AW: [ RadSafe ] IRPA 12 Congress in Buenos Aires

[Franz Schönhofer]

Dear Sandy,

Of course you are right, that such a conference provides the opportunity to
meet old and new friends and collegues. I have always expressed my opinion
that the foremost reason for visiting conferences is the personal contact.
Nevertheless the phenomenon of "conference tourism" is something to be taken
serious. Some "low-level" scientists put forward that these conferences are
so extremely important and that they simply have to attend them in order to
be granted funds to go there and maybe add one or two weeks of additional
holidays. (I know about them, but please don't ask for their names.) A good
friend of mine (not Austrian) even told me, that he would go to the IRPA
conference, though he not really wanted, because money was provided for it
and denying it might have negative effects for future conference visits. 

Should visiting IRPA conferences be a kind of a status symbol?  

I gratulate you that you met Alfred Hefner. I know him very well and about a
year ago we had the opportunity to talk to each other on the air-travel from
Dresden via Leipzig to Vienna extensively. Alfred is one of the few people
in  our profession in Austria, who is honest, who has technical insight and
most of all has kept his common sense alive within all these problems and
also temptations in our business in Austria. Unfortunately I missed a
telephone call of him yesterday and from his automatic e-mail answering
machine I learnt that he is in hospital. I am a little worried, because he
had before heart problems. Let us hope that this is nothing serious. 

Best regards,

Franz 


Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Perle, Sandy [mailto:sperle at mirion.com] 
Gesendet: Freitag, 07. November 2008 02:07
An: Franz Schönhofer; Bjorn Cedervall; radsafe at radlab.nl
Betreff: RE: [ RadSafe ] IRPA 12 Congress in Buenos Aires

These large meetings do provide many benefits, even if the fee is considered
too high. I found that the IRPA fees were not too bad, compared to other
meetings of this scope. One negative comment I heard often was that many did
not consider that some of the sessions required additional fees, that were
not covered in the registration fee. On a positive note, the costs of
everything in Argentina was very inexpensive.

As far as the meeting, there was ample time to attend sessions and one was
able to move from session to session without difficulty. Scheduling and
maintaining time was done quite well.

I find the best reason to attend these meetings is the networking that can
be done, and, meeting with colleagues and friends who also attend. For
example, I met with colleagues such as Dr. Hefner and others from ARCS.
These meetings afford one the opportunity to meet and discuss topics of
mutual interest in-between sessions.

Regards,

-----------------------------------
Sander C. Perle 
President
Mirion Technologies
Dosimetry Services Division 
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614

+1 (949) 296-2306 (Office)
+1 (949) 296-1144 (Fax)

Mirion Technologies: http://www.mirion.com/ 

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of Franz Schönhofer
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 8:01 AM
To: 'Bjorn Cedervall'; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: AW: [ RadSafe ] IRPA 12 Congress in Buenos Aires

Björn,

My comment is very simple: I never take part in such "monster-conferences",
not even when it was held in Vienna, my town of residence. The fee is much
to high. I do not believe that any reasonable work can be done at a
conference with several parallel sessions, which one is usually not able to
switch to in time. The topics are much to broad to be able to find out about
details of interest.  

Sorry, I just came back from a conference in Marocco, less than 200
participants - a number enabling one contacting everybody on topics of
interest and to establish new contacts. 

I will not visit such IRPA monster conferences in the future. 

Med vaenlig haelsning,

Franz

Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA



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