Fairy Ring. Source: Jennie Lindberg – http://www.redbubble.com/people/fairydro

I’ve written before about the (clears throat) rather modest turnouts that vaping theologians attract to their meetings, events and public protests. (see 2023, 2021 and 2019)

So what sort of stadiums are being filled these days?

Spoiler warning: just seven rows – with plenty of empty spaces – in a small hotel conference room.

Since 2014, the global vaping shindig, the Global Forum on Nicotine, has been held mainly in Warsaw, Poland in June each year. At the opening session of GFN 2025, Aussie Dr Carolyn Beaumont  pondered from the lectern about the “tough gig” health professionals like herself — “doctors, pharmacists, nurses, dentists, social workers, psychologists” have when speaking up for vaping. She asked “I’d like to see a show of hands in the room. Who is a health professional?” Raising her own hand in encouragement, she continued “quite a number. So maybe not quite 20, but more than 10. Let’s aim for double that next year.” (go to 41m49s here). Thinking big!

So how many were in the room for the riveting opening session of this international gathering of the clan? Opening sessions are  typically the best attended at conferences, with no parallel sessions running to syphon delegates away.  My thumb counter and magnifying glass looking at the two screenshots below suggest all of about 70-80, if that. But how many around the world couldn’t make the gig but watched it live for up to 8 hours a day over three days, or more likely at their leisure later on-line? The youtube of the opening session, 7 months down the track, has pulled all of 337 viewers. Seven-month data on viewers for the three days of the meeting were 799 (day 1). 593 (day 2) and 324 (day 3) with a panel chaired by legend Clive Bates and featuring former WHO tobacco czar Derek Yach who went on to run the Philip Morris-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World,  pulling 79 viewers in 6 months, surely some sort of record.

This year’s  Michael Russell orator at the meeting has so far pulled a streaming audience of 422 over 7 months. But what must Australia’s own 2025 Michael Russell award winner, failed 2025 Senate aspirant Fiona Patten, have made of such a crowd, flying all the way to Poland and back to take it straight to  her pool room?

Patten thought she had hit pay-dirt by describing Australia as the “global village idiot” of tobacco control. It’s hard to know where to begin in addressing such ignorance. But try my 2025 critique of an  ill-informed opinion piece she wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.

A regular at the Warsaw meetings, New Zealand’s Marewa Glover, on X this week (Feb 15 2026)  lampooned academic standards on vaping, writing:

 “many academics only care about their income/promotion/status and winning awards (many of which re made up by colleagues in their own fairy ring).”

Glover received a coveted award in 2018 from her own “fairy ring”: the International Network of Nicotine Consumers Organisations (INNCO) Outstanding Advocate Award. The Michael Russell Award has been given each year since 2018 at the GFN meetings. The 2023 winner was none other than Gerry Stimson, the principal figure who has run GFN since its inception.

Nearly eight years after resigning her Massey University position in May 2018 Glover still uses the title “Prof” in her X handle (see below) but has not held an academic appointment since. Her COREISS page says “Marewa was a Professor in Public Health at Massey University” (my emphasis). Most universities confer emeritus professorial titles on retired professors who continue to serve their alma maters in reduced capacities.

The cacophonous opening soundtrack used on GFN youtube videos promises viewers the excitement and crowd of a Brazilian football final. But what you get has the crowd and all the excitement of a VIP room at a suburban pub on a winter’s night on a Tuesday.

My old rock covers band could pull far larger crowds than full plenary sessions at GFN meetings. And that’s saying something.