Dear colleagues,
I agree with George Abungu that fake conference registrations are not
really a problem once you are aware of their excistence and knows how to
deal with them. The intention at the outset was to find out how common
they are. And thank you to colleague Nath i Nigeria who promptly sorted
out the 5 fake registrations to the ICME conference.
But: It has by some been referred to the need to have online lists of ICOM
members. I hope this does not lead to the conclusion that the conferences
of the international committees should only be open to ICOM members.
Most of our colleagues in economically disadvantaged countries cannot
afford to be ICOM members - even with the lowest fee. For ICME it has been
unthinkable not to accept them as participants in our conferences. Even
more so because their funding will generally be secured through
recommendations on a national level. That means that their participation
is considered important for the country they come from.
The highly successful ICME conference in Zambia last year would have been
nothing if we demanded ICOM membership from every participant.
Having non-ICOM members as participants in conferences (especially from
the host country) is also a good opportunity for recruitment and may bring
in new knowledge and ideas.
(Lastly: I do not mean that AFRICOM should act as a sort of police. Merely
that - considering that fake registrations so far do come from Africa, and
in our case we have this time had more fakes than real ones, and the fake
ones will surely be more cleverly expressed after some years - giving
general advice regarding what kind of information it is wise to send
along, so that their registration is not by accident met with the delete
button, might be useful for our African colleagues. It would be bad if
they in the future become the victims of fake registrations from
international criminals (probably based in Europe).)
Kind regards
Per
Per B. Rekdal
ICME
-----Opprinnelig melding-----
Fra: Abungu [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sendt: 22. august 2003 16:03
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Fake conference registrations?
Dear colleagues,
I have been reading all the emails regarding fake conference registration
forms with interest... I am actually surprised that it has caused such a
stir; do fake registrations come in such huge numbers to cause great
alarm?
Since Nath has been kind enough to offer to 'screen' prospective
participants from Nigeria, I hope that those with any doubts take him up
on
the offer. As for AFRICOM, we have not experienced any such fake requests
from any country.
Concerning Per's suggestion that AFRICOM and other representative bodies
of
African museums should find ways for some kind of simple authorisation of
conference registrations... I think it would be very difficult indeed for
AFRICOM or any other body to act as any kind of continental 'Registration
Police'. However, I welcome everyone to make enquiries to AFRICOM to
verify
museum professionals against our database. I am pleased to say that the
2003
edition of the 'Directory of Museum Professionals in Africa' will be
available in hardcopy and on our web site very soon, and this can also be
a
way of checking true professionals (although not necessarily ICOM
members).
It must however be kept in mind that the Directory reflects only those who
responded to the questionnaire, and there are undoubtedly more
professionals
out there who did not...
I think that ICOM committee conference organisers just need to be vigilant
and confirm registrations according their own internal systems.
Furthermore,
I agree with Giovanni Pinna who points out that "le problème ne doit se
poser que pour les demandes d'enregistrement adressée par des personnes
qui
ne sont pas membres de l'ICOM" (the problem only exists for registration
requests from those who are not ICOM members). Therefore, it should be
quite
simple to send an email to the concerned country's ICOM committee, or to
the
friendly people at ICOM Membership Services, who can verify if someone is
a
member or not.
Regards,
Lorna
--
Lorna L. Abungu
Executive Director
International Council of African Museums - AFRICOM
Museum Hill Road
P.O. Box 38706, Ngara
00600 Nairobi
KENYA
tel. 254-20-3748668
fax. 254-20-3748928
www.african-museums.org
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