The Executive Committee
convened by conference call at 9:30 AM EDT on July 10, 2000. Of the
11 committee members 8 were present. The members in "attendance" were:
Meigan Aronson
Dave Belanger
Paul Butler
Takeshi Egami
Scott Misture
Constantine Stassis
John Tranquada
Angus Wilkinson
The first item
of business was to approve the Special Committee membership lists. There
were no objections to the proposed list which was therefore accepted.
The memberships are:
SNS Special
Committee:
Robert McQueeney, chair
Meigan Aronson
Paul Butler
Takeshi Egami
Scott Misture
John Tranquada
David Vaknin
Angus Wilkinson
HFIR Special Committee:
Costas Stassis, chair
David Belanger
Paul Butler
Takeshi Egami
Andrey Zheludev
The second item
of business discussed was the question of sending a letter to the Senate
expressing our serious concern for the lack of support in the proposed
budgets for SNS. First it was decided that the house should get a copy
of the letter as well. The question of letterhead was raised. Discussion
ensued regarding whether to spend the time now to create a letterhead
for the organization or just use UCSC letterhead (home institution of
the SHUG Executive Committee Chair). The latter was the preferred choice.
Also brought up was the possibility of adding the SNS logo to the UCSC
stationary, but it was thought that would send the wrong message. Dave
Belanger agreed to formulate such a letter quickly and circulate it
to the EC for suggestions/approval before sending it out on UCSC letterhead.
The point was also made that the NSSA is drafting a letter and that
we should not duplicate theirs.
The next item discussed
was whether it would be appropriate to plan our next user's meeting,
currently scheduled for 2002, in conjunction with the NSSA meeting being
planned for that time as well. The question of whether this was to be
a jointly sponsored meeting or separate meetings scheduled for the same
time and place was raised. It was suggested that that issue could be
resolved later, but that it would be nice to be able to tell NSSA soon
whether we would be willing to meet at least at the same time and place.
SNS management does not seem to be keen on the idea but it was unclear
as to why. The point was made that as users we'd rather not be inundated
with user meetings. There were no objections to having the meeting "together"
and Dave was to inform Jim Rhyne, NSSA president, of our willingness
to co-operate.
During the above
discussions a recurring question was the issue of communication with
the membership (echoing questions from previous meetings of "who are
the members"). Paul Butler indicated that he is talking with Joyce Shepard
of SNS about getting hold of their list but that apparently the only
list they have melds the NSSA membership list with the people who attended
the last user's meeting. Joyce did not know of a list of those who attended
the first meeting. Again the question was raised of who gets included.
Paul Butler indicated that some people had expressed concern to him
at the meeting in DC that by having an ill-defined membership SHUG might
end up claiming the entire NSSA membership plus, making things a bit
confusing as to what role each is playing and which is the umbrella
advocacy group. In the end it was agreed that we should try to reach
"every neutron scatterer we can lay our hands on" and allow them to
decide whether they want to be SHUG members. It was also noted that
HFIR being an operating facility must have a well defined user list
somewhere. Paul agreed to try to get hold of that list and to continue
working with Joyce on getting the larger list.
Next the Web page
plan was discussed. Dave said that Joyce has indicated that SNS has
the expertise to create and maintain the pages for us if we'll tell
them what we want. The first thing suggested was of course an easy web
form for applying for membership as well as links to and from SNS pages.
In particular it was suggested that links to and from IAT (instrument
advisory teams) pages be made as these would be of particular interest
to users. Also information about the EC members (who we are and who
is on which special committees etc) should be available.
A suggestion was
made to the HFIR committee to use the long HFIR shutdown as an opportunity
to provide significant input on HFIR operations by polling the HFIR
user community and coming up with some "new ideas" and suggestions to
present to the HFIR management. The issue of who such suggestions would
be taken to was briefly discussed. SNS has a clearly defined management
structure while it is not as clear for HFIR. Paul Butler indicated that
for the time being the "official" person is Jim Roberto.
Finally Dave Belanger
announced that Thom Mason of SNS has informed him that SNS is in the
process of getting its own teleconferencing services set up which include
a toll free (1-800 number) to call into, and that we should be able
to use that for next month's conference call.
There being no
further business the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Butler
SHUG Secretary
