Notice has already been given (in the December issue of Crystallography News) that the Annual General Meeting of the British Crystallography Association will be held on
Tuesday 7th April 1998 at 5.00 p.m.
in the Physics Building, University of St Andrews.
At this meeting we shall elect a President and a Treasurer. The following nominations have been received:
For President:
Professor Michael Glazer, proposed Dr Steve Maginn, seconded Dr Hilary Muirhead.
For Treasurer:
Dr Steve Maginn, proposed Dr Leo Brady, seconded Dr Sandy Blake.
There being only one nomination for each post, these candidates will be declared duly elected at the meeting.
There is one vacancy for an Ordinary Member of Council. Nominations are invited for this post. Each nomination requires a proposer and a seconder and an agreement in writing that the nominee has consented to stand for election. Nominee, proposer and seconder should all be current BCA members. Nominations should be sent to the Secretary as soon as possible to arrive before 24th March, 1998.
AGENDA
(It would be helpful if items for inclusion under 2 and 10 of the Agenda could be notified to the Secretary before the meeting)
Hilary Muirhead
(Hon Secretary)
1998 February 4
The present membership of Council is as follows:
The Council has met twice during the year: during the Spring Meeting in Leeds and at Birkbeck College, London in October. At the Leeds meeting the present Vice-President took over from Professor Bruce Forsyth and the present Secretary succeeded Dr Moreton Moore. Both Bruce and Moreton were heartily thanked for all their hard work for the BCA. Dr Sam Small has stood down after many years as the BCA representative on the Bragg Lecture Fund Committee. Professor Paul Barnes has been appointed as the new representative.
During 1997, four excellent quarterly issues of Crystallography News were published. The coloured covers are very attractive and the Newsletter has published full accounts of all the events mentioned in this report. The Council thanks the Editor for her efforts in compiling the Newsletter, as well as for the substantial advertisement revenue generated. Kate Crennell also maintains the BCA page on the Internet.
Now that the Chemical Crystallography Group is running independently of the Royal Society of Chemistry it needs a new constitution. The proposed constitution, which is published in this issue of Crystallography News, will come to the AGM for adoption.
The Annual Spring Meeting at Leeds, the home of some famous crystallographers, was a great success, although sponsorship was disappointing, and the activities of the various Groups have been reported on, in detail, in the June Issue of Crystallography News. The scientific content was of a high standard and the conference facilities were first class. There were three named lectures - the Hodgkin lecture given by Professor Michael Woolfson, the Lonsdale Lecture given by Professor Andrew Lang and the Bragg Lecture given by Professor Durward Cruickshank. The Council would wish to thank the local organisers, and all their helpers, seen and unseen for all their hard work. Special thanks go to Dr Mark Thornton-Pett.
During the year there were several meetings and workshops. All four groups have held meetings, including ones on from genes to crystals (Leicester), disorder, twinning and incommensurate structures (Bristol), the use of X-ray diffraction in industrial problem solving (Cranfield) and structural physics (Exeter). The Industrial Crystallography Group has organised a number of small, special interest meetings and workshops.
A successful sixth Intensive Course in X-ray Structure Analysis was held in Durham (6-14 April, 1997). It took place in a new venue and was the first to be run without the participation of David Watkin, who played an enormous role in the design and development of the course.
Membership is healthy and many young crystallographers have received BCA bursaries to attend meetings and conferences, both in the UK and worldwide. Frank Allen represented the BCA at the inaugural meeting of the European Crystallographic Association (ECA) in August. Frank was elected to the ECA Council, which will be responsible for European Crystallographic Meetings.
Some good friends and colleagues have died during the year, including Sir John Kendrew and Peter Wheatley. Appreciations have appeared in Crystallography News.
We are looking forward to another successful Spring Meeting, this time organised by Dr Phil Lightfoot at St Andrews. An innovation here is the BCA Plenary Session (on Disorder) which will draw speakers from each of the BCA's constituent groups. There will be no Spring Meeting in 1999 as that will be the year of the IUCr Congress in Glasgow. We wish Dr Chris Gilmore and his team every success in arranging the Glasgow meeting. As well as the main congress there will be a number of satellite meetings.
The complete Statutes and By-Laws were published on page 10 of 'Crystallography News' March 1996 issue no. 56. The following changes are proposed.
1. Delete By-Law D4
D. General Meetings.
4. The examined accounts shall be despatched to Members at least
two weeks before the date of the Annual General Meeting, preferably with the
agenda paper.
2. Replace two days by
seven days in By-Law E2
E. Nominations and Elections
2. Any two Members may make nominations for any vacancy. Such
nominations shall be accompanied by the written consent of the candidate to
serve if elected, and must be received by the Secretary not less than
two days before the Annual General
Meeting.
Proposed changes in the Statutes to be discussed at the
AGM.
E2.
The Council shall consist of the following:-
Add: The Immediate Past President should be a Member of Council
ex officio for one year.
E3. Each elected Member of Council shall serve from the end of the Annual General Meeting at which the election took place until the end of the second Annual General Meeting following the election. No person may serve more than two consecutive terms in the same office, nor more than four consecutive terms in any combination of offices.
Council proposes that the standard term of office should be three years instead of the current two years with a maximum of four years.
The BCA Web site has moved to a different Internet server at Birkbeck in an
attempt to provide an improved service to readers. The old Web site will
remain for a few months but will no longer be updated. At the same time I
have re-organised the files into a more sensible directory structure.
I am trying to provide an index to the back issues of 'Crystallography News' and to make the text of the recent ones readable on the site. All the book and software reviews are already updated and so are the obituaries and news of members. I have tried to keep the site as simple as possible to give a fast network response. Comments are welcome at any time, preferably via email to [email protected]
The new address is http://gordon.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/BCA/index.html
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