In the Chair: Martin Jahns, Chairperson IAL - Those present: Daniele Armaleo, Antonella Bartoli, Richard Beckett, Marcela Caceres, Chao Chung, Sharon Eversman, Margalith Galun, Jacob Garty, David Hawksworth, Natalia Ivanova, Ludger Kappen, Ilse Kranner, Robert Lücking, François Lutzoni, Vivian Miao, Pier Luigi Nimis, Sieglinde Ott, Dagmar Triebel, David Richardson, Mark Seaward, Christoph Scheidegger, Larry St. Clair.

1 - Purpose and function of the IAL - In opening, M. Jahns said he was surprised he had so little to do as chairperson of the IAL. He expressed a concern that the IAL was not involved in the activities of local lichen societies, and that the council of IAL appeared to have no function. A general view was expressed that the society needed a higher profile in the biological world.

2 - IAL as a federation of regional societies - Many present at the meeting expressed support for the suggestion that the IAL should act as a "roof" for local societies, much as the International Mycological Association does for mycologists. Advantages included avoiding the need for individual members to pay subscriptions (often with high bank charges), and that individual members could more easily present the interests of lichenologists at local meetings without necessarily being council members.

3 - Role of the Newsletter - M. Jahns said that, in his opinion, the Newsletter was excellent, and really served to unify members of the IAL. Some thought that the Newsletter could serve as a vehicle for publishing methods (e.g. for culturing new mycobionts), although others stressed that these must be kept brief, or suggested that, alternatively, a big web page should be maintained. P. L. Nimis recommended that the method of payment for printing costs needs to be formalized: he is currently bearing these costs himself, and will be glad to do this until the end of his mandate, but the next Editor ought to be free from financial loads.

4 - Financial situation - M. Jahns said that the financial situation of the society was currently excellent, with over US$10,000 in balance. He cautioned, however, that this would have to "run" the society for the next three years. An unfortunate aspect of the current constitution was that the accounts of the society have to be moved every four years, as the Treasurer cannot be re-elected. Apart from logistical problems, this prevented the society from being registered as a registered charity, with accompanying benefits, e.g. tax relief on donations. More generally, other possible uses of the society's funds were discussed. Realistically, it seemed unlikely that much could be done with the existing balance; for example, granting sums of money to allow students to attend conferences would rapidly delete funds.

5 - Awards - M. Jahns questioned the procedure for selecting candidates for the Mason Hale award, originally designed to recognise excellence in young lichenologists. Should the chairman ask for nominations, and then let council members check the curricula of those proposed? Others favoured a committee of two or three members, specialists in the field of study of the candidate, or, alternatively, former recipients of the award. Some believed candidates should be allowed to put themselves forward so that potential winners were not missed. M. Jahns felt that there was a clear need for the council to formulate a few simple rules for the Mason Hale award, and also the Acharius medal. Other suggestions were for a prize for the best presentation by a young lichenologist at IMC and IAL meetings, and a prize for the best PhD on a lichenological theme. It was felt that in practice the latter would be almost impossible to implement, because of the difficulties in determining all lichenological theses presented in a given year on a worldwide basis.

6 - Constitution - M Jahns again mentioned the possibilty of changing the constitution so that some members (e.g. the Treasurer) could be re-elected. There was support for this, although several expressed concern that this should not be extended to include too many office bearers. One suggestion was that the "President elect" should be a member of council before taking office. P. L. Nimis expressed his opinion against the re-election of the Editor, and strongly advocated the need for a new constitution, and M. Jahns said he would welcome firm proposals.

7 - Suggestions for the Barcelona meeting of IAL (2000), IMC7 at Oslo (2002) and the International Botanical Congress at St Louis, USA (1999) - M. Jahns recommended that E.Timdal should be approached to ensure a good representation of lichenologists at Oslo. D. Hawksworth felt that lichenologists needed to be careful not to appear to be "foisting" lichenology onto mycologists. He reminded those present that the International Biological Society made cash loans available for those wishing to run conferences, and suggested more use could be made of this facility. Although it was officially too late, F. Lutzoni offered to try to set up some lichenological sessions in St Louis. P. L. Nimis suggested that the next Newsletter could solicit suggestions for the IAL meeting in Barcelona; he could then pass these to the Organizing Committee. He believed more time needed to be allocated for discussion rather than formal lectures. M. Jahns indicated that it might be most appropriate if suggestions were channelled through him to the Organizing Committee at Barcelona.

