The more observant reader will have already noticed that Roger Littlejohn, Editor of the NZSA Newsletter for the past four years, has now been demoted to President. His last act as Editor was to catch me off guard and trick me into taking over. This was no mean feat, as my only previous involvement with the Association was as the famous “Claytons” Treasurer of 2003/4 (when my only act was to second the nomination of my successor).

Actually, to be fair, Roger did spend a bit of time training me in the use of Pagemaker and passing on his accumulated knowledge and wisdom, in particular the one over-arching principle that the Newsletter must be a multiple of four pages in length. An awareness of the operation of this principle should give you, the reader, an added insight into what is going on, somewhat akin to that of the statistical analyst who knows something about how their data were collected. So if you come across a page or two of irrelevant rubbish, or if you are a contributor wondering why your carefully constructed passage of purple prose has been brutally hacked, know that you are witnessing the Rule of Four in action. It’s nothing to do with me!

I’d like to thank all the members who have contributed articles and photographs. Included in this issue are two extensive reports (one “official”, one not) on the recent ASC/NZSA conference in Auckland, and a brief outline of our next conference to be held at the University of Canterbury next year. This will be a one-day affair, scheduled for 4th July, but it is being organized in conjunction with a two-day conference on 5-6th July in honour of John Deely, Professor of Statistics at UC for many years. This promises to be a very enjoyable event, particularly if the skiing season starts early again next year.

Other highlights in this issue include a contributed article by Graeme Bremner on Statistics in the Courtroom. We also have a number of issues on which your feedback is sought, including the new school Statistics curriculum, the future of our journal, the society’s financial position, and the graphical standards of Statistics New Zealand. It occurs to me that my position as Editor gives me unprecedented power to comment on these and ... damn - run out of space

Geoff Jones

A warm welcome to new members of the NZSA.

Regular members: Anapapa Mulitalo, Colleen Kelly, Fiona Cooke, Gang (John) Xie, Gareth James, Jamas Enright, Jason Rabbitt, John Pearson, Karla Helgason, Katrina Young, Marcus Davy, Mark Meerschaert, Nellie Yang, Neville Bartlett, Rebecca Bangma, Rene Kroon, Sha Sha Guo, Soon Song, Victoria Wei

To join the NZSA, visit http://nzsa.rsnz.org/form.php.