I have just arrived back from a hot and sticky St. Louis where the annual ACA Meeting was held this year. This was held in a converted railway station, so lavishly equipped with restaurants and shops that we did not venture outside for the whole week. The ACA meeting was extremely well organized, with several exciting sessions, mostly in the areas of protein crystallography, and the organizers are therefore to be warmly congratulated on their efforts.
I was sorry to learn of the recent death of Peter Wheatley, whom many of you will recall for his service as editor of Acta Cryst. He was unfailingly kind and helpful, and he will be missed. Frank Allen has written an obituary, which you can read on alater page in this newsletter and on the BCA Web pages under obituaries.
On the happy side, congratulations to our Vice President, Frank Allen, on his appointment as Scientific Director of the CCDC in Cambridge. Similarly, I congratulate Lesley Dent Glasser, who was a founder member of the BCA, for the award of an MBE in the latest Birthday Honours. That reminds me that in the past the similarity between our names has caused confusion, and I think I can recall once finding that we had been booked into the same room at a Spring conference!
I was also pleased to hear that Andrew Lang has been awarded the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society for 1997 in recognition of his fundamental work on X-ray physics and the development of techniques of X-ray topography. Also, Ken Holmes has been awarded the Royal Society's Gabor Medal for his achievements in molecular biology.
Finally, a recent trial crystal growing competition held by several schools was a great success, and even made it to Meridien TV. Later this year another more extensive competition will be held, and I hope this too will turn out well.
Mike Glazer
The photograph was first published on the front page of the 'Didcot Herald' for July 17th 1997. It shows Vicki Gayle, aged 8 from Northbourne Primary School, Didcot holding the crystal grown by members of the winning school team in the Primary Schools section of the Crystal Growing Competition organised by Phil Smith of the Royal Society of Chemistry during the Summer term. Chieveley Primary School won second prize. Secondary school winners were from Reading and Newbury. The prizes were presented on 24th June 1997 at the 'Chemistry at Work' days held recently in the Waterside Centre, Newbury, and the activities shown later that day on the local news by Meridien TV.
A larger competition for schools in South East England is being planned for this Autumn Term; schools will have 5 weeks to grow the crystals. The first 100 schools to enter get a commemorative Tee shirt and a copy of the book 'Crystals' by I.F.Mercer. The prizes will be awarded during 'National Chemistry Week' in mid-November. I hope to have a report in the March 1998 issue of 'Crystallography News'.
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