Report from the Secretary

Dear Colleagues, Commission members,

Following the tradition a newly elected board of Commission Officers will continue to issue Newsletter on a regular basis. This is a first issue of a new board. The previous volumes (Nos. 8-11) were grouped around the Central event of the past Inter-Congress period - Paleopedology Symposium in Champaign, Illinois. How would you like the Commission Newsletter to be? What is your vision on what could be the content of Newletter in order to suite cooperation within the Commission, Working Groups and also inter-Commission activity? Your contribution in the form of short papers is welcome.

Our first concern was to establish reliable communication. For this we decided to renew the bank of addresses. We forwarded a request for confirmation (more then 300 copies) and got more than 100 responses. We are waiting for confirmation of other Commission members.

INQUA Executive Committee have decided to implement networking options into INQUA activity. The first version of the INQUA home-page is already available in Internet: http://inqua.nlh.no/
Paleopedology Commission's branch of INQUA home-page is also available on: http://www.fadr.msu.ru/inqua

It was decided to keep the INQUA Home Page itself as consistent as possible. The master files of each commission includes names and the addresses of the leaders, and have maximum three sub-titles:

1. a brief list of sub-commissions, work groups and projects
   
2. a list of meetings
   
3. a link to commission home pages.
   

Following this strategy, we have established Paleopedology Commission's home-page on a server at Moscow University:

http://www.fadr.msu.ru/inqua

This branch of INQUA home page is edited by the Commission Secretary and may include much more information on the Commission activity. By now the following information is already available:

• Structure of Paleopedology Commission, including Working groups;
  
• Inter-congress meeting;
  
• Commission Projects;
  
• Current issue of Commission Newsletter;
  
• Commission Archive with the selections from previous issues of Newsletters, prepared by L. Follmer.
  

Your are kindly asked to express your vision on the structure and content of Commission home-page. Should we place short papers, discussing the status of Commission, like in A. Bronger presentation. By now we do not have possibilities to prepare HTML files upon your request, so you may either send short papers on my e-mail address (makeev@fadr.msu.ru), or let us know the FTP-site where it is located, to enable us to mirror it on our server. If there is a need for additional mailing list we can organise it as well.

Now we are in the process of establishing electronic WebForum where you can share your opinions and make comments right from your WWW browser.

As a responce to letter of Request for Confirmation 68 members confirmed their intention to participate electronically. We hope, that the amount of members with networking possibilities will continuously grow in the nearest future. This will minimaze the cost of Newsletter distribution by traditional mail. Those, who do not have networking options, may still request to send them Newsletters in paper form by mail. As we are limited in funds, a fee of $5/NL is requested from those able to pay. Recommended ways to send money:

We are ready to open mailing list as soon as have a core group, that expressed their desire to discuss. The subsription procedure will be send to those, who informed us their e-mail addresses. The selections of discussion papers may also be placed on the Web. We hope, that the Central event of current Inter-Congress period would be again Paleopedology Symposium (see First Announcement). And we plan to implement modern approach to information exchange - traditional face-to-face conferences may have electronic preparation and electronic continuation. And again, we would like to have your opinion on how would you like our mailing list to be organised. E.g., should we form a separate electronic "rooms" for Working Groups or specific topics for discussion, or should we leave this for more advanced period in the future? Which topics do you think are the most important for discussion? Those, who do not have the possibility to follow electronic discussion, may count on summaries in forthcoming issues of NL.

As a starting point to generate discussion Commission President A. Bronger prepared a review of Commission status during this Inter-Congress period. All members are kindly invited to contribute to it.

During this Inter-Congress period we shall try to benefit from the situation, when Paleopedology occupy position both in INQUA (Commission status) and ISSS (working group status).We shall try to strenthen links between pedologists and Quaternary geologists to benefit paleopedological research and widen scientific and practical application of paleopedological research. What points do you consider to be the most important and fruitfull in linking with ISSS? Where modern pedology and Quaternary geology would benefit from close links? Your remarks on this matter are mostly welcome.

Please, indicate your full contact addresses in your responces, including fax and e-mail (if available).

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