Re: [SIGLEX-MWE] call for participation: PARSEME meeting, 8-9 September 2014, Frankfurt am Main (relocated from Haifa, Israel)

[Adam P. <ad...@ip...>]

Dear Valia,

Let me jump in as the vice chair of PARSEME COST Action (the OP, Agata
Savary, is the chair).

> since you're using the list for the advertisement of the specific event,
> please, be so kind and inform the participants of this mailing list about
> the reasons for the last minute relocation of the meeting from Haifa to
> Frankfurt.

Thanks for bringing the issue of relocating the event to the attention
of the members of this list.  This is an important case of science
meetings politics – and such an encounter is never a good thing, as I
remember from my student years in the communist Poland.

The meeting was indeed planned at first to take place in Haifa and the
great majority of PARSEME members (certainly including the PARSEME
chairs) were very much looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, when the
Gaza conflict escalated, the COST Office issued on 24 July 2014 a
recommendation to relocate the meeting, with a rather strong wording,
including phrases “the COST Association strongly recommends to relocate
the meeting” and, especially:

“In the case that the Management Committee despite this
recommendation insists to run the meeting in Israel in September or in
any nearby future, in which the situation in Israel has not
significantly relaxed, the COST Association disclaims any liability
whatsoever towards the meeting participants for damages, financial or
other, which are associated with this meeting. This includes any
damages, financial or other, in the case of the cancellation of the
meeting, if needed, at a later stage. Furthermore, please be informed
that in the case the Action continues to implement the meeting in Israel
the COST Association will ask the Action to provide from every single
participant a signed letter stating, that the participant will not try
to make the COST Association liable for any damage, financial or other,
associated with the meeting.”

We, the chairs of PARSEME, had no other option but to ask the Management
Committee (MC) members to vote on the relocation.  We hoped that the
escalation of the conflict would end in a few days (as it used to in the
past) and we gave a pretty long voting time, until 20 August, hoping
that we would maintain the original location.  (I can say that openly
now, as it won't influence the results of the voting any longer.)
Unfortunately, the escalation didn't subside within days and – again,
given the strong wording of the “recommendation” – many members of the
PARSEME MC simply felt they had no choice but to vote for the relocation
of the meeting.  In fact, many votes for relocating the meeting where
accompanied by comments expressing the regret that the meeting had to be
moved to a different location.

I was very much looking forward to the meeting in Haifa and I feel that
this development is very unfortunate – and I know many people (including
you, Valia, I assume) share this sentiment.  Nevertheless, seeing that
the results of the vote are bound to be to relocate the meeting, I got
in touch with Prof. Manfred Sailer of the University of Frankfurt am
Main (Institut für England- und Amerikastudien), who's also the leader
of one of the PARSEME working groups, and asked whether it would be
possible to organise the meeting on the original dates (8–9 September
2014) in Frankfurt, which is rather easy to get to from many locations
in Europe.  Prof. Sailer generously agreed to give it a try and, with
the help of a number of people at Frankfurt (Manfred Sailer, Frank
Richter, Gert Webelhuth), the relocation has been successful.  The
original programme of the meeting is more-or-less preserved, and we
already received a large number of confirmations of the intent to
participate (including from the organisers of the Haifa meeting).  I
hope, Valia, that you – any many other members of this list – will also
make it to Frankfurt.

All best,

Adam P.


P.S. Apologies for the length of this e-mail, but I realised that the
relocation of the meeting has caused some concern, so I thought it would
make sense to explain the situation in some detail.



> On Tue, August 26, 2014 21:49, Agata Savary wrote:
>> CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
>>
>> PARSEME COST Action IC1207 meeting
>> 8–9 September 2014
>> Frankfurt am Main, Germany (relocated from Haifa, Israel)
>>
>> http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/parseme/index.php/event/meetings/95-frankfurt-workshop-on-mwes-8-9-september-2014-frankfurt-germany-relocated-from-haifa
>>
>> PARSEME COST Action IC1207 (www.parseme.eu) is dedicated to parsing and
>> multi-word expressions.
>> It gathers multidisciplinary experts from 30 countries. It is structured
>> in four Working Groups:
>> WG1: Lexicon/Grammar Interface
>> WG2: Parsing Techniques for MWEs
>> WG3: Statistical, Hybrid and Multilingual Processing of MWEs
>> WG4: Annotating MWEs in Treebanks
>>
>> The third general meeting of PARSEME, initially planned at the University
>> of Haifa (Israel), will take place on 8–9 September 2014 at the University
>> of Frankfurt am Main (Germany). The meeting will start on Monday 8.09.2014
>> morning with plenary
>> sessions, and will continue on Monday p.m. and Tuesday 9.09.2014 with
>> poster sessions and partly parallel Working Group (WG) sessions.
>>
>> The preliminary program, including the list of accepted posters, is
>> available at:
>> http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/parseme/index.php/event/meetings/95-frankfurt-workshop-on-mwes-8-9-september-2014-frankfurt-germany-relocated-from-haifa
>>
>> PARSEME members (who have received formal invitations) will be reimbursed
>> for their travel and stay.
>> Participation for other external persons is free. If you are interested,
>> please, contact the local organizers before 3 September.
>>
>> Local organizers:
>> Manfred Sailer and Gert Webelhuth - Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main
>>
>> Local organizer for the initial venue:
>> Shuly Wintner - University of Haifa
>>
>>
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>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> PD Dr. Valia Kordoni
> Institut  für  Anglistik  und  Amerikanistik
> Humboldt-Universität Berlin
> Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin
> Raum: 2108
> Tel.:  +49/302093-2421    Fax: -2244
> ----------------------------------------
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-- 
Adam Przepiórkowski                   ˈadam ˌpʃɛpjurˈkɔfskʲi
Zespół Inżynierii Lingwistycznej _____ http://zil.ipipan.waw.pl/
Narodowy Korpus Języka Polskiego _____ http://nkjp.pl/
Journal of Language Modelling ________ http://jlm.ipipan.waw.pl/
Polska Lista Językoznawcza ___________ http://tnij.us/pling