President's Report

16th August 2000

Preparations for ANZSMS18 next year on the Gold Coast are well in hand and it promises to again be a most successful conference, particularly as the invited plenary lecturers include Simon Gaskell (UK), Matthias Mann (Denmark), Frantisek Turecek (USA) and Kenneth Collerson (Queensland). Congratulations to Roger Summons who has been selected to deliver the Morrison Lecture at the Conference. Contributors, please note that the final submission date for conference abstracts of presentations is 29th September.

The introduction of a GST in July has had an effect on the Society. As a non-profit organisation with an annual turnover less than $100,000 we do not have to register for GST and, following professional advice, that is the position that we have currently adopted, although it does mean that we are unable to claim any GST credits, increasing the costs associated with our conferences. However, it has been necessary to apply for an ABN so that the ANZSMS18 committee can then avoid company sponsors withholding 48.5% tax on their payments. Following the ANZSMS18 conference, the executive committee will review the position of the Society with respect to GST registration.

The Society nominated Professor Jim Morrison for a Thomson award to be presented at the 15th International Mass Spectrometry Conference in Barcelona later this month. Unfortunately this was not successful. However, the three successful candidates, to be announced at the conference, are most worthy recipients who have each made notable and lasting contributions to mass spectrometry.

I would like to congratulate three members of the Society who will be presenting invited lectures at this year's IMSC15. They are Michael Guilhaus (plenary lecture), Margaret Sheil (keynote lecture) and Gary Willett (oral presentation). In addition, Margaret Sheil, Richard O'Hair and Mark Buntine have been invited to participate in the ACS symposium "Novel Measurements of Gas Phase Ions" at Pacifichem2000 in Hawaii this December. It is encouraging to see the international recognition of these young mass spectrometrists.

Following on from the very successful lecture tour of Catherine Fenselau (University of Maryland) and Robert Cotter (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) in July last year, the Society was able to financially support similar series of lectures by Vladimir Bondybey (Technical University Munich) during September and John Holmes (University of Ottawa) during April.

In keeping with the objective of the Society to foster young mass spectrometrists, two postgraduate students received ANZSMS travel grants of $500 each to attend the 48th ASMS conference at Long Beach in June. They were Nageeb Sousou and Patricia Calderon (UNSW) whose presentations were well received. This augurs well for the future of mass spectrometry in Australia.

There is a real problem in being able to keep in contact with former members whose memberships have lapsed as a result of not attending a previous conference. Given that the Society is now required to have annual meetings it might be better to separate membership from conference attendance. Although this would mean an increased administrative workload (and associated costs) it would at least allow us to communicate with a wider number of mass spectrometrists than at present. There are certainly many more people interested in the ANZSMS than our current membership would indicate. Perhaps we can discuss this issue at the ANZSMS18 general meeting when all members will be available.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work of Roger Summons who has served as Public Officer since the inception of the ANZSMS executive committee in August 1994. Roger will be retiring after this year's AGM.


John Traeger