Discussion journal of the Mössbauer Community

["Stanislaw Dubiel" <Stanislaw.Dubiel AT fis.agh.edu.pl>]

Dear all,

I fully agree with Michael's letter, and I already few days ago sent my
(negative) opinion on the cancellation directly to Frans. His decision
is not responsible at all.

Kind regards and good wishes to all of you,

Stanislaw Dubiel



>>> "Michael Reissner"  20.06.16 18:53 >>>
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70.85pt;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}-->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 1st.  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