IUVSTA Activities 
The Executive Council ,ECM-86, and associated committee meetings were held in Portoroz, Slovenia, October 7-9. It was hosted by the Slovenian Vacuum Society and was very enjoyable; Monika Jenko did an excellent job on all the arrangements; she had persuaded her daughters to assist and they were very helpful. The meetings were held overlooking the Adriatic Sea and some brave souls went for a swim. The Slovenian Vacuum Society hosted a visit to a very large and impressive limestone cave; the 3km walk through the cave got rid of some of the calories gained from sitting in meetings and eating very well. However, this was compensated by the dinner which the Society hosted afterwards at an inn on top of a hill.
Elsevier continues the commitment to provide funding to support student participation in conferences. In 2000, 13 students were provided with support to present papers at ECOSS-19 in Spain; they were from Argentina, Brasil, France, Germany, Morocco, Ukraine and Yugoslavia. For 2001, the Elsevier Student Awards will support attendance at ECOSS-20 in Poland and IVC-15 in San Francisco.
We purchased the url www.iuvsta.org and this is the new web site address, although the previous address www.vacuum.org/iuvsta still works. However, you should change your bookmark for the web site.
As we are now less than a year away from the 14th General Meeting and the end of the triennium, all member societies have been invited to submit bids before December 31 to host IVC-17 during 2007; IVC-16 will be held in Venice, Italy in 2004, See the Events Schedule in the Calendar on the web site for actual dates, etc. The member societies have also been requested to make nominations for President-Elect for the next triennium (i.e. President for 2004-2007) as well as to nominate delegates for the General Meeting in San Francisco and the Councillor and Alternate Councillor for that triennium. Each member society has also been asked for their nominations for members of the 8 Division Electoral Colleges.
The next Executive Council (ECM-87) will meet in Brighton, England in March. The election of the President-Elect will take place then. Both ECM-88 and ECM-89 will be held inSan Francisco, immediately before and after IVC-15. The location of ECM-90 in early 2002 will be decided at ECM-87; bids from member societies to host the meeting are welcome and will be considered at ECM-87.