Presidents Remarks
This is the last time that I shall have the opportunity to write as President of the BCA. At the coming Heriot-Watt Spring Meeting you will have the opportunity to vote for the next President. This will take place during the AGM and I urge you all to attend and vote. The Spring Meeting promises to be an excellent occasion and I hope that as many of you as possible will be there. As you can read on page 9 the BCA Council will discuss a most important matter for the future of the Association during the Meeting, namely the idea of setting up a BCA office run by professional staff. If this is agreed to go ahead, the way in which the BCA is run may be dramatically changed. It is therefore important that if you have any views on this subject they should be expressed to any member of Council as soon as possible as it will be discussed at Council on the day before the start of the Meeting.
Finally it remains to me to thank all the members of the BCA Council, and especially the Officers, for making my job so straightforward. It has been a real pleasure to serve as your President and I hope the next incumbent will also find it a most enjoyable and interesting job.
Mike Glazer
Oxford,
1 February 2000
BCA IUCr Congress Fund
Following from the success of the IUCr Congress of Crystallography held in
Glasgow in 1999, the British Crystallographic Association has agreed to
establish a fund to be used to help organisers of future IUCr International
Congresses of Crystallography.
The conditions of the fund will be:
It is in the nature of associations such as the BCA to rely upon its elected officers to run the show. This is fine, in theory, but I wonder how many of our members have a realistic idea of what it means in terms of hours given to "the cause" in an unstinting fashion.
For some time now it has been increasingly apparent that the BCA has grown up to the point that the scale of much that we do would amply justify transferring some chores to others, thus enabling our officers to devote more time to their science, and I am writing to you now to explain how this might be done. What follows is the result of some investigations made by a working party set up by the BCA Council for this purpose, consisting of R Diamond (chair), M Glazer, S Maginn, H Muirhead, F H Allen and J A K Howard.
Those of you who attended the IUCr Congress in Glasgow last summer will remember the part played by Northern Networking in handling registration, accommodation, the social program and the day to day running of the Congress. Many of us were impressed with the friendly efficiency with which they went about their business. The working party of the BCA Council now wishes to propose that we offer Northern Networking a three year contract to run the administrative side of the BCA. This would consist of providing a similar service, on a smaller scale, to our annual Spring Meeting, of maintaining our membership records and handling renewals, and of handling the commercial side of Crystallography News, all of which would remain under the supervision of appropriate BCA officers. In addition, Northern Networking offer to raise the profile of the BCA in ways which can be expected to result in increased membership, a heightened awareness of crystallography outside the BCA and some extension and promotion of the BCA's own products.
And what does this bonanza cost? For the Spring Meeting they are asking for £10 per registered delegate, plus expenses and 15% of gross profit. You think that sounds a lot? Well, the facts are that had they operated on this basis at the time of the St Andrews meeting, that meeting would have returned a profit of £10,000 without increasing the costs to attenders, and our local organiser, Phil Lightfoot, and his crew might have had some life of their own at that time. In the event, the actual profit was some £15,000, greater certainly, but NN's cut is well within what was affordable on that occasion. In the case of the meeting in Leeds the previous Spring the profit would actually have been increased because Leeds University charged more for administrative assistance than NN would have done.
Supplementary services in relation to conferences would include assistance with planning and budgeting, design and management of printed material, registration services, solicitation of sponsors, management of exhibition space and on site management of the meeting. All these topics would be dealt with in manners approved by the BCA, so that there would be no question of unsuitable exhibits turning up in the exhibition, for example.
In relation to the support of the BCA's membership lists and associated data, the BCA has for many years relied on the charitable support first of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre and latterly of Bristol University for the funding of a part time individual to do this work, namely Stephanie Harris. I think that the BCA is quite right to think that it should not undertake the somewhat daunting responsibilities of an employer, but I, and many others, do think that the BCA has grown up to the point that it should be paying its way. The Northern Networking opportunity provides the ideal solution because we can pay for professional quality administration without taking on the role of employer.
In relation to Crystallography News they would take care of all the administrative burden currently nobly borne by Kate Crennell in connection with the quite voluminous advertising business which it carries. Kate would retain overall control of the operation, but she would be free to do her science and edit the substance of the publication.
In addition to all this, they are offering to attend Council meetings for the purpose of keeping closely in touch and to interpret the Council's wishes as well as may be. They also offer a recruiting drive and to promote our products, and there are a number of other options which Council may wish to take up in the future.
The Spring Meeting costing has already been given, but all other services are offered for £10,000 per year, which corresponds to under £12 per member. In my view, the BCA is currently a very low cost professional organisation when compared, say, to the ACA, so that some increase in subscription rate might well be justified. But, having said that, I believe that there is a very good chance that the increased membership, sponsorship, sales and advertising revenue which we may expect may make any increase in subscription rates unnecessary. But there is only one way to find out, and Council proposes a three year contract in the first instance, from the Spring Meeting 2000, and proposes it at the most favourable time that there has ever been, namely, just after a Congress when the coffers are full. Comments may be made to members of Council.
Robert Diamond
January 2000
Editor's Note: The full BCA council plans to discuss this proposal at their next meeting, 2 April 2000, in Heriot-Watt university, the day before the start of the Annual meeting. Their Conclusion will be presented at the AGM.
Kate Crennell
Candidates for BCA President in 2000
Listed in alphabetical order of surname:
My basic mission would be to serve the Association in promoting research,
education and communication in crystallography. I have been a member of the
BCA from its early days and have watched its membership grow in number and
diversity. I very much believe in maintaining the unique dialogue that has
been established between the four areas of the BCA: indeed since I am a
physicist who researches into industrial chemistry within a crystallography
department mainly composed of molecular biologists, I am subjected daily to
the full fourfold symmetry of British Crystallography! Two particular
aspirations of mine are to develop further the status of the BCA and its
educational programmes, these having also been causes close to the hearts of
our recent presidents. The BCA still needs to become a more prominent
authority within our peer-review processes which are so important these days
for UK science, and with that to become better placed to exploit new funding
for crystallographic education via smaller course modules and by using
internet methods of communication and delivery. I see these as very worthy
objectives for a 3-year presidency.
Candidate for BCA Treasurer in 2000
Dave Taylor, Consultant
I began my career in the glass industry with Pilkington in 1963, training as an Analytical Chemist and through day release qualified to attain C Chem MRSC. My involvement with X-Ray analysis began in 1970 progressing to Section Head X-Ray Analysis and on to manage a small team of inorganic analysts. In the early eighties the emphasis of my work shifted into the crystallography field inheriting an area based on cameras and a PW1050 goniometer with a strip chart. I was responsible for updating the facility to a fully automated powder diffraction system with an elevated temperature chamber and more recently into thin film analysis and reflectometry. The work included characterisation of innovative crystalline coatings on glass in support of the Pilkington research team. I volunteered to take early retirement from my position as Senior Research Scientist in April 1998 aged 50. I now do part time consultancy work and am involved with St Helens College and the development of their analytical service.
I have been a member of the BCA Industrial Group (IG) committee since 1991
retiring as their Chair in 1998 and am currently the BCA International
Centre for Diffractions Data (ICDD) Representative. I co-ordinated a UK
Instrument Intensity Round Robin exercise for the BCA IG. This gave me an
insight into the performance of many instrument configurations and resulted
in an invitation to present the findings in a workshop at the Denver
Conference in August 1998. I am a member of the International X-ray Analysis
Soc. (IXAS) Steering Committee. I became a member of BCA council at the 1999
AGM and now offer my services as Treasurer to continue the strong tradition
of balancing low membership cost with the provision of high quality
meetings, publications, services and support to students.
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