A letter from the Chair to ASSESS members
                       13 December 2000


I was not expecting to circulate another letter so soon after the last one
in September, but there are two important items of news.

OUR 14TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN YORK AND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

These had been scheduled for 10 November 2000. It will not have escaped
your notice that this was a time of extreme disruption to travel
throughout the UK, and of severe flooding which affected the York area (in
fact there were no trains into York, and mo torists were advised not to
attempt to travel). The Committee therefore had no choice but to postpone
the event. It has been rescheduled for
               Friday 23 February 2001
so please note the date in your diaries and register as soon as possible.

Cheques sent to us for the November meeting were returned, of course, and
the extra inconvenience to everyone of having to re-register and pay for a
second time is very much regretted. If you plan to stay in York overnight,
be warned that it this coincides both with school half term and the
Jorvik Viking Festival. So it would be as well to book accommodation soon.

For information about the AGM see my previous letter (posted to
registered ASSESS members by snail mail in September) or check the ASSESS
website (http://assess.derby.ac.uk).

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THE ASSESS-NEWS MAILING LIST:
MAILBASE IS DEAD, LONG LIVE JISCMAIL.AC.UK (?)

ASSESS "owns" an email list, assess-news, provided by the UK's National
Academic Mailing List Service.

Until 26 November 2000 this service was run from the Mailbase site at the
University of Newcastle. Instead it now uses JISCmail, based at the
Council for the Central Laboratories of the Research Councils.
(ASSESS-NEWS is a moderated list, used primarily for announcements of
forthcoming ASSESS activities, offers of books for review, etc. and is not
intended as a forum for discussion of SPSS matters, for which other lists
are more appropriate)

If you are already registered for the list, your registration will have
automatically transferred to the new site, but please note especially that
messages and administrative commands must be sent to different addresses.

JISCmail uses the LISTSERV mechanism, which is different from that used on
Mailbase. Users of ASSESS-NEWS under Mailbase will find that a few
commands have changed, and should therefore carefully read the user
documentation available at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/docs/default.htm,
and especially http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/docs/user-tips.htm.

For example, to suspend and resume your mail the text of the messages to
be sent to [log in to unmask] (not to the list itself!) are 'set
assess-news nomail' and 'set assess-news mail' (rather than the 'suspend
assess-news' and 'resume assess-news' messages used for Mailbase).

When you join, any ASSESS-NEWS items will be mailed to you automatically
(traffic is low, at just a few messages each year).

Messages sent to the address
     [log in to unmask]
will be intercepted by its moderators (who are members of the ASSESS
committee); if considered suitable, they will then be posted.

To read the archived ASSESS-NEWS messages on the Web, and to find out more
about using the list, point your browser at
     http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/assess-news.

To join, send a one line message like the following to [log in to unmask]
     join assess-news yourfirstname yourlastname

If you want to find out more about JISCmail and the other lists hosted on
it, point your browser at
     http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk

Paul Callow (ASSESS Chair)

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Paul Callow, M.A., Ph.D.                 Phone  01223-335468 (direct)
University of Cambridge Computing Service       01223-334600 (switchboard)
New Museums Site,  Pembroke St,          Fax    01223-334679
Cambridge CB2 3QG                        E-mail [log in to unmask]