2022 with MEI: a cautious approach to normality

This year will be remembered for many things; in UK the year of three Prime Ministers, the death of Queen Elizabeth II, civil unrest and a severe cost of living crisis. The terrible conflict between Russia and Ukraine rages on with no apparent end in sight, but looking on the bright side it has been a year in which we learned to live with Covid, after two awful years of lockdowns and social distancing, and cautiously approached a new era of normality.

UK hospital admissions plateaued by the middle of January, suggesting that the end of the pandemic might be in sight and travel restrictions eased with no Covid tests required before entering UK, so we were optimistic that travel might be on again and Jon was the first of the MEI team to venture overseas, with a trip to the USA.

Jon at Mount Batchelor, Oregon

His visit went well so I registered for the SME Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, my previous venture overseas being to the SME Meeting in Phoenix in February 2020.  So at the end of February I took the train from Truro to London, on the day on which Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The following day, after taking a Covid-test at Heathrow, I at last boarded a plane again, bound for the USA.

The SME has to be applauded for putting on such a huge face to face meeting so soon after Covid restrictions. The giant exhibition opened for a couple of hours on the Sunday afternoon, giving us a chance to experience the 'new normal', as the SME had emailed all delegates to advise that wearing of face masks was mandatory and anyone not complying would be asked to leave the event. 

So when I made my first call, to the giant FLSmidth display all conversation was behind face coverings. 

But moving on I was surprised to see that most people had removed their face masks, and experience in UK had shown that enforcing face mask rules is almost impossible, so when I stopped off at further booths, there was not a face covering to be seen, nor was there for the rest of the week.

Barbara and I took a nostalgic trip to the north of England at the end of April, visiting our old town, Ashton-under-Lyne near Manchester, and then on to Liverpool.

1960s nostalgia in Liverpool

Then back to Cornwall to prepare for what I hope will be the last of our online conferences, Physical Separation '22, IntegratedMinPro '22 and Sustainable Minerals '22. Originally scheduled to be held in Falmouth we had to commit to online events months before due to the pandemic. Although they were successful, there was obviously a feeling that they were no real substitute for face to face events. 

Sustainable Minerals '22 was also the first online event anchored by Jon from Luxembourg. Jon and his family moved to this small European country in June, as Jon's partner, Dr Kathryn Hadler, formerly with Imperial College, London, and a regular at MEI's flotation and other conferences, had been appointed Director of the European Space Resources Innovation Centre at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology.

Due to their move to Luxembourg Jon and family missed Amanda's 50th birthday celebrations in July.

This year's International Mineral Processing Congress was scheduled for Melbourne, but due to the severe Covid restrictions in Australia, and particularly in Melbourne, it had to be postponed. However, the AusIMM, the IMPC and CSIRO have to be commended for taking a big gamble in organising a substitute, a regional event, the IMPC Asia Pacific 2022 conference, in Melbourne in August. It was a hybrid conference, so delegates had the option of attending personally or presenting and viewing presentations online, and there were 460 delegates, 277 opting to attend face to face. I was honoured to be invited to give a keynote lecture in person on the birth and evolution of Minerals Engineering journal, as my big decision this year was to retire as Editor-in-Chief after 35 years, and recommend to Elsevier that the journal would be in very safe hands under the leadership of Dr. Pablo Brito-Parada.

It was a surreal experience to be standing before a large audience of mineral processors for the first time in nearly 3 years and, after a succession of online conferences, to be able to relax over a few beers with fellow delegates.

Relaxing after the conference with Graeme Jameson, Lachlan Bartsch,
Martin Rudolph and Ron Goodman

A week after returning from Melbourne Barbara and I were off on another nostalgic trip, this time to Tanzania to retrace the route taken on our safari in northern Tanzania 51 years ago. It was a wonderful week in this magical part of Africa, but tiring, so a few days relaxing in Zanzibar was appreciated before the long journey back to Cornwall and to a nation mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

In the Serengeti's Seronera Valley

Zanzibar

In the first week of November Amanda and I flew to Sitges in Spain to team up with Jon for Process Mineralogy '22, our first, and very welcome, face to face conference in three years. It was great to catch up with old friends and to make new contacts during the relaxed social events. Unfortunately, due to surgery, Barbara could not be with us, but she thanks everyone who sent kind messages of support, and I am pleased to say that she is now fully recovered.

A couple of weeks after returning from Spain it was Amanda's turn to take the long haul to Australia, this time to Perth, for the International Biohydrometallurgy Symposium, which was held in hybrid format. Hosted by Australia’s National Science Research Agency and CSIRO, MEI was a media partner and it was good to see so many familiar faces in Amanda's daily reports, including our Biomining '23 consultants Prof. Sue Harrison and Dr. Chris Bryan.

Amanda with conference chairperson Dr. Anna Kaksonen
MEI Biomining '23 consultants Prof. Sue Harrison and Dr. Chris Bryan

It has been an interesting year with a cautious return to international travel but I am not sure that we can say that we are back to pre-pandemic normality. Realistically we are now in the era of the 'new normal', where for some time we will be nervously looking over our shoulders hoping that an as yet unknown virus is not lurking in the background or that a new strain of Covid will be back to bite us. But for now life must go on, and we now look forward with optimism to 2023 with our two major conferences, Comminution '23 and Flotation '23, in Cape Town, and, in between, Biomining '23 and Sustainable Minerals '23 in Falmouth.  In the meantime we wish you all a healthy and happy 2023.

@barrywills