The Executive Committee
convened by conference call at 9:30 AM EDT on September 28, 2000. Of
the 11 committee members 8 were present. The members in attendance were:
Dave Belanger
Paul Butler
Robert McQueeney
Scott Misture
Constantine Stassis
John Tranquada
Angus Wilkinson
Andrey Zheludev
The first item
of business covered was planning of the 2002 SNS User's meeting. The
main issue before the committee was a request by NSSA for a commitment
from SHUG on the plan for a joint NSSA/SHUG meeting. The fact that the
original plan for the NSSA meeting identified NIST as the venue was
brought up. Dave Belanger indicated that his understanding was that
NSSA is willing to move it to Oak Ridge, but would like to have a firm
commitment from SHUG before proceeding. It was agreed in the end that
SHUG was willing to commit to the joint meeting at Oak Ridge. However
some members felt that in turn they would like a firm agreement from
NSSA before proceeding to contact and hold discussions with SNS management.
Dave Belanger was asked to bring that up at the next NSSA meeting. The
issue of whether this would be/should be an SNS user meeting or a SHUG
user meeting (which would include HFIR) was raised and briefly discussed.
Next the issue
of user policies was discussed. With HFIR coming on line for users relatively
soon the suggestion was made that the HFIR special committee begin consideration
of user policy issues (beam time allocation, proposal reviews, access
issues, software issues etc...) Several people indicated that it is
very important that these policies be consistent across the two facilities
and a suggestion was made that perhaps both special committees should
begin thinking about the issues, reporting back to the full committee
to ensure a consistent message is sent to the various managements. A
point was then made that SHUG should not be creating policy, but advising
on how to change existing policy and that perhaps we should start by
finding out what the existing policy is. It was agreed that the two
special committee chairs (Costas Stassis and Rob McQueeney) would write
to their respective facility contacts and request an official statement
regarding current and planned user policies.
Along these lines,
a concern was raised about software at HFIR. While it was acknowledged
that some of the much needed software improvements may be in progress
at HFIR, it is not clear that there is any leadership, or "guiding intelligence"
which would ensure some degree of consistency and help develop a uniform
interface. The point was raised that this might be an issue more appropriately
dealt with by the HFIR special committee.
Next Paul Butler
gave a brief report on the status of the current HFIR upgrades. The
reactor was running till the weekend when it would be shutdown for the
6 month beryllium reflector change out. All instruments and equipment
had already been removed from the beam room and were being stored in
the recently built storage shed adjacent to HB4. This building will
eventually house the cold guides and cold triple axes, while the two
SANS instruments will be housed in a building which will be built onto
the existing building. The preliminary design for this second building
had been completed and handed over to an architectural and engineering
firm who's work was scheduled to be completed by the end of September.
The thermal guides are being fabricated by CILAS while most (but not
all) of the cold guides have been ordered. The current schedule calls
for the reactor to come back up before March 1, 2001 and for the thermal
instruments to start coming on line by Aug of 2001. The second guide
hall is scheduled for completion in March of 2002, with the first SANS
machine being in place by August of 2002. Paul pointed out that this
is a very aggressive schedule and that while the change out will no
doubt occur on schedule, considering the large number of factors involved
in the instrument startup their schedules could easily slip.
The question was
then asked about of the status of funding for SNS, and Paul Butler indicated
that he had just received word that it had received full funding in
the conference committee. There was some confusion as to the exact meaning
of "full" funding as well as to whether the funds would be available
October 1 or whether a continuation resolution would be still be required
to fill the gap.
The question of
whether the SNS special committee should attend the November meeting
at Argonne on the long wavelength target station was brought up next.
A couple of the members present indicated they would be attending anyway
in other capacities and it was decided that no "formal" presence was
required.
The question of
the approval of minutes was addressed next. Paul Butler indicated that
while most committee members had agreed with the original proposal of
one week for comments there were a couple of suggestions that a longer
time would be reasonable (ranging from 2 to 4 weeks). Paul Butler requested
that he get some formal guidance (in the form of a vote) as to when
the minutes could be made public (available to anyone upon request).
The committee voted unanimously to set 2 weeks from the last comment
on the minutes to make them officially accepted.
Discussion then
moved to the web pages. The biggest concern was that the SNS logo appeared
at the top of all the pages but that there is no mention of HFIR anywhere
except in the body of the text describing SHUG. The suggestion was made
that either SNS refrain from putting their logo on our pages (even though
we are using their server and their staff to put it together) or that
the HFIR logo be placed on the page as well. Paul Butler agreed to look
into the possibilities. Also a couple of ideas were brought up, including
removing the fax numbers from the list of members and replacing it with
linked email addresses, and making the name links point to individual
home pages
Finally, the issue
of future meeting times was discussed. It was pointed out that several
members had been unable to join this meeting. After a brief deliberation
it was agreed that in general the 9:30EDT slot was probably still the
best for now.
There being no
further business, the meeting adjourned at 10:15EDT.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Butler
SHUG Secretary
