International Council for Applied Mineralogy (ICAM):
A Message from the President

The 6th (7th) International Congress on Applied Mineralogy (ICAM 2000) held between July 13 and 21, 2000 in Göttingen, Germany is over. 322 people from 30 countries around the world attended the event, and 190 of 211submitted oral papers, but only 58 of 136 announced posters were presented. Unfortunately the response towards the numerous field trips and excursions offered by the organizers was very slow so the majority of trips had to be cancelled because of lack of interest.

These shortcomings notwithstanding, the congress was a resounding success thanks to the effort and dedication of many people involved. My sincere praise goes out not only to the team of organizers and to those who worked ceaselessly behind the curtains to assure a smooth flow of events, but also to you, the presenters of many outstanding contributions in the field of applied mineralogy. I think I do not exaggerate when I state that this meeting has set new standards for future events of the International Council for Applied Mineralogy.

The General Meeting of the national delegates of ICAM convened during the conference has unanimously elected Dr. Dieter Rammlmair from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in Hannover, Germany to be ICAM's new Secretary General, and further decided to hold the next congress in 2004 in Sao Paulo, Brazil under the chairmanship of Professor Henrique Kahn who has been elected our new Vice president. I wish him and his team success for this challenging enterprise. The delegates also agreed unanimously to accept the motion by Professor Richard Hagni, University of Missouri at Rolla, U.S.A. and Professor Henrique Kahn, Polytechnic School of The University of Sao Paulo, Brazil to elevate to the status of a regular ICAM congress the 1989 Montreal meeting, organized by Dr. William Petruk of CANMET, Ottawa in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Geological Association of Canada (GAC) and the Mineralogical Association of Canada (MAC). Henceforth the Montreal meeting will be counted as the 3rd ICAM congress, and consequently the past Göttingen meeting was the 7th in the series. We are looking forward to the 8th ICAM in Brazil.

A few comments will follow on a dangerous trend that appears to undermine the orderly progression of any meeting of professionals on such a scale. In the past it was considered a great honour to be asked by the organizing board of an international conference to deliver an invited talk. Since naturally only a few of such talks can be given at any one meeting, cancellations on short notice (or no notice at all!) tend to severely disrupt the anticipated flow of events. In Göttingen, two of the invitees did not show up, one excusing himself with very obviously flimsy arguments, the other without any communication despite the fact that we had organized considerable financial support for her to attend the congress. In addition to these disappointments, several people who had submitted extended abstracts for publication in the proceedings but had promised on the registration form to settle the payment of the fees at the conference in cash failed to show up without explanation. These ´smart´ freeloaders have now published their abstracts in one of our ISBN-quotable volume of proceedings without paying anything, and have thus rewarded our generosity and trust with blatant fraud. It is to be hoped that this kind of attitude will not proliferate at future congresses.

I am asking you, the ICAM community to support the next congress in 2004 in Brazil by submitting oral presentations or posters. Hope to see you all in Sao Paulo.

Robert B. Heimann, Freiberg
International Council for Applied Mineralogy, President