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Thirty‐six people attended this SMART Group Seminar at the Bowler Hat Hotel in Birkenhead, Merseyside, on 20 February 1990. The technical programme in the morning comprised five talks:

Electronics exhibitions are the same the world over, very tiring affairs. If your stand is busy, time flies; if not, the strain is more noticeable.

This conference was the second in the National Physical Laboratory series focusing in turn on each of the non‐CFC options for de‐fluxing soldered electronics assemblies. The first conference was on Controlled Atmosphere Soldering and the third will be on New Solvents.

Since its early conception, the group has grown from a handful of enthusiastic engineers to the largest trade association in Europe, if not the world, for Surface Mount. As in previous years, SMART will be arranging Seminars, Hands‐on Workshops and Open Forums, giving valuable knowledge for those just entering or those already experienced in SMT. Open forums allow the opportunity for the exchange of information on a variety of different topics, building experience in the technology which would otherwise be unobtainable.

A large group of SMART Group members visited the Henley premises of Electrovert on 9 May. After the welcome and introduction where Mike Judd emphasised Electrovert's commitment to SMT, a number of papers were presented by the Electrovert team during the morning session.

Over the past year in particular, ICT courses have been going from strength to strength, with ever increasing attendance and interest in the topical subject areas offered.

The members of the chapter at the annual meeting held on 27 November 1992 in Brno decided not to split after the separation of Czechoslovakia. It was suggested to organise a larger chapter from the Central European States to provide greater co‐operation and better functioning of the smaller chapters. A new name for the chapter was proposed — Central European Chapter (CEC) — to express neutrality and to point out that the chapter is open to other neighbouring chapters and to new members from the states where no national chapter yet exists.

Now formed for almost two years, the Brazilian Printed Circuit Association, ABRACI (Associação Brasileira de Circuitos Impressos), held on 17–18 September 1987 at Curitiba its first seminar on printed circuit technology. The association, with 150 members, is going from strength to strength and the 1987 Seminar was attended by 250 persons from several states. Participants included representatives from well known international companies (Du Pont, Degussa, IBM, Unisys, etc.), Government, Universities and local companies. The programme of 16 papers was divided into four sessions: Market, Quality, Manufacturing and SMT. The two‐day event proved too short for the enthusiasm of participants.

This conference, in the series being run by the National Physical Laboratory to help the electronics assembly industry consider the problems of CFC phase‐out, was essentially an updated repeat of the event held on 30 April, which had been a complete, standing‐room‐only sell‐out. Surprisingly, this repeat performance also attracted a full house and the format used has proved to be the most popular of all the NPL non‐CFC options conferences.

The UK is a leader in the implementation of surface mount technology, and SMARTEX '91 sponsored by the SMART Group is one of only a few shows organised worldwide which is dedicated solely to this field. Perhaps it was not surprising then that this year's three‐day event proved a great success.