The Bureau Working Group on the Planning of the ICES Centenary reported to the Bureau in June this year. Preparations for the Centenary celebrations are progressing quickly. Four major events are being planned. They will take place in connection with the Annual Science Conferences to be held in Stockholm in 1999, in Oslo in 2001, and in Copenhagen in 2002, and with the convening of a Symposium on ICES history to be held in Finland in the year 2000.
Centenary activities at the ASCs will be concentrated on the Opening Sessions, special Centenary Days, the History Dinners, and the Closing Sessions. Preparations are being made for a "Government Declaration" to be signed on the Centenary Day in 2002 in Copenhagen. The main theme is expected to be "the responsibilities of Member Countries to ICES seen in the light of a rapidly changing world".
The Symposium on "100 Years of Science under ICES" will be convened by Dr Emory D. Anderson (USA), former ICES General Secretary. It will be held in Helsinki, 1_3 August 2000. The Symposium will focus on the development of major scientific issues in which ICES has played an important role, and keynote addresses on 12 main developments will be presented, supplemented by contributed papers and posters. The proceedings will be published in an issue of the ICES Journal of Marine Science, produced by Academic Press. Study of the Sea, the anthology edited by Ed Thomasson, ICES Information Officer and Librarian, will be reissued — as presently planned at least — with additional chapters from those countries which were not represented in the first edition. It is anticipated that a special Centenary edition of 500 copies will be published and sold at the Symposium.
Dr Helen Rozwadowski (USA) has been engaged to write the history of ICES. She began her work in 1996 (see "ICES/CIEM Information" no. 29), and the book will be published in 2002. Books about Otto Pettersson and Johan Hjort are also being prepared in Sweden and Norway, respectively.
The Centenary theme of the Annual Science Conference in Stockholm in 1999 will be the development of ICES from 1899 onwards. Representatives of the Swedish Royal Family will attend the Opening Ceremony where David Griffith (Ireland) will deliver the opening speech on "The Evolution of ICES". Dr A. Svansson (Sweden) will lecture on "Otto Pettersson and the Birth of ICES". The Consultative Committee is at present considering the possibility of inviting other prominent lecturers to talk about the development of the role of ICES in oceanography, fishery, and environmental science and advice.
In addition to receptions, dinners, and other festivities, an exhibition is being arranged by the Swedish National Planning Group. Photographs and memorabilia will be displayed, including items illustrating the work carried out one hundred years earlier in some of the institutes in ICES Member Countries. Parts of the exhibition may be carried on to Oslo and Copenhagen. It has also been proposed that a special poster session be held, featuring ICES papers that Member Countries are particularly proud of.
The Annual Science Conference in Oslo in 2001 will have the challenges of the future, the needs of society, and ICES interactions with its partners as the Centenary themes. The organizations and agencies drawing on ICES expertise are expected to contribute by expanding on what they consider to be the challenges of the coming five years.
It is anticipated that the research agenda for the Oslo ASC will form a basis for the draft Government Declaration to be signed in Copenhagen in 2002.
The Annual Science Conferences in 1999 and 2001 will lead up to the main event in the year 2002. The principal themes in Copenhagen will concern the signing of the Government Declaration and bringing ICES scientific and advisory work forward to the next Centenary.
The Danish National Planning Group is working on the preparation of a number of activities, which will be reviewed later by the Bureau Working Group.
Lectures, exhibitions, visits to research vessels, commemorative stamps issued by various countries, history pictures, films and videos, receptions, dinners, theatre, and one or more surprises are what you may expect when you visit Copenhagen in late September of 2002.
Members of the Centenary Working Group review plans at a meeting held in Stockholm in January
1997. Left to right: Dr Ingemar Olsson (Sweden), ICES Consultant Jørgen Møller Christensen, Co-Chairman Dr Michael M. Sinclair (Canada), Co-Chairman
Mogens Schou (Denmark), Professor Jan Thulin (Sweden), and Roald Vaage (Norway). Photographer and WG member: John Ramster (UK).
"Door-to-door," writes John Ramster, "it took me about 12 hours to get to Stockholm. We spoke English at the tables and glided round the city in Volvos. What were the mechanics of the 1899 Meeting?, I wonder. How did the Delegates get out there, how long did it take, where did they stay, did they go in horse-drawn carriages when they went to meet the King, and what language did they speak in the formal sessions? How could they cope with the legalese of D'Arcy Thompson's suggested "Aims" (see Arthur Went, RPV Vol. 165, page 7)?
"Such things intrigued me as I met with my Canadian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish colleagues in Stockholm to plan the Centenary and felt, yet again, the warmth of the ICES family. If anyone has any ideas of how such things were arranged a centenary ago or falls on a diary that describes the housekeeping of an early Working Group meeting, please will they let me know."