57th MEETING OF THE DUTCH GEOFICTION ASSOCIATION
Saturday, October 27th 2012, at the secretary's home in Ede (Netherlands)

For the first time in years, the DGA's meeting will take place at a member's home. There is a special theme with a special guest: neurofysiology expert Gert van Dijk will give a presentation about exobiology, in the context of Furaha: an exoplanet created and described in detail by himself.

Gert designs the flora and fauna of his planet that can be found in orbit of the (really existing) star Nu Phoenicis IV. This star is of the same type as our sun. Furaha looks a lot like our earth and on this planet life has developed to an evolutionary high level, but in its own way.

The meeting will be preceded by an official part for members only. Non-members are welcome to join us after 14h00. For more information, please contact our secretary through secretariaat@geofictie.nl.

This meeting's subject is Urban infrastructure, planning and maintenance. Guest speaker is mr. Theo Slijkerman, who works for the city of Amersfoort and has been involved with the development and realisation of several parts of Amersfoort. The quarter of Vathorst is a fine example of this. Mr. Slijkerman mainly looks after the interests of the people who have to live in these parts of the city; he regards the people as the most important aspect of them. Urban development is therefore based on experience and livability, according to him.

For more information, please contact our secretary through secretariaat@geofictie.nl.

After the 25th anniversary of the DGA, this meeting had the same theme: Geofiction between utopia and dystopia. There was a nice workshop, where the theme of building utopias was treated in a slightly different way than on the 51th meeting. There were a speaker and a discussion panel about the subject as well.

The 25th anniversary of the DGA will be celebrated on the 6th floor of the Public Library in Amsterdam (OBA). The theme of this celebration is Geofiction between utopia and dystopia. Professor Lia van Gemert will tell us more about this subject. After that, there will be a workshop and a forum discussion. The meeting is open to the general public between 2 and 5 PM.

This was the 50th meeting: an accomplishment in the long history of the DGA. Although; a long history? Compared with the age of the earth, the DGA is extremely young! And the age of the earth was the subject of this meeting.

The theme of this meeting was geology. A presentation was given by Wout Nijman, geologist and working at the University of Utrecht. He spoke about 'Earth in its Early Stage' and enlightened all aspects of the earth in its early years: formation, proto-atmosphere, etc.

The subject of this meeting was: 'fact, fiction and reality: how to create trustworthy facts and plausible fiction'. Pieter-Paul Jansen, member of the DGA and historian gave a presentation this time. He has noticed that there are some remarkable interfaces between geofiction and history:
- Geofiction is about a created reality which is not present in the real world;
- History is about a past reality, the existence of which must be recreated in the present.

The subject of this meeting was: 'history and falsification of history'. Jan Klein, former history teacher and alderman gave a presentation (in Dutch) with the title: History doesn't exist. After the presentation there was discussion about the subject.

The subject of this meeting was 'Mythology, Legends and Writing History'. Special guest was Abe the Storyteller.

Geofiction was a part of the exhibition Where am I?, geography put into maps, which was opened in October 2006. The subject of this exhibition were the history and future of the geography education. Geofiction was an important part of the educational means. You were able to see a ficticious globe, a number of maps of the continent of Pangeo and the atlas of geofiction and some other geofictional objects.

The Dutch Geofiction Association has a new interaction project: Thalassa. After the decision was taken to end the Pangeo Project, 23 September 2006, it seemed obvious that a new project should be launched. Interaction projects within the DGA have a number of participants, each having a piece of land on a ficticious city, continent or even world. Although the participants are not themselves part of the ficticious world, they can make ficticious people in their respective countries act and react upon events that they determine by means of local newspapers which are released every two months or so. The new project has now sixteen members. The project has officially begin in Spring 2007. More information can be obtained via the Thalassan website www.dulminis.nl/thalassa or you can e-mail one of the participants via scruta@dulminis.nl.