From the President

What is the future of our science and of our Society? In a word, "bleak". But in 5 words: "bleak unless we do something"

For the science to thrive, it needs a place in the Science curriculum at our Tertiary institutions. To get, or hold a place, there needs to be recognition of the importance of clay to our life and life-style, and the students are the ones that need to be convinced. As I write this, I have just been told of one university where research and knowledge are now regarded as, from a pragmatic perspective, unimportant. It is the undergraduate courses with high enrolments that survive, for these fund universities.

We meet biennially as a group of University, Government and Industry scientists. For three days we entertain ourselves and are recharged with the excitement of clay research, but we won't change the world, not even a bit, unless we become more outward looking. Ten or so years ago we had meetings of 80 or more. The last two meetings had trouble reaching 40.

One thing we can try is to widen the scope of the Society. The extractive minerals industry has a significant work-force, many with experience in clays. Industrial chemists work with clays as raw materials from which to develop new products. We know, through the many soil scientists in the Society, how important clays are in agriculture, yet few from this arena join the Society.

I would like you to think about changing the Society to make it more useful and interesting to this wider constituency. I am told that there is a move to initiate or revitalize an Australian Industrial Minerals Society. I think it is possible that we could join with those so minded, enlarging our group, perhaps to form the Australian Clay and Industrial Minerals Society (ACIMS?, AClaIMS?); or maybe "Minerals Industrial and Clays Australia " (MICA!).

So expanded, we would be part of a group that has some visible impact on society, and so some hope of being recognised as a science to be included in mainstream Tertiary education.

Tony Eggleton
April 2001

Recognition

Congratulations to Keith Norrish, recipient of the Clay Minerals Society (USA) Bailey Distinguished Member Award for 2001. This highest Award of the Society recognizes Keith's huge impact on clay mineralogy, and the importance of his insights to the advancement of clay science.

Next Conference - Canberra, ACT, April 2002

The next ACMS conference will be in Canberra, from Monday April 29 to Wednesday May 1 2002. The district has numerous clay deposits,and the area provides opportunities to examine both the clays of the local soils, and the effect they have on the local produce. Travelling scholarships will available to students presenting papers.

Planning is in the early stages. Suggestions for thematic sessions so far include:

° Environmental management of clay soils of the Mudgee region;

• Extraction of fluids from clays;

• Surface properties of clay minerals:

• The clay mineral (and associated materials) extractive industry.

More ideas would be welcomed

Register your interest: Please contact the ACMS Secretary:

Dr Richard Greene
Department of Geography
School of Resource and Environmental Science and Management
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200

ph 02 6125 3822
fax 02 6125 3770
Richard.Greene@anu.edu.au

The Society Rules

The Society was incorporated (in the ACT) shortly before the ICC in 1993. Since then the laws applying to Incorporation have changed, and our current Rules are not in accordance with those changes. Richard Greene and I have modified the Rules, trying to maintain as much as we could of the spirit of the old Rules while conforming to the legal requirements for Incorporation.

The new Rules are on the Society website (www.clays.org.au). Members are asked to look at these, and comment if they so wish to Richard or to me. If change is suggested by the comments, we will modify the Rules and re-post. There will be an Annual General Meeting of the Society in Canberra in June at which the new rules will be presented for approval (or rejection).

Papers from the forthcoming issue of Applied Clay Science

Jock Churchman has organized publication of some of the papers presented at the 2000 ACMS conference in a special issue of Applied Clay Science.