Message from the President
ICUMSA 28th Session – Cambridge 2012
The 28th Session was successfully held at Downing College, Cambridge and was attended by sixty-one delegates from seventeen different countries. Thirteen reports were presented by the ICUMSA Referees together with a Methods Development Workshop given by Dr Roger Wood (S3 Referee).
Seven different analytical equipment manufacturers also supported the Session and had stands demonstrating their equipment within the coffee break area.
A meeting of the European Microbiologists Group was held concurrently with the first day of the Session and again proved a great success.
The Session opened with a welcome evening at Sedgwick Museum of Earth Science and concluded with a visit to British Sugar’s Wissington Factory in Norfolk.
As usual the Proceedings of the Session will be published as soon as possible and everyone will be notified once they are available for purchasing.
Executive Committee Meeting
The Executive Committee approved plans to reorganise and rationalise the Scientific Subjects of ICUMSA, i.e. those beginning with S rather than GS. This change simplifies the current work areas recognising that some subjects have now closed. The current list of subjects is as follows:
S1 Constitution and By-Laws
S2 Oligosaccharides and Polysaccharides
S3 Method Format, Collaborative Testing and Statistical Treatment of Data
S4 Density, Optical Rotation and Refractive Index
S5 Dry Substance
S6 Indirect methods of analysis
S7 Colour, Turbidity and Reflectance Measurement
S8/9 Chromatographic Techniques
S10 Enzymatic and Immunological Methods
S12 Microbiology
S13 Reducing Sugars
S14 Ash
The revised list is as follows:
S1 Constitution and By-Laws
S2 Method Format, Collaborative Testing and Statistical Treatment of Data
S3 Colour, Turbidity and Reflectance Measurement
S4 Physical Methods
S5 Chemical Methods
S6 Microbiology
S7 Indirect methods and New Technologies
S8 Sampling and Sample Preparation
Referees will be assigned to these Subjects and then this will be communicated via email and the ICUMSA website.
Similarly the proposal to continue with the project for re-numbering ICUMSA methods was also approved and this work will take place concurrently with standardising the nomenclature used in the methods. It is envisaged that this will take at least four years to complete and at that time a reissue and renaming of the Methods Book may be appropriate to distinguish the change. The renumbering proposal will be published within the Proceedings so that everyone can see how this may appear.
It was also agreed by the Executive Committee that the Officers of ICUMSA shall seek advice on what the status of the organisation shall be. Currently, and this has been the case during its entire existence, ICUMSA has no legal status and the Officers feel this needs to be clarified.
Geoff Parkin
President, ICUMSA