Dear Everybody,

This newsletter issue coincides with The Big Event: The I2-ICPR in Jerusalem. I hope I'll see several of you there. And those who will have no chance to go, I hope that we shall conference together in some other equally exciting place of the world! (With the proliferation of conferences, I think the time is ripe to introduce a new verb into the English language: to conference, meaning to go to lots of conferences; some people may have a cynical view on this, see the cartoon by Terry Fountain on p. 8). Talking about conferences, reminds me of the perennial issue of what is sponsored by IAPR and what is not and what that means in practical terms. A lot of people seem to think that if a conference/workshop is organised by a member society it is automatically sponsored and can use the IAPR logo and the IAPR newsletter space for advertisement. This is not the case. With the exception of ICPR, all conferences and workshops have to go every time through the process of obtaining sponsorship, outlined in the April issue of this year, (Vol 16, No 2). By this means, IAPR helps to avoid date clashes.

Apart from the use of the IAPR logo, and the possibility of borrowing money from IAPR, a sponsored conference can be advertised free of charge through this newsletter using almost a whole column of text, far more than non-sponsored conferences. The benefits of attending a sponsored conference, apart from the fact that sometimes some such conferences offer discounted participation fees to IAPR members, is also the knowledge that some extra care has been taken in choosing the programme committee and the theme of the conference as these have to be approved by IAPR before sponsorship is granted.

In the meantime, those of you who are not involved in such demanding jobs as conference organising, ignore all the above and enjoy conferencing! (I had to find a way to use the new verb again...)

Maria Petrou