THE 2004 READING CONVENTION

On 13th March the Reading Convention took place as usual in St Peter's Church Hall, Church Street.

It was a well attended meet with the familiar pattern of a Gossip and Sales in the morning followed by three talks in the afternoon.

A general view of the St Peter's Church Hall, with participants setting up their tables. Unlimited coffee and buscuits were a pleasant feature of the meeting!

As usual, Barry Ellam showed a beautifully presented display of various microscopes and different illumination techniques

 

From left to right - Ernie Ives, Klaus Kemp, and Sam Gill try out Klaus' computerised diatom database on Klaus' laptop.

Kit Brownlee (left) addresses the audience for the three lectures which took place in the afternoon.

The three speakers were (from left to right):

Andrew Ross from the Natural History Museum. Andrew showed many unique and interesting pictures of amber specimens, some showing a near complete ecology of prehistoric times.

Fergus Mould from the University of Reading, who described the fauna and flora of the rumen of cows. These fell into three categories: bacteria, protozoa and fungi. Of these protozoa were the 'baddies' and efforts were being made to defaunate the rumen of these animals.

Michael Gorn, a forensic scientist. Michael described the work of a 'scene of crime' scientist and showed some gory (literally!) pictures of some of the cases he had been involved in.

As usual this was a thoroughly enjoyable meeting, admirably organised by those two stalwarts of the Reading Microscopical Society - Kit Brownlee and Mike Woof. Our thanks to them!