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Chairman’s Report
October 2012

Paul Grosvenor (paul@optima-systems.co.uk)

Well here we go again. Another Vector falls off the production line but this time we have recruited a number of new people to assist with the process and now hopefully we can get more regular issues out to you all.

We are all aware of the worldwide recession we find ourselves in but even so the activity within the APL community remains very high. It has been a few years since I can recall quite so many good things going on.

At our AGM this year in the Lee Valley moot.aplwiki.com/ we made a few decisions regarding the way in which Vector was to be produced and managed;

• We would not be bound to 4 issues per membership year. Instead we would produce editions as and when we could but aim for no fewer than three.
• With the Chairman, Secretary, Editor and many of the Vector production crew all coming from Optima Systems staff I asked the attendees if there was any objection to Optima taking on such a large role in the production of Vector. There were no objections. However it is only right that I reaffirm that Optima will keep Vector running as an independent publication and not as a mouthpiece for its own purposes.

I have been very fortunate in the past year to be able to attend a number of the APL meetings and conferences around the world;

In April APL2000 ran their annual conference in New York. As always we were met by the friendly face of Sonia and her crew. The presentations were interesting and lively, food was good and APL speak went on long into the night – no surprises there then.

In September Stephen Taylor ran his Iverson College workshop in Cambridge. A fantastic time was had by all with twenty-four keen APLer’s chewing the fat, writing code, putting the world to rights, punting, cycling and oh yes, talking long into the night.
sites.google.com/site/iversoncollege/home

October saw Dyalog holding their conference in Elsinore Denmark. The group met, consumed vast quantities of fine food, listened to fascinating presentations even danced the Samba! then talked long into the night.

And every month of course BAA London meets at the Albion pub to hear what is going and give their opinions – yes, long into the night.

I feel sure you are picking up a consistent theme here and I am sure I’m getting too old for it !

Nevertheless it is so nice to have such a friendly and accommodating community; something that is very rare these days. So let me finish with a comment from Devon McCormick after his trip to Lee Valley in April;

“The day I got back to NYC, I was in a bar talking to someone who was very knowledgeable about beer. When I told him I was just back from England where I'd attended a gathering of APLers, he told me that his wife used to program in APL. I joked that I probably knew who she was. Of course, as it turned out, I did”