From the President
Those of you who attended the recent BCA Spring Meeting held in St
Andrews will, I am sure, wish to congratulate the organisers for holding
such a memorable conference. There were many highlights, including, in my
opinion, four excellent presentations from each of the groups given in a
single Plenary Session. Phil Lightfoot even managed to arrange for the right
sort of Scottish weather that ensured full attendance at all the sessions!
Now it is important to realize that next year there will be no Spring Meeting, because instead we shall be putting our efforts into the IUCr Meeting in Glasgow. It is most important that we show UK crystallography at its best, and I would urge all BCA members to consider how they can contribute to this meeting next year. In particular, Judith Howard would like to hear as soon as possible of any suggestions for the programme, so please contact her with ideas for plenary speakers and microsymposium topics and conveners.
It is with great pleasure that I congratulate our second oldest member, Arnold Beevers, on his 90th birthday, and George Bacon on his 80th!
From the Treasurer
The Annual General Meeting of the BCA, held at St. Andrews, voted in favour
of a proposal to increase the annual subscription fee for BCA membership.
(The Minutes of the AGM follow on page 6)
From January 1st 1999, membership fees will rise as follows:
The decision to raise the fee, for the first time in 5 years, has been taken for a number of reasons. Many of the BCA's activities, including those from the individual groups, are self-financing or are used to specifically finance other activities - the purpose of the membership subscription has always been to finance the administration of the Association and the Newsletter. While the slice of this amount required to subsidise "Crystallography News" has decreased as advertising revenue has increased, there are now other demands upon that amount.
Our annual payment of £2,200 to the Royal Society for IUCr subscription is a case in point, and we are now members of the European Crystallographic Association, which also requires an annual subscription fee. Furthermore, a decision was made by Council not to specifically increase the amount paid by credit card subscriptions to allow for the commission which is payable on each transaction. Thus administrative costs have risen in real terms.
We therefore hope that the membership will bear with us, as we maintain and improve the services we provide to members. This extra subscription revenue, for example, is enabling us to provide members with a credit card payment facility and automatic membership of the European Crystallographic Association.
Those members who currently pay by Standing Order Mandate (SOM) will need to
replace their current mandate with a new one. You will find a form enclosed
as an insert with the June 98 issue. Please complete the relevant sections
(note there is one that the BCA Treasurer needs to complete - please leave
this blank) and return it as soon as possible to
Dr. Stephanie Harris at Worcester. This is also an ideal opportunity to
start paying by SOM for those who have not done so before. First payments
will be made on the first working day of 1999.
Many thanks in advance for your co-operation and forebearance.
Steve Maginn
6 May 1998
Minutes of the BCA Annual General Meeting 1998
held on Tuesday 7 April in the Physics Building, University of St Andrews at 5.00 p.m. with the President, Professor Michael Glazer, in the Chair.
1. The agenda was approved.
2. There were no apologies for absence.
3. The minutes of the previous AGM (held at Leeds on 16 April 1997) had been published in the June 1997 issue of Crystallography News and posted during the conference. They were approved and signed by the President. There were no matters arising from them.
4. The Secretary's Report to Council, which had been published in the March 1998 issue of Crystallography News as well as having been posted during the conference, was accepted.
5. Two proposed changes to the By-Laws of the British Crystallographic Association were discussed.
By-Law D4 (General Meetings) was amended to read 'The examined accounts shall be made available to Members at least two days before the date of the Annual General Meeting, preferably with the agenda paper'. Normally this would mean that they should be displayed at the beginning of the Spring Meeting.
Council had proposed that By-Law E2 (Nominations and Elections) should be amended to read that nominations must be received by the Secretary not less than seven days before the Annual General Meeting. This proposal was defeated and the time will remain at two days.
It was agreed in principle that the standard term of office for elected Members of Council should be three years and that the Immediate Past President should be a Member of Council ex officio for one year. Proposed changes to the Statutes and By-Laws would be brought to the next AGM. This change would not affect the position of Group Representatives or ex officio members.
6. Copies of the Treasurer's Report were given to all members present. Dr Steve Maginn drew attention to the fact that overall the BCA has made a small operating surplus of £866, as opposed to a small loss in 1996. For the first time the turnover of the BCA has exceeded £100,000. This is attributable to the 1997 Durham Teaching School, which had a turnover in excess of £20,000. The separation of 'Crystallography Congress 1999' funds took place in January 1997.
7. Presentation of Accounts. The amount spent on bursaries during the year was £4630, matching the profit of £5408 made by the Leeds Spring Meeting. The Leeds University Conference Office and the local organiser, Dr Mark Thornton-Pett, were thanked for the quick and efficient production of accounts.
The income from newsletter advertising has increased sharply due to both an increase in advertising rates, and in the number of advertisers. All credit to Kate Crennell for the fact that the Newsletter is now regularly breaking even.
Membership subscriptions have fallen. This is partly because of the change in status and payment of the CCG and PCG, and partly because more members are paying by standing order, which costs them less. Credit card payments also incur a small penalty.
