Vol. V, No 3 (August 2008)
While most of us were away on holidays two teams on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have been busy finalizing the preparations for our sixth annual international event in Ottawa. Garth Wilson and his Canadian team, supported by the T2M Program Committee, have managed to build an impressive and exciting program of presentations, keynotes, roundtables, excursions and banquet events around this year’s theme of Mobility and Environment. In Eindhoven, the new secretary Sjoerd van der Wal and his ECMD team have just finalized the production of the conference CD which – if you are a conference participant – you should receive by Septermber 10th at the latest (if not please contact the secretariat immediately: info@t2m.org. We are very much looking forward to meeting many of you (again) in Ottawa, all the more so because you will be able to watch the changing of the guard from one president to another.
One of the last official duties of the outgoing president has been to secure the publication of a T2M yearbook. During its mid-year meeting in Paris, the Executive Committee approved the proposal, and it is now laying before the Association’s membership for voting. So: if you haven’t voted already, please do so as soon as possible; the voting box closes by the end of this month [August]!
The incoming votes so far suggest that the members share the EC’s opinion to go for a yearbook. As the production schedule is rather tight for the first edition (with launch planned for the seventh annual conference next year) we decided to send out a Call for Contributions to the members in this Newsletter issue. It will be sent out to a wider audience immediately after the close of voting. Trusting that the members’ opinion would not differ fundamentally from what became clear during the Members’ Meeting in Helmond last year, a preliminary editorial team has meanwhile set in motion the recruitment of many contributors for both the main articles and the shorter overview essays by country and by topic. The response has been enthusiastic and broad, so far, indicating that we are on the brink of tapping a hidden vein of the field’s scholarship. A definitive editorial team, fully recruited from the younger members of our association, will be officially installed during a special meeting in Ottawa.
Meanwhile, this is the seventeenth presidential message one of us has signed during his tenure. It is also his last. Both of us hope to welcome you in good health and spirit in Ottawa.
Gijs Mom, President
Hans Dienel, President-Elect
