Discussion journal of the Mössbauer Community

[Krish Bharuth-Ram <kbr AT saao.ac.za>]

Dear Frans
Following the email from Guido and Michael perhaps you may wish to re-consider the decision to cancel the conference.
I had long ago suggested iThemba LABS as a venue, where we could have got the auditorium (able to seat 200) at no cost together with good space for poster sessions, as well a conference secretariat.

I could call the Director tomorrow and discuss availability, etc.

Please let me know asap.

Kind regards
Krish.

On 2016/06/20 06:52 PM, Michael Reissner wrote:

Dear Frans,

 

I am sorry, but I cannot confirm that I understand your decision to cancel the symposion. A cancellation 1 year in advance might be ok, but not 10 weeks before the start. For you the cancellation might be the easiest way, but you forget that people have paid a lot of money in advance, which they will not get back. E.g. I have paid the flight for me and my wife, who I wanted to take with me, some months ago. I cannot cancel this flight. I also booked the hotel for us. Hopefully we can cancel this. As this would have been my first time in South Africa, I have booked a pre-conference tour for us, which I also cannot cancel without loosing a lot of money. I am sure that I am not the only one who has such problems.

 

I do not know what you have expected. In my opinion I have expected in best case 60 participants. What about the South African Mössbauer community? Are they not involved or interested in this conference?

 

In principle such small conferences are much easier and cheaper than a conference with 200 people. A small lecture hall at the university or even a seminar room at the institute is enough. Coffee can be prepared and served by students or secretary. This all is usually for nothing. By the way ISIAME at Budapest was organized very well in that way. I never understood, why organization of conference are nowadays always given to some agencies and are hold in hotels, where you have to pay a lot for the infrastructure.

 

You wonder that you have only 11 registrations up to now, but I have to remind you that the deadline even for the early bird registration is July 1^st.  You had a long list of invited talks. I suppose that everyone has confirmed to come. A cancellation of 2 is not large number.

 

I am not astonished that you could not find sponsors for this small meeting. I only wonder that you seem to have calculated with sponsorship money. Such money should never be part of the budget calculation. If it comes, it should be used to support people to come to the conference.

 

In 2009 I have organized ICAME. We expected , due to preregistration 400 participants. Due to the economical crisis 2008, all sponsors and a lot of colleagues cancelled their participation. At the end we had ca. 250 people. Nevertheless we could run the conference, because with some reductions and because in my budget I have only assumed 150 full paying participants. More serious was ICAME 2011 in Japan, because after Fukushima nobody wanted to come. For the organizers it was very serious, but they never thought on cancellation of the conference.

 

It is also a very bad sign for future conferences. If one cannot trust, that the organizer will do everything that the conference can take place, many will be very cautious to plan a partizipation, even when invited.

 

I understand that you are disappointed about “no interest”. But there are some people who were interested, who are now alienated. I would have expected that you cancel your contract and look on really cheap solution, eg. at the university, which can be covered by the registration fee.

 

Only to mention, there was a few weeks ago msms conference with only 30 participants. But people say it was very good program and interesting discussions.

 

I hope this is not the end of the series of ISIAME conferences.

 

Best regards

 

Michael

 

Asoc.Prof.Dr.Michael Reissner

TU Wien

Institute of Solid State Physics

Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10

1040         Wien

AUSTRIA

 

Phon: +43 1 58801 13772

FAX: +43 1 58801 9 13772

Email: reissner AT tuwien.ac.at

 

 

 

 

