The complete schedule for this conference and workshop is now available here.

Abstracts for all talks (including the MAGMA mini-courses) can be downloaded in a pdf file from here.

Photos of the conference group and GReGAS members taken by Katja Bercic can be viewed/downloaded here.

Overview : Venue : Participants : Schedule : Travel : Accommodation : Social programme : Registration : Organisers : Sponsors : Other info : Other meetings

Important note: February is summer in New Zealand.

The conference will be a combination of

• a research conference on symmetries of discrete objects (such as graphs, maps/dessins, polytopes, Riemann surfaces and other complexes), and
• a MAGMA workshop, including some instructional courses (well suited for graduate students) on the MAGMA package and its capabilities (especially for handling discrete structures and their automorphisms).

The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers working in various inter-related fields, introduce their approaches and discoveries to one another, and to promote joint research in and between these fields. To achieve this we will have a small number of keynote talks, several contributed talks, at least one open problem session, and ample time for discussions and problem solving.

The conference will be well-suited (but certainly not restricted) to those who have previously attended the SIGMAC/SIGMAP series of meetings in the US, Portugal and Mexico (every four years since 1998), the GEMS meetings (in Slovakia), the 4-yearly graph theory conferences at Bled (Slovenia), the AMS special sessions on Automorphisms of Surfaces, and/or the recent conferences in Beijing on Group Theory and Algebraic Combinatorics. Anyone with interest in automorphisms of discrete structures is welcome to consider attending.

The MAGMA workshop will consist of short courses, given by the following speakers:

• Dimitri Leemans (permutation groups; small groups; sporadic groups)
  
• Don Taylor (overview of Magma; reflection/Coxeter groups)
  
• Eamonn O'Brien (matrix groups; PC-presentations)
  
• Marston Conder (finitely-presented groups).
  

Temporary MAGMA licences will be issued to all participants for the duration of the meeting.

Wireless internet access will be available free of charge all day to all participants in the area where lectures are held.

Participants should aim to arrive in Queenstown by the evening of Sunday 12 February (or early on the morning of Monday 13 February), and the meeting will finish at lunchtime on Friday 17 February.

The date for registration (10 January 2012) has now passed.
If you still wish to attend but did not register by the due date, then you should contact Marston Conder immediately.

All lectures/talks will take place at the Rydges Lakeland Resort Hotel, which is on the lakefront, just 5 to 10 minutes walk from the centre of Queenstown.

Click here for a map of Queenstown. The address of the Rydges Lakeland Resort Hotel is 38-54 Lake Esplanade, Queenstown.

Participants should aim to arrive in Queenstown by the evening of Sunday 12 February (or early on the morning of Monday 13 February), and the meeting will finish at lunchtime on Friday 17 February.

The weather in Queenstown in February is usually very pleasant, with daytime temperatures between 20 and 24 degrees C, and nighttime temperatures around 10 degrees C, and little rain at that time of year.

The complete schedule is now available here.

Abstracts for all talks (including the MAGMA mini-courses) can be downloaded in a pdf file from here.

It is also possible to travel from Christchurch to Queenstown (distance 484km) by car in approx. 6 hours, or by bus in 8 to 10 hours (see InterCity bus service). It takes at least two days to travel from Auckland to Queenstown by car (as the driving distance is 1520km).

If you are travelling to New Zealand from overseas, then we recommend that you ask for a return airfare to Queenstown (rather than to Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch), as this is likely to be much less expensive than booking the final leg (to Queenstown) separately. In fact you might like to check the airfares available through APX Travel, the University of Auckland's travel supplier, which can issue airline tickets.

Also if you are visiting from overseas, you might or might need a visa to enter New Zealand.
See the Visiting New Zealand website for more details.

Queenstown airport is approx. 8 km from the conference venue, and there are numerous transport options: bus (NZ$6), shuttle (NZ$10), taxi (NZ$30) or rental car.
Click here for details.

Note: 1 New Zealand dollar is approx. 0.55 Euros, 0.48 GBP, 0.80 US dollars.

A very good range of accommodation has been arranged at the conference venue, the Rydges Lakeland Resort Hotel.

See below for a link to the booking form, to obtain rooms at reduced rates for this conference.

You can choose from among the following possibilities:

• Budget double room, for 1 or 2 people, NZ$98 (approx. 54 Euros) per night per room
  
• Budget twin room, for 2 people, NZ$98 (approx. 54 Euros) per night per room
  
• Budget quad room, holds up to 4 people, NZ$98 (approx. 54 Euros) per night per room
  
• Deluxe (lake-view) king room, for 1 or 2 people, NZ$173 (approx. 96 Euros) per night per room
  
• Deluxe (lake-view) twin room, for 2 people, NZ$173 (approx. 96 Euros) per night per room
  
• Lake-View suite, with living room and separate bedroom, for 1 to 3 people, NZ$213 (approx. 118 Euros) per night per room
  

All rooms (including the budget rooms) have their own ensuite bathroom, fridge and satellite/SKY television, with full access to all of the resort's facilities.

Breakfast is not included in the above rates, but is available at the time of booking for NZ$18 (approx. 10 Euros) per person per day.

