[Aqualist] Cancellation-IGCP #464 3rd Annual Conference, New Zealand August 2003

[Tim Barrows]

Re:     CANCELLATION - International Geological Correlation Programme # 464 
3rd Annual
Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, 25 - 29 August 2003

The Organising Committee regrets to inform you that the 3rd Annual
IGCP-464 Conference in NZ has been cancelled and has been rescheduled to
Australia later in the year. The Organising Committee did not appreciate
that the core of this working group is a focussed but small group of
researchers. The organisers endeavoured to broaden the themes of the
conference to capture the interest of the wider national/international
Quaternary community. Twelve international and nine NZ registrations
(including invited speakers and organising committee) were simply not
sufficient to sustain the NZ conference in its present format.

On this basis and after very careful consideration, the organising
committee were adamant that the NZ conference was unsustainable. The
annual conference has now been rescheduled for Australia later in the
year.

The new venue for the annual IGCP-464 conference has been rescheduled for
the week of 15-20 December 2003 in Wollongong, Australia (near and using
flights into Sydney). The meeting will be supported by the University of
Wollongong. As with previous IGCP-464 meetings, it will include scientific
and business meetings, a local field trip of two days, workshops and
several short courses (including seismic stratigraphy, sedimentary
geochemistry), the latter at no extra cost to participants, and aimed at
graduate students and and professional scientists.  There is the
possibility of an additional longer field trip of several days in the week
preceding the main meeting. Persons interested in attending the
re-scheduled meeting are invited to contact Francesco Chiocci
(francesco.chiocci at uniroma1.it) or Allan Chivas (toschi at uow.edu.au). There
will be the usual IGCP support available for some travel by delegates from
developing countries. A full circular with costings will be sent to all
IGCP-464 members before 18 July.

We recognise that this conference rescheduling is likely to pose a
tremendous inconvenience to those of you who have already begun to make
their travel arrangements to (and within) New Zealand. We apologise for
this and we share your disappointment. Unfortunately, and despite our best
collective efforts, an adequate number of registrations to sustain the NZ
conference were simply not forthcoming. For those of you who have already
provided Visa/MasterCard payment details these have not been processed
and related documentation will be destroyed. Received cheques will also be
returned.

Again, we the Organising Committee apologise for the cancellation of the
NZ meeting and any resulting inconvenience

Yours sincerely


Dr Brent Alloway
Convener - on behalf of the IGCP-464 3rd Annual Conference Organising
Committee