Dear Aroiders:
For those of you who attended the International Aroid Conference in Nancy you will recall that we had two competing proposals for the next International Aroid Conference, one from Hasan Akan in Turkey and one from Nguyen van Du in Vietnam. With the help of several others, some of whom had previously organized Aroid Conferences (Marc Gibernau, Peter Boyce) and yet others representing large geographical areas (Simon Mayo, Eduardo Gon=E7alves), we put together a questionnaire for both people making offers to host the conference. This was an attempt to be able to make a decision about where we want to meet. I am attaching here the two proposals for your consideration. Anyone who has an intention to attend the next aroid conference should cast a vote for Vietnam or Turkey. We would prefer that people not vote who are certain that they can not attend and we understand that at this point many will not know if they can get funding so a vote here does not commit you to attend. Our attempt is to find out which locale is most popular with those hoping to attend. Knowing these numbers is important for either locality because the planners will need to plan for the size of a meeting hall, the number of lunches needed, etc. Most importantly for now your vote is needed to decide on the venue so that the institution chosen might go ahead with final plans. It is entirely possible that the site which is not selected could still compete for the following meeting so we may chose to meet in the second site in 2015, for example.
The proposed timing for the meetings, April 2013 for Turkey and December 2013 for Vietnam, were selected for different reasons but those times are probably not negotiable. We are hoping to have all the votes back giving your choice for the meeting site by May 15th, 2012. Make sure that you send us your full name, institution (if appropriate), email and mailing address as well as a clear indication of your first choice only. You do not have to be an IAS member to attend the meeting or to vote. It is always nice if we can have non-professionals to attend these conferences if they wish to do so. Each International Aroid Conference that I have attended has had a share of the attendees whose principle interest was in just growing pretty plants and they have contributed greatly to the success of the conferences.
I will be leaving for Taiwan and to Thailand tomorrow morning so send all votes and any questions about the conference to the President of the IAS Zach DuFran (zdufran@wdtinc.com).
Tom Croat
Chairman
International Aroid Conference Planning Committee
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