I have attended the ICES Statutory Meeting once in each decade since the 1960s for four very different reasons. This gives me something of an all-rounder's view of the proceedings that is, arguably at least, worth placing in the corporate memory.
1965
I went to Rome as a relatively new member of the Lowestoft staff with a first set of data to report to ICES. The main memory is of a very long table which the Hydrography Committee sat around and of standing at one end of it on the last day and giving my all about the residual bottom currents of the North and Irish Seas via slides and, amazingly, now I know the inherent risks a speaker faces, ciné film of Woodhead seabed drifters breaking free from their soluble string on the seabed. The meeting seemed to me to run very smoothly, the mix of business and science being very acceptable and the keynote presentation, given by Dr John Steele on the theme of "The links between hydrography and fish stocks", highly appropriate. "Saltimbocca" was one of the highlights of the social whirl and another was buying my first-ever watermelon slices laid on blocks of ice carried on a barrow. I came away seeing the exchange of plans and science across ICES Member Countries as being the norm and have been a fervent European federalist ever since.
1976
The nine years after 1965 were very much a time of ICES Working Groups culminating in being Project-Manager of the IN-OUT phase of JONSDAP 76 which meant that I was in Copenhagen for the Statutory Meeting that year. For the first time the meeting was held in the Bella Centre, a modern exhibition centre, and everything again ran very smoothly. We had had a JONSDAP 76 Workshop in the two days before the meeting began and duly reported to the relevant Committees. The scientific presentations were less to the fore than in 1965. Perhaps this was the beginning of the exponential rise in the number of papers submitted? Key memories of the meeting were that I learnt the difference between catadromous and anadromous fish, that I was aware of Roy Harden Jones being present as Editor of the Journal du Conseil, and that I received some very hard stares as I journeyed home on the train from Jens Smed's Hydrography Party at Charlottenlund Castle wrapped only in a chemist's white coat. I had been stripped of my JONSDAP 76 T-shirt at one of the several high points of the evening's proceedings. Just before I was attacked, someone had stood on a chair to announce that he was "The Greatest" to be followed by a very senior present-day international guru climbing onto the table to proclaim that he was "The Smallest".
1985
I saw a totally different aspect of the Statutory Meeting this time since I was given the job of organizing the London meeting. I was in total high delight for the whole of the year-long run-up period and the meeting itself and had the most appalling withdrawal symptoms afterwards. In the preparatory phase I hired Church House, the Café Royal, a pleasure-boat for a cruise up the Thames and buses to run people to and from Greenwich at the weekend. A Lowestoft team joined forces with the ICES HQ staff to service the meeting and everyone got on together like a house-on-fire. For the first time I became aware of the existence of a Documents Room comprising tonnes of texts with attendant handling problems. I also noticed the new importance attached to Theme Sessions. I did not sense the existence of a large cohort of young people amongst the participants. After the main programme had ended, I stayed on to tie up loose ends and went along with the Delegates and ICES HQ team to a lunch at Fishmongers' Hall that was a very real "magic moment". "Kransekagefigur" is a Danish word that stays with dŸ ’@èÐÂè@èÒÚÊ@èÞÎÊèÐÊä@îÒèÐ@Â@àÐÞèÞÎäÂàÐ@ÞÌ@ÚÊ@ÒÜ@Â@¬ÒÖÒÜÎ@ÐÊØÚÊè@èÂÖÊÜ@ÒÜ@èÐÊ@¦ÊÆäÊèÂäÒÂè@žÌÌÒÆÊ@Âæ@îÊ@äÊØÂðÊÈ@ÂÌèÊäîÂäÈæ\
I attended the Dublin meeting as part of the ICES HQ team with the roles of sitting in on Committees to spot likely papers for the ICES Journal and simply being available for authors to talk to. Fortuitously "events" combined to let me double also as the Co-Convener of a Theme Session on "Computing in Fisheries Research" which had been well supported by authors and poster-makers. These various duties meant that the days were very full, enjoyable, and profitable all round.
