In 1993 we began to consider the possibility of holding a conference on Catacysmic Variables (CVs) at Keele University. There have been several meetings in the area of CVs recently (e. g. Eilat, Abano-Padova, Capetown). However as preparations for the Keele meeting progressed we realized that, while there had been a number of IAU meetings devoted to related and to peripheral topics (such as IAU Colloquium 122 on Classical Novae in 1989, IAU Colloquium 129 on Accretion Disks in 1990), there had been no IAU-sponsored conferences in the area of cataclysmi/: variables (CVs) for a number of years....