On the 2nd of December the project office received the approval of the European Commission for a 10 month extension of EUROVOLC, thereby changing the project‘s end date to the 30th of November 2021.

This is certainly good news, since many activities suffered delays caused by the extensive travel restrictions and other risk factors imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the nature of the activities often require both favorable weather conditions and a reasonably large timeframe to achieve the ambitious goals that participants had aimed for, a standard 6 month extension would not have sufficed. It took considerable time gathering all the necessary information of delayed tasks and a careful reorganizing and creating backup plans so that all tasks could be achieved successfully. We are grateful for your assistance in this matter. The joint effort resulted in an approval for the 10 month extension that we hoped for and needed.

The pandemic has forced us all into new ways of being, and although we’ve been taught the hard way to practice patience and tolerance, we’ve also strengthened our resilience. Although travels are no longer as a matter of course, international communications have not suffered but rather improved as we are all developing our skills in teleconferencing. So to try to enhance the possibilities for active and lively interaction at our upcoming 36 month meeting which must be done through teleconferencing, we are looking into creative ways to organize it.

We hope this last month of the year finds you safe and we’re looking forward to successes of EUROVOLC tasks in 2021!