No. 3.September 2009

QUASIMEME

QUEST FOR QUALITY

A Newsletter of the QUASIMEME Laboratory Performance Studies

Wageningen UR

The Netherlands

Round 57

Reports

The Round 57 report will be a little later this term. We extended the deadline date to correspond with the holiday season. It will be ready in mid-September.

Workshops

14-15 October : A 2-day workshop is planned in Amsterdam on Perfluorinated Compounds in environmental samples in addition to a scientific programme on the analysis of PFCs and

10-11 December: A PAHs and Alkylated-PAHs workshop is plannedin Aberdeen in cooperation with FRS (Linda Webster) Aberdeen, UK and IVM (Jacob de Boer and Jan-Willem Wegener.

Exercise Information

Round 59 dispatch will be in week 43. This round includes AQ-3, AQ-4, AQ-11, BT-3, BT-7 and DE-10. This will be our last round for year 2009.

New Courier Service

Our courier service has recently been changed. We will now work with TNT Express Couriers. This replaces DHL. If you wish to inform us of changes to your postal details please contact the Quasimeme Project Office.

New System for Uploading Data

You will be happy to hear we have started the testphase for the new system where participants will be able to upload their data results direct to the sharepoint site thus eliminating Quest altogether. We noted that many participants encountered problems using the Quest programme causing frustration and time. Our new system is at present being tested by some of our participants who will test it to its limits to avoid any problems once it is up and running. We will let you know shortly when the new system will be available.

Quasimeme Brochure

Webegin next year with a yearly brochure and not the split year as previously offered by Quasimeme.

Wehope to have our new 2010 brochure available in

November.

Invoice Payments

It has been brought to our attention that participants who pay by cheque will now be charged an extra €40 bank administration costs. Our accounts department has asked that all future participant payments be made through their bank or by credit card. The Netherlands do not deal with cheques so the bank administration charge will be effective immediately. All information to pay direct to our bank can be found at the bottom of each invoice.

Please circulate this newsletter, and display it on your notice board. Multiple copies have been provided to facilitate distribution to other colleagues.

Requests for further information, comments or contributions to:

QUASIMEME Project office

E-mail:

QUASIMEME – Quality Assurance of Information for Marine Environmental Monitoring