The accounts include a payment of £2200 to the Royal Society to reimburse them for part of the subscription to the International Union.
Mr R Husband, who has been the examining accountant, is retiring from practice. Mr R A Young of The Young Company, Huntingdon was appointed as Examining Accountant in his place. The accounts were accepted nem con. Council recommended the raising of subscription fees to £15, £12 and £6 respectively for full membership, payment by standing order, and reduced fee membership and an increase to £60 for term payments. This was approved with one vote against.
8. Election of Officers and Ordinary Members of Council
For President - Professor Michael Glazer had been proposed by Dr Steve Maginn and seconded by Dr Hilary Muirhead. As his was the only nomination, he was declared duly elected.
For Treasurer - Dr Steve Maginn had been proposed by Dr Leo Brady and seconded by Dr Sandy Blake. As his was the only nomination, he was declared duly elected.
For Ordinary Member of Council - One nomination had been received to fill one vacancy. Professor Guy Orpen had been proposed by Professor Michael Hursthouse and seconded by Dr Frank Allen. As his was the only nomination, he was declared duly elected.
Dr Chris Gilmore and Professor Judith Howard have been co-opted as Members of Council.
9. The Examining Accountant had already been appointed under item 7.
10. Under Any Other Business the matter of named lectures was raised. The president said that the Lonsdale Lecture had been given last year and that the next one would probably be in the year 2000. There would be a Bragg Lecture next year but this was not organised by the BCA.
The meeting closed at 5.35 p.m.
Hilary Muirhead:
1998 April 22
Winner of March 98 Competition
Moreton Moore correctly identified the mineral as the swallowtail twin
form of gyspum, He writes: 'It is used in cements, building materials
and plaster of Paris; it is found all over the UK, especially in
Northumberland, and in the USA, Canada and France.'
Thanks to Alan Mackay for sending this cutting from 'The Guardian' of March 11th 1998:
I was intrigued by the statistic in Peter Gorman's letter (March 7) that in 1996-7 "while 11% of people in England and Wales are Roman Catholic, 17% of those in prison are".
My mother, Kathleen Lonsdale, spent a month in Holloway prison in 1943. She was a Quaker and had refused to pay a fine for not registering for firewatching. On arrival a friendly inmate whispered that it was best to register as a Roman Catholic. They were issued with bibles with red covers, which, if wetted, could produce a passable substitute for lipstick. Protestants were given blue-covered bibles.
My mother used this anecdote to illustrate the pitfalls of interpreting statistics.
Nancy Dawson, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire
Kate Crennell
8 May 1998
In most diffraction experiments the sample is prepared well before the experiment and brought to the diffractometer. However, there are many circumstances in structural chemistry, physics, engineering, biology and earth sciences where such a procedure may not be possible. The sample may only be formed in a reactive environment and the preparation or transformation is best carried out on the instrument itself. The scope for such 'in-situ' diffraction experiments has increased enormously over recent years as more intense sources of X-rays and neutrons have enabled experiments to be carried out on smaller samples or faster transformations, or in environments that provide poorer access to the probe.
Many of these are industrially important as we heard from the 'Industrial Group' plenary session speaker at the St.Andrews meeting, Patrick Fairclough, who is studying polymer crystallisation. Another classic example of this kind of work is that of Pannetier and his colleagues on the chemical and structural changes that occur deep inside a solid-state battery as it discharges and the cell reaction proceeds. Neutron diffraction provides a direct probe of these processes in real time in the chemical environment most relevant to the problem.
A wide range of problems is currently being studied in this way; they are mainly in solid-state chemistry and materials processing at the moment, but the idea is extending into the biological and earth sciences. As an emerging field, the topic needs to bring together those who have the technical expertise to perform the diffraction experiments, and those who have a problem to solve in this area of structural science.
Therefore, it has been proposed that a Web Page be set up on the BCA Web site to provide an information source on techniques and facilities, areas of activity and practitioners, for experts and would-be users. Andrew Harrison and Kate Crennell are setting up a draft page at URL:
http://gordon.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/BCA/insitu/Index.html
We hope it will be there ready for your inspection by the time this newsletter is published. (Sorry, not there yet, we're working on it KMC,and AH)
The page will focus initially on activities in the UK, concentrating on neutron diffraction and X-ray techniques, with links to the more specialised information held at the CLRC Laboratories by the ISIS Facility and the SRS Daresbury; we plan further pages on activities in selected subject areas - solid-state chemistry for example - with links to those doing such work. Please look at the pages we have already - particularly the ones which are merely outline contributions, they aim to give an introduction providing a framework to link to more detailed contributions from active workers in the field.
Let us know what other subjects you would like to see covered. In future we hope to extend the scope of the activities and practitioners beyond the UK and may also consider other structural probes such as EXAFS.
Andrew Harrison,
Department of Chemistry,
The University of Edinburgh
email: [email protected]
or comments to the BCA Webmaster, Kate Crennell, email : [email protected]
Page last updated 20 July 1998
Click here to return to BCA homepage