In This Issue
Who would believe that July is here already. We're over half way through the year and well on our way to Christmas! Ordinarily the SEB would have had its Annual Main Meeting by now but, as we all know, it's been put back to July this year to enable us to stage it outside the UK for the first time. This means a few adjustments to our normal timetable of other activities too: we held the Annual General Meeting in Southampton in May this year (as opposed to our usual venue at the Annual Main Meeting), as we are obliged to schedule it within a certain time frame each year. The reports presented there are published in this issue. There will also be a short summary presented at the Main Meeting.
The AGM is sometimes witness to changes in our honorary officers and we have three this year: Roger Leigh who has been our president-elect for two years takes over from John Bryant as president, as he steps down (but not completely out, since he will remain with the Cell Section); Roger is replaced by Ian Johnston (St. Andrews) who will be in post for two years before taking on the presidential mantle. Formerly convenor of the Thermal Biology group, Ian has already shown his dedication and commitment to the Society. Similarly, Keith Lindsey (Durham) who takes over from Richard Napier as Plant Section Secretary has also been involved with the Plant Section as the convenor of the Plant Gene Structure and Function group. We have given you some insight into their backgrounds and, of course, Roger will be writing the president's letter column for the duration of his presidency.
The re-scheduling of the Annual Main Meeting this year gave the Plant Section the opportunity to run their Symposium meeting in April which proved to be very successful with around 170 delegates attending. A trio report on the Plant Frontiers meeting is published in this issue covering the three main sessions.
Barcelona is proving to be a very popular venue and the sessions are attracting a large delegation. If you've seen the programme for this year you may have noticed that the additional programme has also been altered so that our special lectures (Bidder and Woolhouse) are now both taking place on Monday rather than throughout the week. Our president's medallist talks and other awards (including poster prizes and young scientist awards) will also be presented on Wednesday before and during the conference dinner, giving everyone a chance to see who are our talented and upcoming young scientists.
Biographies of our special lecturers are presented in this issue so that delegates at the meeting will be able preview their backgrounds: Ted Taylor (Bidder Lecture), Russell Jones (Woolhouse Lecture) and our three president's medallists (Adam Benham, Julian Hibberd and Holly Shiels).
Of course the SEB is always looking forward, so you can also view what's on offer at our Main Meeting next year in Canterbury which will be back in its normal time slot of April. Note that, with the ever-increasing technological developments in the main office, the submission procedure will be all electronic this year with the aim of making life easier for you, the session organisers and the general administration.
Meanwhile, the Biosciences Federation of which the SEB is an active member, is organising some useful non-scientific meetings which aim to support you in your life as a university teacher: firstly, there is a one-day Education Colloquium on Student Employability which asks the question 'Whose job is it to produce employable students?'. By bringing together university and school teachers, industry and education professionals we hope to answer this question and provide valuable and useful documentation as a follow-up. In addition, there are our usual three Life Sciences careers conferences, which are always well attended by postgraduates and final year undergraduate students who can find out about a range of biology-related careers as well as having their CVs checked over. One of the presenters is profiled in our HORIZONS series in this issue, so if you want to find out about technology transfer read on.
So, see you in Barcelona where we will expect sunshine and blue skies (rather than hoping for it as we have to normally!).
Sarah Blackford
Editor
