LEF-sponsored Cryonics Conference in Florida

What an event!

I went with the hope of making maybe a couple of useful new connections, and instead found a whole stack of incredibly valuable people with whom to coordinate efforts.

I was able to find very quickly and easily a strong connection with others present, in many cases mostly forgetting that I'd only just met them, and that was even before the "HT Meetings" - for those not present for these, each evening after the final events of the day there would be a large number of us congregating in and around the hot-tub by the pool, with many topics of discussion ranging from the banal to the profound, with many practical topics also being addressed in great depth (great conceptual depth, that is, being as it was just a hot-tub, not the ocean).

It is said: "No man is an island, except in the bathtub".

This humour (silly enough for me to like it, anyway) brings me to a more serious topic as well; it strikes me that one thing that has long held back our general field is periodic bouts of petty in-fighting between individuals and organisations.

Together we stand, divided we fall. "Let's stand together" was a great underlying feeling to the weekend, and it was truly brilliant to have so many people from so many backgrounds coming together for such an event, with a view to further solidifying things and working together towards our common goals.

As far as I am concerned the benefit of this conference has been immeasurable on a number of levels. My hat goes off to Cairn Idun for having the idea, and to Bill Faloon for having the foresight to fund it.

I greatly enjoyed the tour of SA, which was very useful to me, given my capacity of standby organiser in the UK. I salute the dedicated team there, especially Catherine' Baldwin's management.

Incidentally, any of you who are Immortality Institute members, or who would like to become such, can vote for me in the Directoral Election here, if you would like to further promote the efficacy of our endeavours.:

http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=37048

Visions of a unified Europe.

Well, we Immortalists, at least.

We are better prepared in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, which in a way is reassuring (as I get a far better service here than I would elsewhere in Europe), and in a way is disquieting (as I know that our set up, while good, is not perfect and I'd like to continue to improve it).

Right now, Suspended Animation are doing a sterling job in the US, but don't operate outside of it. Effectively, right now in the UK we're doing here what they do there, but with a fraction of the resources (money, people, and experience).

I spent some time this evening talking with Nuno Martins and co., of Alcor Portugal. We share an aspiration to have a cryonics standby organisation spanning Europe.

So Nuno was asking, as have a few people from a few countries lately, if we could offer our services abroad. I see no reason why not, if expenses are met, and our activities are legally supportable in the countries in question. Of course it means we can't use our ambulance or take heavy kit with us, so provisions will need to be made for that at the other end. We are collaborating regarding these arrangements.

I'll also hopefully be able to attend the Iberian Cryonics Conference coming up in the not-too-distant future, and possibly flesh things out more there.

What I'd really like is to get people involved from various participating countries, across Europe, and pool our resources (which does not just mean money, but experience and people-power, amongst other things) to have a central base of operations from which to provide excellent, secure, stable standby services as SA does in the US - as opposed to our own current volunteer-based situation which is fairly strong, but not ideal in my opinion.

The next step on from that would of course be to have storage in Europe, which is presently a luxury pipe-dream rather than an immediate need, like the standby services hub that I (casually and completely unofficially at this time) propose.

But we need people with the enthusiasm to do this, and the commitment to see it through.

I'll be keeping an eye out ;)