Report on WFNMC Conference, Melbourne 2002

This conference, the fourth of its type to be held, was held in Melbourne from 04 to 11 August, 2002. The main venue was the Ibis Hotel, although some parts of the program were held at the University of Melbourne.

A photo gallery showing some of the participants at the conference can be found here.

Program

The key part of the conference was the presence of Professor John Conway, of Princeton University, who gave a memorable lecture and was an active participant during the week.

The main topic areas were in a seminar form. Each participant was invited to make a presentation on a favourite problem. There were also special topic areas focused on different competition-related topics.

Erdös Award Presentations

Two mathematicians, Harold Braun Reiter (USA) and Wen-Hsien Sun (Taiwan), were presented with WFNMC Erdös Awards for outstanding contribution to mathematical enrichment both in their own countries and internationally. A third mathematician, Bogoljub Marinkovic (Yugoslavia), will have his award presented in the following year.

General Business

A number of general items were discussed as follows:

1. An official policy stating the links between competitions and related activities with mathematics education was adopted. It can be found on the WFNMC web site here.
2. Tony Gardiner led plenary and group discussion on the role of teachers with competitions and related activities.
3. It was decided to merge the Hilbert and Erdös Awards in future, with all past awards being unaffected. Chung Soon-Yeong, of Korea, was added to the Awards Committee.
4. At the initiative of the current President, the Executive is considering constitutional changes which would require the Presidency to rotate.
5. Two new Associate Editors for the Journal Mathematics Competitions were added to provide extra support to Editor Warren Atkins, particularly with a role of advising on the suitability of submitted articles for publication. These new Associate Editors are Jaroslav Svrcek, Czech Republic and Gareth Griffith, Canada.
6. It was announced that the 2006 Conference had been awarded to the United Kingdom.