Minutes of SHUG Executive Committee Meeting of November 12, 2004
Present
members (9):
Paul Butler
Takeshi Egami
Nancy
Ross
Joanna
Krueger
Paul
Sokol
John Turner
Lynn Walker
Angus
Wilkinson
Kim
Tait
1. Approval of Minutes from 10/12(attached) and 10/29 (if available)
Minutes for 10/12 were approved unanimously. Minutes for 10/29 were
not available.
[action item] JKK will forward the minutes for the 10/12 meeting
to SNS to be placed on the web site.
Announcements:
2. Approved minutes from meetings of Feb 5th, Feb 25th, March 18th,
May 20th and Sept. 24th are now available for viewing on the SHUG web
site in HTML format. (neutrons.ornl.gov/shug)
3. Request for financial support to send a representative to the
national user facilities organization NUFO meeting at SLAC in Jan 2005
was made to SNS. No reply as of yet. Al Ekkebus will be attending.
[action item] Joanna Krueger has volunteered to represent the SHUG
at this meeting. Takeshi will look into finding the travel funds at
ORNL to send her.
4. Greg Smith has sent an update on the HFIR instrument layout (attached).
Old Business:
5. HFIR advisory committee meeting on Dec 15-16th, 2004. John Turner,
chair of the HFIR subgroup committee, will update us on his discussions
with David Price so far.
John Turner will
be meeting with David Price next Tuesday at 1:00 pm. If HFIR management
is serious about generating a true user community at HFIR then some
changes need to be implemented. The numbers of non-facility users
reported in the 2000 Plummer report are abysmal. Takeshi noted that
there has been considerable improvement in these numbers from the
last cycle. Angus noted that this is true, yet there still exists
a minimal user program. Unless one desires to use a triple axis spectrometer,
that user is out of luck. HFIR’s real dilemma is that there are
seriously staff limited. None-the-less, HFIR must break out of its
old culture and begin to put structures in place so that users have
a serious voice that is listened to. Some questions that John would
like to see answered include: How instrumentation decisions at HFIR
currently are made? And How involved have the potential users been
in these decisions? Users should be heavily involved in these decisions
and should infact be driving them. A first step in this direction would
be to include a user group representative on their advisory committee.
Joanna noted that David Price’s invitation to be included in
the Dec. advisory committee meeting was a good start and a positive
sign.
A strong supportive User
community can help get necessary resources, upgrades, DOE and ORNL
support. Therefore, it is VERY odd that users are not being pulled
in pro-actively. NOW is an absolutely critical time. If the environment
at HFIR doesn’t change now, the question
becomes whether the plug will be pulled all together. How serious is
HFIR in making this move and what kinds of pressure are they under
to be serious about their user community.
[action item] Get a copy of the DOE REVIEW OF HFIR or portions thereof.
We know we can’t
change the past. What about the future? For instance, which instruments
are brought up first once the cold source upgrade is done?
How many people
use them? This question really should drive which instruments get
put up first. There are a lot of exciting things that can be done
at HFIR- a potentially premier reactor source. For example, building
something that resembles ILL’s D-22 would be exciting.
Also, the HB2 tunnel could lead to a new guide hall, if there was enough
reason to invest in there. DOE won’t take any of these ambitions
seriously without a strong user base and program.
Conclusion: We need to advocate for a stronger user presence at HFIR.
[action item] All of us should begin a dialog and email exchange
on this topic. John will lead it.
6. NIST user group charter.
For better consistency, this charter would propose a four-year vs.
two- year terms; and stagger them. It also proposes that nobody from
NCNR could be on the committee, while it places no limits on other
NIST staff. Paul got comments from Pat Gallagher on the charter, who
questioned the wisdom of placing no limits on the number of NIST staff
allowed to serve on the executive committee and suggested that perhaps
a limit of one or two would be much better. He also had a few other
concerns suggestions which the NIST User Group Committee will consider
at their next meeting.
[action item] Paul B. will send us a version of the NIST charter
upon approval from the NUG.
7. SHUG Elections- Paul B. will update us on the status of the nominations,
ballot and upcoming elections.
(paul, any chance you could send us all a copy of the current ballot
complete with bios before the call?)
Ballot is nearly complete. We have 8 candidates which represent diversity
in expertise, gender, ethnicity, and affiliation. George Lager is Professor
of Geosciences at the University of Louisville. Yumi Ijiri is an Associate
Professor of Physics at Oberlin College. David Bucknall is an Associate
Professor in the School of Polymer, at Georgia Tech. Paul Sokol is
Director of the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility and Professor
of Physics at Indiana University. Stephen Shapiro , is a Senior Scientist
at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Mark Lumsden is on the HFIR staff
at ORNL. Mike Snow is professor of Physics at Indiana University. Despina
Luca is in material at U. Virginia.
Despina Luca and Mark Lumsden have agreed to their nominations and
will be put on the ballot but their bios are missing.
There is currently one graduate student/ postdoctoral candidate who
has accepted and sent in his bios. Tarik Saleh is a graduate student
at the University of Tennessee working on his Ph.D in materials science
and engineering. The other post-doc/grad student nominee could not
be contacted.
[action item]
Paul B. has requested and will forward Mark Lumsden’s
bios. Paul B. has also offered to find another nominee for the gs/pd
committee. Takeshi Egami has requested and will forward Despina Luca’s
bios as soon as possible.
Looking at Friday the 19 th at the earliest, more likely Monday the
22 nd, to getting these ballots out due to Judy being busy with the
DOE review next week.
Plan is to close voting on the 15 th of Dec. and send out a reminder
on the 13 th .
New Business:
8. Anything?
NEXT MEETING on the 17 th of Dec at 11 am. We will look over the
results from the election and hear from John about what he learned
from the HFIR advisory committee meeting.
[action item] All, please put the date for our NEXT MEETING on
your calendars, Dec. 17 th at 11 am.
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