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Minutes of SHUG Executive Committee Meeting of December 29, 2003
The Executive Committee convened by conference call at 1:00 PM EDT on
December 29, 2003. 7 of the 11 members were present. The members in
attendance were:
Paul Butler (Secretary)
Zema Chowdhuri
Joanna Krueger (Chair)
Paul Sokol (Vice chair)
John Tranquada (Past chair)
David Vaknin
Angus Wilkinson
The meeting began
with a review by John Tranquada of the Brookhaven meeting on user access
to facility. John gave an overview at the Nov 10 meeting, but there
was some confusion that surfaced at the Dec 9 meeting, for which John
was absent, when trying to understand the purpose of the letter being
signed by the user groups. John reiterated his previous summary and
took questions. Asked about the priority screening program, he indicated
that it addresses only foreigners going to national labs and does not
apply to foreign scientists going to universities, and is essentially
a recognition of the fact that DOE clearance procedures are a good pre-screening.
He was unsure whether it applied only to scientists taking positions
at national labs or also to people visiting the labs. He also indicated
that he thought it went into effect this summer but that he has not
noticed any appreciable reduction of time so far and is thus not yet
convinced about the program's effectiveness. On the issue of whether
clearance at one lab might carry over to other labs, Bill Nay and the
Office of Science are aware of the problem, and there are intentions
to address this eventually. Concerning access for foreign nationals,
the time required to provide clearance before a lab visit will largely
be controlled by the DOE security order. To what extent those suggestions
get incorporated into the final draft is unclear, but the purpose of
the letter from the user groups is precisely to express our support
of Mr. Nay's ideas. A second letter from the UEC chairs has been prepared,
addressed to Mr. Nay, voicing strong support for the priority visa screening
for scientists by the Departments of State and of Homeland Security
and requesting that Secretary Abraham communicate this view to the Secretaries
of State and of Homeland Security. Given the importance of these issues
being resolved reasonably, Joanna asked to what extent was there a sense
at the meeting that we could effect change and how would we go about
that. John suggested that it was not clear how quickly change can be
effected, but that clearly these kinds of letters are important.
Paul Sokol updated
the group on the ACNS activities. He has formed a small committee consisting
of Ray Teller at Argone, Audrey Archuletta of LANSE, himself for NIST
and SHUG/SNS and David Vaknin for SHUG/HFIR. Paul S. will try to set
up the first meeting by conference call in January. His current idea
is to set up 4 themes covering four corners of the room addressing Source
issues, Instrumentation issues, User support issues, and Administrative
issues. Paul also noted that he had not yet been successful in contacting
Bill Hamilton, current LUG chair, but would continue to try and hopefully
involve them more directly. Paul B. asked if Shenda Baker or Jeff Lynn
(ACNS program co-chairs) had been contacted about these ideas. Paul
S. said that Jeff had been contacted and is entirely "on board."
Next the election
results were discussed. Paul Butler had forwarded the email from Judy
Zager at SNS giving the winners (Paul Butler -ORNL, Lynn Walker - Carnegie
Mellon, Angus Wilkinson - Georgia Tech, John Turner - The University
of Tennessee, and David Bowman - Los Alamos National Laboratory) and
the total number voting (183) to the committee immediately prior to
the meeting. Joanna asked how the 183 compared to last year. Paul B.
indicated his information from Judy was that last year's total was 228
but pointed out that last year didn't run into the holiday season so
much. Paul B. suggested that last year he sent a note to the candidates
indicating the winners. This was followed by an email announcement of
the results sent to all those who'd voted. He recommended a similar
procedure be employed but that it would be inappropriate for him to
send them. Paul S. indicated he'd be willing to do that and Paul B.
promised to send a copy of the two emails sent out last year to Paul
S. and Joanna. Paul B. said he also had JPEG graphics showing number
of votes for each candidate and agreed to forward them to the committee.
The sense of the committee however seemed to be that those numbers are
important for verification of the winners, but should not be publicized.
Finally Joanna pointed out that there was no mention anywhere on the
SHUG website of the elections. This was noted as an important omission
that we should avoid next year.
An open, wide ranging
discussion ensued on several related topics, a flavor of which is given
below:
We are currently
using the SNS mailing list as our "membership roster." However, as with
last year, the idea that perhaps the list of those voting constitutes
a subset that is at least clearly interested arose. Just as last year
however, restricting future message to those alone was felt to still
be too restrictive at this time. Paul B. pointed out that he often encounters
the attitude that SHUG has no real purpose yet since the facilities
aren't really operating. While he can (and has) explained one on one
why, on the contrary, this time is particularly important, it is clear
that we are not getting this message out generally. It was pointed out
that our bylaws do require "biennial renewal" of membership, which of
course we currently have no way of doing. How do we remove people from
our mailing list who should stay on the general SNS list? How do we
add people to our list who ask us to be added? If we maintain our own
list how and who does it? Several suggestions were offered but ultimately
this clearly will need more discussion by the new committee. In the
meantime, Joanna and Paul S. agreed to add wording to the email announcement
of winners indicating the importance of participating now even though
the facilities are not yet fully operational, with maybe some examples,
the fact that there is a renewal requirement which will begin to be
enforced soon, and provide a means for people to respond to the email
asking to be removed from the SHUG list. This announcement then, unlike
last year, would go to the entire SNS list.
This led to the
question of how to sustainably maintain a membership list/mailing list
and web presence. Having it run by a member of the executive committee
is appealing, but not a long term solution without creating a "permanent
member" which we want to avoid. Currently we use SNS to do this, which
would appear to be a perfect long term solution (though so far they
are not maintaining a separate SHUG members list). However it is unclear
what happens when we begin to take a more active advocacy role and start/encourage
what effectively are lobbying efforts. As a government lab there are
definite restrictions in this area. As an independent organization of
users those restrictions do not apply to us, and in fact, as "customers,"
we probably should lobby both the facility and the government regularly.
However, our ability to do so could be severely hampered by having the
facility perform our administrative tasks (maintain rosters, web servers
etc.). Both Paul B. and Paul S. currently serve on the NIST User's Group
Committee which is in the middle of dealing with just this problem.
Granted that NIST, which is run directly by the DOC, faces stronger
restrictions, but the fundamental issues remain the same. Again a number
of suggestions were offered and again it is clear that more discussion
by the new committee will be necessary. John Tranquada offered perhaps
the most promising lead to a solution by suggesting UT, or perhaps JINS
(or UT through JINS) as the entity that manages our electronic needs.
There being no
other business, Joanna thanked each of the outgoing members for their
services and the meeting adjourned at 2:15PM EDT
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Butler
SHUG Secretary
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