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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the archives at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html ########################################### This message has been scanned by F-Secure Anti-Virus for Microsoft Exchange. For more information, connect to http://www.F-Secure.com/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the archives at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html