I must have missed your earlier diaries and had to google ASPO to discover it was the Association for Peak Oil. My point is that a non-specialist or time poor reader will not have time to google or follow links and will thus quickly move on - losing you another opportunity to influence. Even just putting (Association for the Study of Peak Oil) after your first reference to ASPO may draw some readers in - "there is such an association? What are they about?"

I didn't mean that you should attempt to include a history of the organisation - a link back to a diary/website that does this would be more appropriate.

You have one paragraph to draw in the uniformed/uncommitted reader. You used it to refer to an acronym many people don't know; about a conference most people have never heard of and which was such a failure it might never happen again;  to complain you'd been asked to write a summary you didn't want to write; and had only done so because you were bored at the airport. Not the sort of opening paragraph that presages a best-selling must read story!  

Index of Frank's Diaries