Newsletters

EMS NEWSLETTER 9

EMS Secretariat, May 19, 2004

Dear EMS member,

     With the approaching EMC 2004 congress it is important to annouce several activities of EMS in this Newsletter. You cabn also find EMS News in the journal Imaging & Microscopy, website at: http://www.imaging-git.com .

     In this newsletter we will try to summarize several subjects such as:

1. EMC 2004 Antwerpen
2. Agenda's of the EMS General Assembly and General Council
3. FEI-EMA Awards
4. EMS Yearbook and membership address list
5. EMC 2008, candidates for hosting this congress are asked to send a letter of intent
6. Electronic voting

     Many of these subjects in this newsletter can be found in greater detail on the EMS website: http://www.eurmicsoc.org.

1. EMC 2004 Antwerpen, August 22-27, 2004,

     In a few months, from August 22 till August 27, the 13^th European Microscopy Congress EMC 2004 will be held in Antwerp. The new EMC construction aims to further improve the interaction between different advanced microscopy techniques, following the change in name of the organising society itself. Nevertheless, judging from the final scientific programme and submitted abstracts, electron microscopy in all its forms remains the primary technique.

     At the time of writing of this report (mid April) over 900 delegates from nearly 50 different countries have already registered and submitted over 850 abstracts. At the same time the commercial exhibition (which was expanded with 16 booths in January) is booked for over 95% (present list of companies is available on the website). Since Antwerp is connected extremely well to a large part of Europe, we expect many on-site and day registrations so that the originally estimated number of 1.000 scientific delegates will easily be reached and probably even surpassed.

Scientific Programme

     The entire programme is divided into three categories: Instrumentation & Methodology, Materials Sciences and Life Sciences. From the onset the aim of the Scientific Programme Committee was to have as little competing oral sessions in the classic set-up of parallel sessions. In principle, 6 sessions will run in parallel, 2 from each category.

     Except for the opening session on Monday, the morning sessions will start with a plenary lecture focusing on some promising topics in microscopy for the years to come. Although the items for these plenary lectures are chosen in view of the three main categories, the speakers are selected for their ability to present their material for a wide and diverse audience from different disciplines. After the morning oral sessions, at lunch time, so-called Special Interest Lectures will be given on topics that fall outside the microscopy mainstream but that can still be expected to be of interest to a broad spectrum of researchers. After lunch a long time-slot of two hours is dedicated to the poster session which will enable the delegates to visit the posters and discuss the presented science in detail. After these poster sessions, again some oral sessions will be arranged. In principle, both morning and afternoon oral sessions consist of two invited speakers and six oral contributions.

     As expected in view of recent international microscopic meetings, the Materials Sciences category received most of the abstracts, with the Instrumentation & Methodology and Life Sciences categories being close to equal. Although care had been taken, by including the suggestions of an extensive International Scientific Advisory Board, to arrange a balanced list of sessions within each category, the evolution of science again proves hard to predict. Indeed, several sessions have received a considerable amount of contributions, which lead to the splitting of some sessions into two parts. On the other hand, some sessions received very little contributions and were, wherever scientifically relevant, combined with other sessions leading to some new or adapted session titles. The final scientific programme, at least with respect to the session titles, chairs and invited speakers, is given below. This way, the Scientific Programme Committee attempts to follow the interests of the delegates as much as possible. A detailed programme is available on the EMC 2004 website.

     On Sunday, a small but carefully chosen selection of courses can be followed at very low cost. Judging from the present status of registration, these choices are very successful, but registration for all courses can still be made.

Proceedings

     In parallel with the organisation of the scientific programme the Abstract Handling team and Editorial Board of the proceedings is working hard to ensure that the printed proceedings as well as the CD-ROM will be available at the meeting. Please remember that, in order to ensure publication of your abstract in the proceedings, your registration fee has to be paid at the latest on June 1, 2004, the same deadline as for Intermediate registration.

Commercial Exhibition

     As already mentioned, the originally reserved commercial exhibition space soon proved to be too small and an additional space for 16 more booths was added. Most of these booths were soon rented as well and only a little space is left at this time. The main part of the exhibition will be on the ground floor with the poster session and cafeteria space on the first floor directly above the exhibition hall. In the same hall also the lecture room for the Technical Lectures by selected companies will be organised. Below is the present list of exhibiting companies. A detailed floor plan will soon be available on the website.

Historic Exhibition

     One of the highlights of EMC 2004 will certainly be the historic exhibition. Historic optical microscopes as well as several accessories, some dating back to early 18th century and once belonging to the personal collection of Christian Van Heurck, a friend of Roderick Zeiss and Ernst Abbe, will be on display.

Travel and accommodation arrangements

     Although Antwerp is a very active and touristic city, not very many large hotels have been built downtown. For this reason, First Class, the company arranging all matters concerning registration, travel, transport, accommodation, social programme, etc. has reserved a large number of rooms at special rates in different hotels. In order to take advantage of these rates, rooms have to be booked through First Class by using the on-line or off-line accommodation forms.

     One point to note in this respect is that in the coming months several large traffic works are planned in and around Antwerp. As the EMC 2004 venue is located south of the city, this should not result in any on-site problems, but delegates lodging downtown are advised to take advantage of the EMC 2004 transport services that are also handled by First Class. Reserved coaches will be available for morning and evening transport to and from the venue and stopping at designated and centralised spots close to the listed hotels downtown. Also, upon arriving to Antwerp, special care should be taken to follow the proper signs relating to the traffic works. In the weeks preceding EMC 2004 more detail on the best routes to enter Antwerp or to arrive at the Middelheim Campus of the University of Antwerp will be available at the website. Please also note that the location of the Welcome Reception and Sunday Courses on Sunday afternoon is closeby, but different than the site of the actual meeting.

