European Crystallography Meeting delegates Raise Money for Charity
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The ECMs are the general meetings of the European Crystallographic Association (ECA) and ECM28 was held in the UK at the University of Warwick from 25-29 August 2013. At the meeting, crystallographers and researchers with interests in crystallography and crystal growth met to share their scientific views and new achievements.
Rigaku Corporation was a proud corporate sponsor of the ECM, and organized an initiative to raise money for a chosen charity, Cancer Research UK. For the event, stationary exercise bikes were used to cycle the 1376km straight-line distance from Warwick, UK to the location of the next ECM in Rovinj, Croatia in 2015.
Teams from Rigaku UK and Rigaku Europe SE in Germany attended the event, representing both materials and protein crystallography. For every kilometer cycled, Rigaku donated £1 and prizes were given to those who pedaled the most distance. At the conference, 66 ECM delegates participated and raised a total of £1376 for Cancer Research UK. “To be perfectly honest, we hadn’t realized how popular and competitive the bikes would be and doubted that we would succeed in completing the distance required to reach the distant shores of Croatia. However, fierce efforts by the group at Southampton, got us on our way very quickly. Word got round, and soon everyone wanted a shot at outdoing their contemporaries,” commented Dr. Mark Benson who originated the idea.
Among the top cyclists were Fabiola Sanjuan-Szkiorz and Slawomir Domagala from the University of Warsaw with 100km each and Prof. William Clegg from the University of Newcastle with 88km pedaled. The 29th European Crystallography Meeting will be held in Rovinj, Croatia from 23-28 August 2015.
