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Hello everyone! Welcome to those of you who are new to the mailing list, hi again to everyone else. I know it's been a while, but I come with plenty of interesting tidbits for the upcoming conference (Gdynia, Poland in April 2006!). First and foremost, a reminder: the abstract submission deadline is in 4 weeks (Nov 28th)! Also, be precise when filling in the submission form. The necessary instructions can be found on the ECS website (http://www.broekemaweb.nl/ecs/) as well as on the conference website which should be up and running soon. In particular you need to specify if you wish to try for a student award and in which category: "undergraduate" is for students presenting the results of a bachelor's or master's thesis, while "graduate" is for the results of a PhD thesis. The conference website will also have all the necessary information for travel to Gdynia and accommodations. For most of the hotels, you'll have to book them yourselves, but you'll have to go through the organisers for a spot in the Youth Hostel (~5€/day, provides: kitchen, dining room, bathroom, TV room, table tennis. Conference Centre is 7 minutes by bus from the hostel. Bus ticket: 0.5 Euro). This is definitely the cheapest option (100 beds available), the only drawback is you'll have to get the bus to get to conference (all the hotels are within walking distance), but you do get to cook your own meals (although several dinners are included this year in the social events: during the ice-breaker and the special 20th conference event, so that's 2 less meals you have to worry about). In any case, food and drink are inexpensive (for example: sandwich 1.5€; lunch 3-5€; dinner 5-10€; coffee 1€; beer in pubs 1-1.5€), and several restaurants close to the conference centre will have special menus and prices for ECS attendees. As for travel, well Poland isn't as far away (or as expensive) as some of you may think! Depending where you are in Europe, there are quite a few low cost airlines that fly to Warsaw (I've been told it's a 4h ride and trains aren't expensive, but don't have a quote yet) or directly to Gdánsk airport (also serves Gdynia)! Public transportation from the airport to the venue/hostel is only about 1.5-2€. * Ryanair: direct flights to Gdánsk from London and Frankfurt; * Wizzair: direct flights to Gdánsk from Stokholm, Dortumnd and London; also to Warsaw from those two and Liverpool, Brussels, Paris, Malmo, Frankfurt and Budapest * Skyeurope: direct flights to Warsaw from Paris, London, Milan, Salzburg and Rome And those are just the obvious ones, I'm sure if you dig around a bit more you'll find more flights from other cities... So don't let "distance" be an excuse to not come! Remember, this year is a special conference, our 20th! And we want to celebrate it in a big way. Starting by adding an extra day, which allow more time for oral presentations, and with special social events and invited speakers all related to this and the ECS' history. The organisers have promised us a "conference to remember" (for my fellow bar-hoppers out there: I have it on good assurance pubs etc don't close 'till the last client leaves... so no risk it ending before we're ready to go to bed!). I don’t want to say anymore for fear of spoiling any surprises, but trust me on this, you’ll be exhausted by the end of the week! :o) Another reminder, as in previous years, applications for student volunteers should be sent to me! The student workshop will be announced shortly, registrations for it will take place starting in February or March. All the best! Cristina Beans ECS Student Representative PS: expect more messages to come from me in the near future! On the menu: webpage, courses and ELECTIONS!!! Start thinking if you're interested in my job!!!! ;o) Cristina Beans PhD student Laboratoire d'Oceanologie Université de Liège, B-6 Sart Tilman B-4000 Liège, BELGIUM (32)4.366.3740 (32)486.730158 __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com