Minutes of SHUG Executive Committee Meeting of January 18, 2001
The Executive Committee convened by conference call at 10:00 AM EDT
on January 18, 2001. Of the 11 committee members 8 were present. The
members in attendance were:
Meigan Aronson
Dave Belanger
Paul Butler
Robert McQueeney
Costas Stassis
John Tranquada
David Vaknin
Andrey Zheludev
The
first item of discussion, not on the original agenda, was the announcement
the previous day that SNS director Dave Moncton would resign from the
SNS effective March 1. A number of concerns were aired ranging from
questions regarding the reason for Moncton’s departure, to why
the SHUG E.C. was not directly informed (only a few members of the committee
with ties to ORNL had heard of the announcement) much less given an
early heads up that something of this magnitude was about to occur.
Of most concern was the question of succession: what type of person
might be chosen (an administrator with experience building large projects
or someone with a technical background and an understanding of the scientific
contributions of neutron scattering) and what should SHUG’s role
be. Several on the committee expressed their concern over the derth
of qualified people (particularly if one eliminates those unlikely to
take the job). Further it was noted that a number of top management
positions are being vacated at DOE neutron facilities around the country(Dave
Moncton at SNS, Bruce Brown at Argone, and Roger Pynn and Joyce Roberts
at Los Alamos). After much discussion it was clear that very little
information was yet available and it was resolved that:
- Dave would call Dave Moncton and Thom Mason to get some answers to
our questions and would then email the committee with a brief report.
- Dave would draft a letter to Bill Madia, ORNL Lab director, expressing
our concerns and indicating the importance of looking for someone with
a strong scientific background to lead this project to completion. Dave
would circulate the draft to the committee for comment before officially
transmitting it.
Next, Dave asked Meigan to share her concerns with the group over the
proposed increase in the number of IDT’s in the wake of the new
cost pressures in the SNS project discussed at last meeting, and by
Moncton and Mason when they spoke to the group in December. IDT’s
are effectively CAT like instruments which would have serious repercussions
for the user community. The time available to users of course could
be dramatically reduced. Furthermore, the APS experience shows that
such instruments can often be designed too flexibly so that a substantial
amount of beam time gets wasted at each experiment essentially “building”
the instrument. There are also questions of how the choice and designs
may or may not be carefully overseen to guarantee a proper mix of available
instruments and integration into the overall facility. User support
and who is responsible for providing it could also be an issue for whatever
time is made available to the user community. There was general agreement
that this was an issue SHUG should follow very closely.
The rest of the agenda was
dealt with relatively rapidly. First the issue of location of the NSSA/SHUG
meeting was discussed in view of the fact that the SNS central lab and
office building which was initially planned as the venue will most certainly
not be ready at that time. Given also the receding schedule on the HFIR
side the question was raised as to whether the meeting should be held
in DC again. After some discussion it was agreed that the conference
should be held in Knoxville or Oak Ridge anyway.
Next Dave asked for volunteers
to work on coordinating the NSSA/SHUG meeting and offered himself since
he will be stepping down from the chairmanship in the fall of this year
and therefore have more time to devote to it. Dave is also on the NSSA
committee. Rob McQueeney volunteered as well. Nobody else offering to
help, Dave suggested he didn’t really know how many would be needed
but that two might be sufficient. Paul Butler then suggested that if
necessary he’d be willing to work on it as well since he is located
in Oak Ridge/knoxville.
Dave then asked if there
were any reports from the special committees. Rob McQueeney, Chair of
the SNS special committee indicated he was working on contacting Al
Ekkebus, SNS user program manager though the two had not yet successfully
connected. Costas Stassis, chair of the HFIR special committee, indicated
difficulty in obtaining any response from HFIR. A suggestion was made
that perhaps the special committees, particularly the HFIR special committee,
should convene. Costas indicated he believed that was necessary, but
that he did not think HFIR would pay for our trip to ORNL for such and
indicated he did not believe in starting conference call meetings until
such an onsite meeting at occured.
Next, Paul indicated that
he had failed in meeting his self appointed deadlines for getting the
web pages ready for approval and the straw man user procedures. He apologized
and told the committee that he’d work on them in the next few
weeks*
Finally Dave mentioned that
we need to begin planning for the Fall elections.
There being no further business
the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Butler
SHUG Secretary
*After the meeting Paul met
with Al Ekkebus for other reasons and discovered that Al had almost
completed a draft of user procedures which he wanted to circulate to
the SHUG E.C. soon. Paul informed Dave by email that he planned to hold
off work on his “straw man” at least until the SNS draft
showed up unless there was some serious objection. Dave agreed.
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