Richard Beckett, Scottsville, South Africa

The number of members paying the inscription fee is increasing steadily. About 60% of the members have paid at least until 31 December 1998. There are now US$ 8,300 in the IAL account. However, many members still have to pay for the next two years. Former members who have received issues of the Newsletter during the last two years should, of course, pay a membership fee of US$ 40 for 1997-2000. Members who joined the Association at any time during the last 2 years will receive (or have already received) all issues from 1997 (Vol.30, nr.1, 2, 1997; Vol. 31, nr. 1, 2, 1998). Please let me know if you have not received them! Lichenologists who have decided to join the Association can make a choice now. If they choose to pay in full (US$ 40 for the whole 4-year period 1997-2000), they will also receive the back issues of the Newsletter. If they choose to become members only from January 1^st 1999, the membership fee is only US$ 20. New members should contact the Treasurer (or the Deputy Treasurer) to inform him. They also need to inform him if there are any changes in the data originally given. Exact data are necessary concerning name, institute, street, town, country, fax, e-mail and telephone numbers. Recently I had problems over the correct registration of some payments sent via bank transfer. The information received from the bank was insufficient for identifying the sender (e.g. US$ 45 arrived from Köln, or US$ 20 from Norway, etc.). Therefore I ask those who send their membership fee by bank transfer, to kindly inform me at the same time. Please send your membership fee by 15 February 1999! The following accounts are available:

1) Edit Farkas, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-2163 Vácrátót, Hungary - cheques should be made payable to: Hungarian Foreign Trade Bank, H-1051 Budapest, Szent István tér 11, Acc. no.: 501-00047-2100-4019 MTA TUDOMANY (the account holder is the Dept. International Relations, Hungarian Academy of Sciences), please indicate that it is an "IAL membership fee for 1997-2000 (or 1999-2000)" - All fees should be paid in US$! You are kindly requested to add US$ 5 for bank charges if you send a cheque, or, in case of a bank transfer, the sender should pay all bank charges.

2) IAL dues can be also paid to: François Lutzoni, Deputy Treasurer, Center for Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, Dept. of Botany, The Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605, USA. In this case there is no bank service charge.

Edit Farkas, Budapest/Vácrátót

A note from the Deputy Treasurer

I read M. Wedin's excellent report of the IAL Council meeting (The Linnean Society of London 10/1 1998) published in ILN 31, nr. 1, page 3. The second item of this report was on IAL financing. In this section it was written "The IAL gets at present no interest on its bank accounts, this is clearly needed and future assistant treasurers should arrange these kinds of accounts". This should be rectified, since the IAL USA account generates interest at a rate of approximately 2.26%. This is compounded every month. This account is likely to generate nearly $100 of interest this year. The current balance of this account is $3,584.24. On the basis that IAL is a non- lucrative organization, I was able to negotiate with The First National Bank of Chicago to open a Business Savings account for IAL at no initial cost, no administrative cost, and no penalties. In other words, there was never any debts whatsoever for this account. I will gladly explore other options for higher returns. However, the risk will be higher and could involve administration fees. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that we can do much better than this. I think the final decision should be taken by the Executive Council. Please, let me know if the Council would like me to explore different financial options for a higher return on our capital. I don't think we should be waiting for the next Deputy Treasurers to implement such a policy if the Council agrees that we should move forward. I will wait for the Council's recommendation before pursuing this proposal.

The "Privacy Law" approved last year by the Italian Parliament requires that, in order to be published, data such as addresses and telephone numbers need the written consent of the individual concerned. Thus, even parts of this Newsletter do not comply with the Italian law. I think I can manage to maintain this responsibility until the end of my mandate, but this problem should be solved in a way or another before the next Editor takes over, as such regulations apply in several countries. By the way, the same problem may affect the keepers of on-line databases; for example, from an herbarium envelope we can deduce that Mr. X and Miss Y were collecting lichens together in Tahiti at a certain date: this is just the kind of information which we are not allowed to disseminate without the consent of Mr. X and Miss Y (...the wife of the former was thinking that he was attending a congress in Siberia...).