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Many of the matters that I reported on in my last column are still under consideration. The questionnaire concerning the activities of the Society which was distributed with the annual reminder of membership fees generated a good response with nearly 300 members completing the form and many adding useful comments. The Steering Committee of Council at its meeting in Canberra on the 10th of February made a preliminary analysis of the results and I expect to report more fully by the Annual General Meeting in July. Generally the respondents were satisfied with the publication activities of the Society and the efforts made in policy formation and policy impact.
There appears to be a lot of interest in the notion of a new electronic journal but support for the idea is not overwhelming. The questionnaire revealed that more than 90% of the members who responded were connected to the internet and more than two thirds of these made general use of the connection. Therefore there would appear to be no inherent problems of circulation for such a journal but there are other potential difficulties, e.g., should the journal be fully refereed with a Board of Associate Editors, should the text be available in Tex or only in a dvi file, etc.? Steering Committee came to the conclusion that more work had to be done before the Society should commit itself to a venture of this nature.
The questionnaire drew more mixed responses concerning the midwinter conference. This meeting is markedly less well supported than the summer conference sponsored by the applied mathematicians. I hope that analysis of members' opinions might provide some ideas for future restructuring and reorganization of the conference to make it more vigorous and attractive. Again I plan to report more fully on these problems in July. Finally an update on other topics which continue to develop.
Accreditation The accreditation procedure approved earlier this year by Council continues and the First Accreditation Committee has now prepared an application form for accreditation which should be circulated with this issue of the Gazette . There are possible problems of responsibility with a procedure in which the Society gives a form of official recognition to members without fully verifying their academic qualifications. These difficulties have been highlighted by a recent case in which a member mis-stated the date of award of their doctorate by seven years. Therefore Standing Committee resolved to seek legal opinion on the extent of the Society's liabilities incurred by accreditation.
International Conferences: Hyam Rubinstein has begun the process of forming a representative committee to consider a bid to host the International Congress of Mathematicians in the year 2002. Further details about questions of location, accommodation, lecturing facilities and entertainment are also being sought. In addition a thorough investigation of the financial implications will be necessary. All these problems were resolved in the context of the 1997 Triennial Conference of the International Association of Mathematical Physicists and a bid was finalized. This has been submitted to the Executive of the IAMP and is in direct competition with a bid from Shanghai. The result of this competition should probably be known by the time this copy of the Gazette appears.
National Strategy Review: The interview program conducted by the Working Party of the Strategy Review announced in the August edition of the Gazette is now essentially terminated. The Working Party plans to present a draft conclusion to the Advisory Committee on the 24th April in Melbourne followed by a workshop to discuss the outcomes on the 25th or 26th. The final report should then be ready by June.
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