The venue turned out to be a splendid suite of rooms in Dublin Castle with a large central lounge for people to meet in and several adjacent niches for coffee and conversation. Some of the committee rooms were said to be too small for the number of participants (in toto 500, a record at the time), but this apart I thought the housekeeping to be beyond reproach, especially as Professor John Blaxter, the JMS Editor, and I had a very noble suite.
The Opening Session was an excellent blend of formality, housekeeping, and science excellently chaired by David Griffith, the ICES President at the time. I had chosen a key corner seat at the rear so as to be able to escape if the fog descended but stayed until the end of Dr J. McDowell Capuzzo's keynote address on "Biological Effects of Contaminants". One thing that struck me from the first this time was the presence of a large cohort of young scientists, and I took this to be a good sign.
The Theme Sessions I attended were well supported with 80_120 people in the main ones. The presentations themselves were, as ever, pretty variable but it was very clear that in several cases people were standing up in public and talking in a second language for the first time: a necessary part of the learning process in international science that ICES has fostered throughout its history. The Committee sessions looked a little less tidy than in 1965 but this could be overcome in the future I felt by a move back to the big tables that people can sit round and see each other as the discussion develops. I particularly enjoyed a sharp exchange this year between a Veteran and a troupe of Young Turks in Hydrography which ended up with the Veteran being told that "Nobody wants to go back 20 years when you were only concerned with a current going here and one going there".
Socially, ICES 1993 was splendid, with receptions beginning two of the five nights, a "History Dinner" on another night, a night at the theatre, a bus tour in good company on the Sunday followed by a barbecue, and the presence for four days of the "Golden Oldies" Rugby Tournament in Dublin at the same time as ICES. The minimum age for "Golden Oldies" is 35, and different-coloured shorts are worn for each decade of age with commensurate adaptations of the rules about tackling, etc. The tournament began with a two-hour parade accompanied by Madonna through loud-speakers, and at various times in the evenings stetsoned Canadians and huge Australians were met. I chanced on the Aberdeen team at 0035h on the last day in the hotel bar preparing to play the Australians and enjoyed the bizarre experience of being introduced to one of them who was the Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University when not a "Golden Oldie".
The last morning of the meeting was in some ways the very best of ICES as far as an unapologetic aficionado is concerned. First I confirmed that Colin Bannister had been elected by his peers to be Chairman of the Consultative Committee and, as a friend of nearly 30 years' standing, I was thrilled to the core for him and for ICES. Second there was a very lively session, well chaired again by David Griffith, on what people had thought of the meeting. I was told that an earlier Delegates Meeting on the same subject had been much livelier, but this session did not flag, young scientists were well represented in the exchanges, and the "Powers-that-Be" seemed genuinely interested in the views being expressed. Overall most people seemed to be fairly happy with the structure of the meeting but asked that the purely scientific presentations be highlighted more clearly. The continuing need for some "Committee Business" sessions was clearly recognized.
At the ICES History Dinner earlier in the week an important part of the evening had been the showing of a seven-minute video transcription of a ciné film of part of the 1936 ICES meeting. Whilst the scale of the Statutory Meeting had changed beyond recognition there were still echoes to be seen in the film of the close personal links stemming from mutual interest and endeavours. In 1993 Dillon's restaurant in Dublin with, amongst other things, its "crubeens" and "colcannon", became something of a centre of these developments as far as several delegations were concerned, and I was a part of the proceedings on most nights. One sign of the times was that several friends from the '60s commented that they had become "Empty Nesters" and it was clear that we all shared both low moments when we passed now-unused children's bedrooms and some highs as our various offspring faced the world outside both home and Fisheries Research and as we became aware of our newly regained freedom. The 1936 film emphasized this time-perspective in general terms and also underlined, for me, what a good idea ICES was and remains. I hope the younger generation, which was so very much in evidence at Dublin, will come to the same conclusion for itself at Baltimore.