Von: Frans Waanders [mailto:Frans.Waanders AT nwu.ac.za]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Juni 2016 20:58
An: raquel AT ap22ude.co.za; berryfjz AT bham.ac.uk; kuzmann AT caesar.elte.hu; edson AT cce.ufes.br; haraldur.p.gunnlaugsson AT cern.ch; sunhui AT dicp.ac.cn; taozhang AT dicp.ac.cn; wangjh AT dicp.ac.cn; lazar.karoly AT energia.mta.hu; Stanislaw.Dubiel AT fis.agh.edu.pl; aderbal47 AT gmail.com; stevensjohng AT gmail.com; haflidi AT hi.is; robi AT ifd.uni.wroc.pl; reissner AT ifp.tuwien.ac.at; vpopov AT imp.uran.ru; mix AT lists.kfki.hu; israel.felner AT mail.huji.ac.il; gdzhbj AT mail.iggcas.ac.cn; mosslab.kz AT mail.ru; yoshida AT ms.sist.ac.jp; lttt AT physics.by; kbr AT saao.ac.za; Lodya.Lodya AT sasol.com; S.D.Forder AT shu.ac.uk; kubuki AT tmu.ac.jp; magnet AT uestc.edu.cn; amulaba AT uj.ac.za; klingel AT uni-mainz.de; ksenofon AT uni-mainz.de; massimo.carbucicchio AT unipr.it; jean-marc.greneche AT univ-lemans.fr; jumas AT univ-montp2.fr; lippens AT univ-montp2.fr; jakub.navarik AT upol.cz; libor.machala AT upol.cz; nagy.denes AT wigner.mta.hu; Deena.Naidoo AT wits.ac.za; Gerrard.Peter AT wits.ac.za; Hilary.Masenda AT wits.ac.za
Betreff: ISIAME2016

 

Dear all

It is with regret that I have to cancel the upcoming ISIAME2016 symposium that was to be held in the Lagoon beach Hotel Cape Town

 

The main reason to me is the lack of interest;

We have at the deadline for abstracts (today) only received 27 abstracts of which 7 are to be presented as posters. I have extended the deadline for abstracts with a month and only a few extra abstracts were submitted, mainly in the last 2 days.  Some of the Invited speakers have not yet sent any abstract and others have sent more than one but due to financial constraints only one person can come and 2 Invited speakers have canceled their contributions due to legitimate reasons. I used the mix email as well as some 180 names I had on the lists of persons that attended ISIAME in the past of which only a handful responded and I am trying to answers each person that has sent an email regarding ISIAME2016

At this stage we only have 11 paid registered persons for the conference.

 

The next problem is funding:

Some people suggested that the conference venue is very expensive but the request was made  in China that we should hold it in Cape Town and both Raquel and myself looked for the cheapest option and clearly from the registration fee it is not that expensive.  For the Pittsburgh Coal Conference (to be held in August 2016 in Cape Town) the registration fee is $800 and we have over 200 participants already from all over the world.  We wanted more than 300 for this conference but clearly the economic atmosphere must play a role.

 

Sponsorship:

A successfull conference or symposium is based on sound sponsorship.  I have obtained sponsorship from my own university (euro800) and from Sasol the same amount and I used some euro3000 from my own research funding and did not receive any sponsorship from overseas or Moessbauer industrial persons.  I paid the initial deposit with this money and today was the deadline of paying the next deposit or we will incur fines. We spoke with the people from the venue and they were prepared to not charge us a fine for cancellation and even suggested we reduce the amount of delegates to 40 without additional costs and cheaper rates - thanks to all the efforts by Raquel. 

 

I had many discussions with Raquel who assisted me on the whole organization of the symposium and it is her experience and my believe that with 11 registered delegates to date we will not have even have 40 people in the next month or so to have the symposium going further - let alone in the next day!

 

I am thus very sorry for people who have already payed or booked flights but the registration fees will be paid back as soon as possible

 

I am very sad to have made this announcement but I am not prepared or able to carry any extra costs and I trust that everybody will understand my reasoning and final decission

Frans

 

Prof Frans Waanders Pr Ing. Pr Sci. Nat. Professor en Direkteur Skool vir Chemiese en Mineraalingenieurswese NWU Tel: (018) 299 1994 Faks: (018) 299 1535 www.nwu.ac.za   Vrywaring: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html

Prof Frans Waanders Pr Eng. Pr Sci. Nat Professor and Director School of Chemical and Minerals Engineering NWU Tel: (018) 299 1994 Fax: (018) 299 1535 www.nwu.ac.za   Disclaimer: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html

 

Vrywaringsklousule / Disclaimer: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html

 

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