Social Programme

     First Class is also in charge of an extensive partner programme during the meeting as well as pre- and post-congress tours. The partner programme during the meeting focuses on interesting tours downtown historic and contemporary Antwerp, while the pre- and post-congress tours are full day visits to some of the other grand cities of Flanders such as Brussels, Gent and Brugge.

     Also, some of the major microscopy companies will arrange evening festivities in some well-chosen locations downtown Antwerp.

2. Agenda of the EMS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

     to be held at EMC 2004 in Antwerpen (August 22- 27, 2004), exact location to be announced at the registration desk of EMC 2004.

     According to the Constitution, a General Assembly of all individual EMS members will be held during EMC 2004. The EMS is a European Society with 3.180 individual members (see below). It is important that EMS members gather, discuss and determine the framework in which they communicate and cooperate. For details on the Constitution, see the EMS web site: http://www.eurmicsoc.org.

     Summary of the rules: All paid-up EMS members, including members of the Executive Board, have one vote. A quorum of 50 members is needed. The General Assembly will be chaired by the President of EMS. Decisions of the General Assembly are taken by a simple majority of votes. Two representatives of the Trade Committee have voting rights in the General Assembly.

Agenda

1. Confirmation of the agenda of the General Assembly
2. Minutes of the General Assembly held during the EMS extension in Pula (2003), distributed by the EMS Newsletter and available at the EMS web site
3. Report on the organization of the Brno meeting
4. Report of the President, describing the activities of the Executive Board, the committees and the EMS in the period 2000 - 2004
5. Report of the Treasurer and the auditors for the period 2000 - 2004
6. Election of two auditors for the years 2004 - 2008
7. Proposal and approvement of the budget for the period 2004 - 2008
8. Proposal and approvement of the annual fee for EMS members and corporate members
9. Approval of the statutes (changes need a 2/3 majority of votes)
10. Approval of the by-laws (need a simple majority of the votes)
11. Proposal of new candidates for the Executive Board of EMS
12. Election of the new Executive Board
13. Prospect on EMS activities
14. Any further matter to be discussed
15. Closing of the meeting

Agenda of the GENERAL COUNCIL

     Following the General Assembly, a General Council will be held with the purpose to allow representatives of national societies for microscopy in Europe to discuss and choose the next venue for the quadrannual European Microscopy Congress, EMC 2008. Because of the important role of national societies in organizing large scale microscopy meetings, this decision is a prerogative of the microscopy societies in Europe. We ask interested national societies to submit a proposal for the organization of EMC 2008. Criteria for writing a proposal are given in the by-laws of EMS.

Summary of the rules:

The General Council is composed of
i) representatives of national societies for microscopy in Europe, that have adopted en-bloc membership of EMS
ii) the members of the Executive Board
iii) two representatives of the Trade Committee

     National societies that have less than 300 EMS-registered members have one representative with one vote. Societies with a membership over 300 have two representatives, each with one vote. Only one society per country can send representatives to the General Council. When two societies are active in one country, the society with the largest EMS membership will be represented at the General Council. The President of the Executive Board serves as chairman of the General Council. No valid decisions can be taken unless more than 50% of all societies are represented. Decisions of the General Council are taken by simple majority (> 50%) of votes.

Agenda

1. Confirmation of the agenda of this General Council
2. Confirmation of the society representatives and the Trade Committee
3. Proposals for the venue of the EMC 2008
4. Decision on the next venue
5. Conditions of the agreement between the EMS and the organisers of the EMC 2008
6. Any further matter to be discussed
7. Closing of the meeting

The present EMS membership (01.05.04) and representation for the General Council

3. FEI-EMA Awards

4. EMS Yearbook and membership address lists, corrections

     The past president of EMS, Peter Hawkes, is now in full swing to produce the EMS Yearbook 2004, the fourth one in a row. This book contains information about microscopy firms, products, EMS information, the addresses of EMS members, the text of invited (prize) lectures and many other items. The address information is obtained with the help of national secretaries of Societies for Microscopy in Europe. We have received corrections to the addresses in the Yearbook, to those email addresses we use for this electronic Newsletter and to the addresses used by GIT for the distribution of Imaging & Microscopy. When appropriate (for instance after reading your address in the Yearbook), it would be helpful when you use the address correction form at the EMS website, available at http://www.eurmicsoc.org/chadr.html .

As mentioned above, we now have 3180 paid-up individual members of EMS. We will provide the national societies with the files we have assembled of the members of EMS and see whether these can be used by the societies for corrections and for their own administration.

5. EMC 2008, candidates for hosting this congress

     Although preparations for EMC 2004 are in full swing, we have to look into the future and prepare for the selection of the venue of the next EMC. Since this matter concerns the involvement of one or more national Societies for Microscopy, we ask societies interested to host the next EMC 2008 to send a letter of intent. We would very much appreciate such initiatives, because this decision has to be taken in Antwerpen, August 2004. For details concerning the procedure, have a look at the EMS website.

6. EMS wishes to vote electronically

     The EMS Executive wants to introduce electronic voting. However, we are not familiar with software to support such function. Anybody who can help us with this lack of knowledge is kindly requested to send a message to the Secretary or any other member of the Executive.

    
     Prof. em. dr. E. Wisse
     EMS Secretary