Internet access is available in rooms (for an extra charge), but wireless internet access will be available free of charge all day to participants in the area where lectures are held.

The hotel has the following recreational facilities: a heated outdoor swimming pool, private sauna, and a spa pool (jacuzzi) with spectacular views over Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables.

Bookings made at Rydges will be confirmed in an email from the hotel (and not from the conference organisers).
If you don't receive a confirmation by email from the hotel, then it is likley that your accommodation booking has not succeeded,
in which case you should try again.

Please note that the accommodation booking process and the conference registration process are completely separate.

We recommend that you book early (and register below for the conference at the same time), as the number of rooms available at reduced rates is limited.
As at 23rd November 2011, the numbers of rooms of each type available for the five nights 12-17 February 2012 were as follows:
7 x Budget double room, 4 x Budget twin room, 1 x Budget quad room, 13 x Deluxe (lake-view) king room, 20 Deluxe (lake-view) twin room, 4 x Lake-View suite.

If you are happy to share a twin or quad room with someone else (and split the costs), then please indicate this in your registration details,
and/or send an email to m.conder@auckland.ac.nz and we will see if we can arrange something for you.

For other accommodation possibilities in Queenstown, click here.

The date for registration (10 January 2012) has now passed.
If you still wish to attend but did not register by the due date, then you should contact Marston Conder immediately.

Below is a table of registration costs for professionals and students, and costs for additional participants in social activities,
with separate rates for early and late payments:

Registration Options	Payment by 10 January 2012	Payment after 10 January 2012
Professional: meeting & reception only	Type P1 (NZ$420)	Type P2 (NZ$470)
Professional: meeting, reception & excursion	Type P3 (NZ$485)	Type P4 (NZ$545)
Professional: meeting, reception & dinner	Type P5 (NZ$520)	Type P6 (NZ$590)
Professional: meeting, reception, excursion & dinner	Type P7 (NZ$585)	Type P8 (NZ$665)
Student: meeting & reception only	Type S1 (NZ$280)	Type S2 (NZ$330)
Student: meeting, reception & excursion	Type S3 (NZ$345)	Type S4 (NZ$405)
Student: meeting, reception & dinner	Type S5 (NZ$380)	Type S6 (NZ$450)
Student: meeting, reception, excursion & dinner	Type S7 (NZ$445)	Type S8 (NZ$525)
Additional person for reception	Type A1 (NZ$55)	Type A2 (NZ$65)
Additional person for excursion	Type A3 (NZ$65)	Type A4 (NZ$75)
Additional person for conference dinner	Type A5 (NZ$100)	Type A6 (NZ$120)

All costs shown in the above table include NZ Goods & Services Tax (GST).

There are four possible methods for payment:

• Send a bank cheque in New Zealand dollars, in advance (Type: Cheque)
  
• Arrange an inter-bank transfer, in advance (Type: Transfer)
  
• Pay by credit card, in advance (Type: Credit card)
  
• Pay in NZ cash on arrival in Queenstown (Type: Cash)
  

The date for registration (10 January 2012) has now passed.
If you still wish to attend but did not register by the due date, then you should contact Marston Conder immediately.

Also, once again please note that you need to book your own accommodation: the conference registration process
is completely separate from the accommodation booking process.

• Prof. Marston Conder, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Dr Dimitri Leemans, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Prof. Tomaz Pisanski, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Prof. Martin Skoviera, Comenius University, Slovakia.

There are lots of things to do in and around Queenstown, which is a popular tourist location.
For the adventurous, there's sky-diving, bungy jumping, jet-boating, canyon swinging, whitewater-rafting, parapenting, heli-skiing, ...
Other outdoor activities include walking, sailing, hiking, climbing, fishing, cycling, golfing, off-roading and mountain-biking.
There are also some very good wineries, well known for their Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris,
and many locations where parts of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy were filmed, as well as the historic gold-mining site at nearby Arrowtown.
See the Queenstown Destination website for more details.

Queenstown is also close to Fiordland, which is a large region of unspoilt mountains, lakes and forest, with World Heritage status.
Fiordland is home to the renowned Sutherland Falls, Mitre Peak and the fiords of Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound,
as well as three great walks: the 4-day Milford Track, the 3-day Routeburn Track, and the 3- to 4-day Kepler Track.

• 35ACCMCC, the 35th Australasian Conference on Combinatorial Mathematics & Combinatorial Computing,
  5-9 December 2011, at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

• 2011 New Zealand Mathematics Colloquium,
  6-8 December 2011, at the University of Auckland, NZ

• The 12th Asian Logic Conference,
  15-20 December 2011, at Victoria University of Wellington, NZ

• NZ Mathematics Summer Meeting, this year on "Random Media and Random Walks",
  8-13 January 2012, at Tahunanui Nelson, NZ

• New Zealand Probability Workshop,
  23-27 January 2012, at the University of Auckland, NZ

• ATCAGC 2012 Workshop on Algebraic, Topological and Complexity Aspects of Graph Covers,
  26-31 January 2012, at Eugene, Oregon

• [Possibly others to be added]

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