. The ECM24 registration website is now open. Furthermore please do provide suggestions for speakers to the Microsymposia Chairs as soon as possible. Talks will also be selected from submitted abstracts; if you know of exciting research let these Microsymposia Chairs know, or if something does not fit the Microsymposia topics still tell Prof Abdelmalek Thalal about it too.
I will close this report by giving an overview of the agenda items coming up for the mid-February 2007 ECA Executive Committee, joined by our webmaster and the ECM24 Conference Chair, and which will include:- planning of ECMs up to and including inviting bids for ECM27 in 2012; ECA membership and recruitment; benefits to ECA members; continuing professional development (CPD) of European crystallographers; ECA financial matters including investments; confirmation of ECA auditors; consideration of bids for support for Schools, Conferences and Workshops on Crystallography in Europe; ECA organisational support; and finally quantifying the risks that ECA faces and defining appropriate risk management strategies. I will give my overview report on this Committee Meeting in my next ECA e-Newsletter communication in March 2007.
All best wishes for a happy and productive New Year 2007,
Prof John R Helliwell
The University of Manchester, UK
December 2006
Dear Colleagues,
It is a great honour for me to have been elected the President of the European Crystallographic Association (ECA) for the coming 3 years.
With this letter, I would like to initiate a review, and in depth discussion, of a long term strategy of development of the ECA. The ECA not only runs outstanding ECM conferences, but sponsors the prestigious Max Perutz Prize Lectures, has a very informative website (http://www.ecanews.org/) and is one of the three regional affiliates of the IUCr. It is now possible for individual members to join the ECA for a 5 year period for only 50 Euros using a credit card. A principal benefit of being a member is a reduced registration fee for the ECM. Membership dues help the ECA build a reserve to support student attendance at ECM and other crystallographic meetings. New members contribute to securing both a firmer foundation for the ECA and an opportunity to expand activities. An endowed Lecture prize fund has been set up for outstanding young crystallographers to present their `Lewy-Bertaut Prize' Lecture (jointly with the European Neutron Scattering Association (ENSA) at the ECM). This, and the Max Perutz Prize and Lecture, continue to rely on annual contributions from individual members and commercial suppliers of crystallographic equipment and supplies, to whom we are very grateful. Dues from an expanded membership would secure additional support for these prize funds. Most importantly the ECA also needs to help provide financial assistance to young scientists and other colleagues in financial difficulties to attend our ECMs. National crystallographic associations that affiliate its members to the ECA are another important income stream. There are 29 national ie country members and 5 observer countries. Overall our total official number of members is approx 900. Since the total number of crystallographers in Europe is estimated at 4000 we are missing many potential members! Tell your friends about the ECA and how to join).
I invite you to email me your suggestions of how we can improve and/or expand our activities. One idea for discussion is to have satellite sessions at our ECMs for skills enhancement and training (e.g. how to use the latest software packages). This is also known as Continuous Professional Development. Another idea is that, rather than a paper printed newsletter, we have an "ECA e-Newsletter" with all articles and letters being sent to our webmaster, Massimo Nespolo (massimo.nespolo@lcm3b.uhp-nancy.fr). This will ensure a regular flow of information and news. I don't want to detract from the IUCr Newsletter content from Europe, but I feel sure that we have plenty of other news and views, that can't find outlet in the inevitably limited number of printed pages of the IUCr Newsletter.
It is a happy coincidence that I am writing this just when the IUCr Journals have won the Association of Learned Society Publishers (`ALSP') Publishing Innovation Award for its leadership in scientific publishing linking the data on which a publication rests to the detailed text. On behalf of the whole ECA I congratulate the IUCr Journals in Chester on this terrific achievement as a, now, widely recognised leading innovator in science publishing.
In my next quarterly contribution to the ECA website, in December, I will report on progress with the ECM24 in Marrakech under the hard working Chairmanship of Abdelmalek Thalal and describe the background to agenda items coming up for discussion at the next ECA Executive Committee (whose members are listed here) meeting to be held in Manchester in mid February 2007.
John R Helliwell
