Unless you live locally the cost of attending ICHF can be quite high. This was one of the reasons behind the decision to make ICHF 'mobile' so that people in different parts of the world will have an opportunity to attend one of the conferences without having to travel to the UK.

The down side is that for those who wish to attend every conference there will be variable costs to consider as ICHF moves from place to place. We have heard of one initiative that is worth sharing.

Members of a Lodge in the USA have started a 'savings club' so that members of the club can put away a sum of money on a monthly basis. The monies collected remain the property of each individual member but the intention is that the funds will be used for transport, accommodation etc. in order to attend ICHF 2011. The money so saved might not cover the entire cost but the monthly saving has been planned in such a way that it will certainly take the 'sting' out of the total cost.

An interesting idea.

The ICHF Team

ICHF is recognised as being the only International Conference on the History of Freemasonry in all its aspects.

In 2007 more than 70 proposals were submitted and in 2009 in excess of 100 were received. This number of proposals ensures that ICHF can offer a large and varied program at each conference. Unfortunately, it also means that a number of proposals cannot be accepted. This is due not only to the quality of Proposals but also the limitations of time and space at the various venues.

At this time more than 15 Proposals have been submitted and that is more than double those received by this time in 2009. This augurs very well for ICHF 2011.

The Peer Review Process is designed to ensure that papers selected for presentation at ICHF are independently assessed. This is a time-honoured procedure and works in the following manner.

Proposals (or suggestions for Panel Sessions) should consist of approximately 300 words explaining the key points of the paper. At this stage the Proposal is merely an abstract not a full paper and even if you have a full paper already prepared it does not require to be submitted at this time. ICHF is primarily seeking original work not previously delivered or published.

Proposals are submitted via a special page on the Conference Organiser's website:

www.northernnetworking.co.uk/ichf2011.php

who will retain them until the closing date has passed (30 June 2010). Before the Propsals are passed to the Chair of the Academic Committee all details that might in any way reveal the identity of the author are removed. The Chair of the committee then distributes the Proposals to members of the committee who comment on their acceptability before returning them to the Chairperson.

In this way the anonymity of the author of the Proposals, and the committee members considering them is assured, the whole process is a fair and independent method of assessing a proposal.

Each Proposal submitted should contain the following:

• Author's name, institution, postal and email addresses, telephone number
• Co-author's name(s) if applicable
• Title of paper or panel session
• Name of chair for a panel session
• Three to five suggested key words for indexing papers
• 300 word abstract of each paper (with an additional 200 word justification for a panel session)

Please state the category to which you are submitting:

• Paper, or
• Panel Session

Please submit your proposal to the Conference Organisers at: