Joseph Mecke, Professor of Mathematics at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, celebrates his 65th birthday on 18 February 2003. To commemorate this happy occasion, the signatories invited some colleagues, friends and former students to honour Joseph as a mathematician, teacher and research worker by submitting research articles to this issue of Advances in Applied Probability. We trust that the following papers will pay homage to the influence he has exerted in point process theory and stochastic geometry during his distinguished career.