![]()
42
| 4 | 2010
Klinisk Biokemi i Norden
Life is a mystery. It can take its own course. We all
have plans for the near future and long-term goals.
We all have dreams we hope to come true. But every-
thing can change in a second or in a short moment.
Unexpected, sudden events may change your life,
your perspective of life and put your priorities in a
new order. How do we cope with a change of plans or
with a total change of the future? This is a challenge
life brings ahead of us and we have to find ways to
deal with the situation.
IFCC General Conference was held in Corfu,
Greece on April 16-19,2010. You all know what hap-
pened in Iceland on April 14, 2010. A volcano erup-
tion in Iceland affected the lives of hundreds of thou-
IFCC NEWS
Päivi Laitinen
IFCC Secretary
sands of people for a few weeks. It also affected the
IFCC General Conference.
I flew to Corfu on Wednesday April 14, 2010 for
the final organization of the conference. IFCC Execu-
tive Board had a meeting scheduled for April 16-17,
2010 and most of the EB members were to arrive on
Thursday April 15. IFCC President Graham Beastall
was flying early that morning from Glasgow. By noon
we started getting messages from Graham Beast-
all that he had problems with his flight to London
because Glasgow was closed due to an ash cloud.
Glasgow airport was closed just one hour before his
flight. That was the first time I and many others heard
of the volcanic eruption in Iceland. The first reaction
was ok, fine, Glasgow is closed, this is only one air-
port. Graham informed us that he is taking a train to
London from where he wishes to get a flight the same
evening. After a 6-hour train trip he arrived at Lon-
don Heathrow only to find out that it was closed an
hour earlier. Also many other airports were closed by
that time. By the evening we all understood that this
ash cloud was going to be a big problem for us. IFCC
President decided to go back home, there was no way
he could have come to Corfu.
The ash cloud meant a change of plans and sched-
ules for those who were in Corfu. About 40% of those
registered faced overwhelming difficulties in getting
to Corfu and they were not able to come. However,
altogether about 150 participants attended the activi-
ties. The first two days of the Corfu General Confer-
ence were scheduled for internal meetings. Executive
Board had its meeting, IFCC Divisions, Committees,
Working Groups and Task Forces had also their meet-
ings. Also EFCC had its Executive Board meeting as
well as its General Assembly. The scheduled program
was run as normal as possible, but a few meetings
had to be cancelled because the participants could
not come.
The last two days, Sunday and Monday were sched-
uled for the General Conference for all National Full
Päivi Laitinen. (Foto: Veikko Somerpuro).
