The OII have unfortunately decided that they cannot spare either staff or funds for Oxford's bid, as they have too much else going on. This is certainly a shame, but it is by no means the end of the Oxford bid. It just means we have to redouble our efforts looking for other sources of funding. They had never committed definitely to anything so given the potential scale of what was asked of them, we can't begrudge them this particularly. They are happy to say that the conference is 'in collaboration with the OII' which may be of some use getting funds from other sources and raising our credibility, and they have also offered us the OII's seminar rooms, which is a nice gesture, if basically useless to us due to their size. They've also offered to help recruit and identify speakers which may be of some value still as a selling point for our bid. So all in all not great news, but not the end of the world either. Tom