CHAIRMAN'S REPORTS

• 2005 Jeremy Cockcroft
• 2006 Jeremy Cockcroft
• 2007 Anne Kavanagh

For Index to Chairman's Reports:1994 to present ...click link.

Chairman's Report for 2005

to the 2006 Annual General Meeting of the Industrial Group.

April 2006, University of Lancaster.

This is my second report as chairman of the Industrial Group. Compared to 2004, this last year has been a quieter year with regard to the number of meetings organised by the committee. In the autumn, we organised a two day event in London held at Birkbeck College, the first day of which was an introductory workshop on the subject of "Patents & Crystallography". The second day formed, in effect, our usual 1 day autumn meeting. This allowed us to develop the previous day's topic by making the morning session "Crystallographic Patents". The afternoon session was based on a mixture of talks revolved around the themes of standards and applied crystallography. While there was an excellent attendance on day 1, it was disappointing to see a lower attendance on day 2 despite some really excellent talks. So the whole issue of two day sessions is something that the committee needs to look at very carefully in future.

At the last Spring Meeting, the industrial group decided to take on the subject and responsibility of XRF by including a series of parallel XRF sessions. One of the questions that arose at our last AGM was the issue of how to include XRF within XRD given the formal constitution of the group. It seems to the committee that the simplest solution at this stage is to continue XRF as a special interest group (SIG) within the BCA Industrial Group analogous to our other SIGs (e.g. pharmaceutical, residual stress, and non-ambient diffraction). In addition, there are plans in progress to have a small-angle scattering SIG within the BCA-IG, so watch this space!

So what else has the committee done? The BCA-IG has a very active committee who meet in person on a regular basis, typically 3 times per year, in contrast to some of the other BCA groups. This last year we have been fortunate to have had the use of facilities at the Natural History Museum in London for our committee meetings and I would like to express my personal thanks to Martin Gill for both arranging these facilities plus the additional tours including one to the diamond exhibition. However, due to both time and costs, we plan to reduce the number of committee meetings to twice per year since much of the detailed discussions on future meetings can now be held electronically.

The main activity of the committee is to organise meetings and workshops of interest to the members, and a large number of the sessions at this meeting were organised by IG committee members. In addition, we already have plans afoot for our next autumn meeting, to be held at Pilkington's research base at Lathom, Lancashire. For those who have never been there, I strongly recommend attendance since there will be an opportunity for a fascinating guided tour. For the autumn meeting, we will be reverting to our traditional theme of "Crystallography in Industry", so if you are doing something interesting using diffraction, let the committee know so that we include you in our next programme. In addition, plans are now in place for the next XRF meeting in May (see the website for details) plus a residual stress meeting in June.

We do want to hear more about what our members are doing: so one suggestion for the next BCA Spring Meeting in Canterbury, Kent, is for a series of very short talks in which we will encourage as many of our "silent" members as possible to tell us in, say 5 to 10 minutes, about what they are doing in the field of diffraction. So expect an email or two from us should we go ahead with this idea!

The industrial group is incredibly fortunate to have the services of Dave Taylor who is a pillar of support when it comes to both the group's web pages and the newsletter. We really are grateful for all the hard work that he puts into this job. For many years the newsletter was the responsibility of our vice chair, Phil Holdway, who has been on the committee since 1999, both in the role of member and secretary-treasurer. Phil is now standing down due to his other busy commitments at Qinetiq. At this meeting we will be electing a new vice chair to take over from Phil, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank Phil for his work with the newsletter. Financially, we are also very grateful to the various sponsors of our newsletter. Since the last AGM, our two newsletters have been sponsored by PANalytical and Rigaku, and I would like to thank both companies for their support.

The committee is also involved with the subject of PXRD standards and we have been fortunate to have the services of Steve Norval to represent British interests here. In addition, the BCA-IG had a round robin on the subject of low-angle standards and I would like to thank Dave Taylor for organising this. Reports on both subjects were given by Steve and Dave at our last autumn meeting.

This meeting also sees the end of a 3 year period of office for our secretary-treasurer, Judith Shackleton. It is not an easy job chasing non-payers up for meeting fees, and I know that most of the work has had to be done in her own free time at home. I would like to thank her for all hard work. Fortunately, she has agreed to stand again for committee, as the rules allow, but in a different role. Finally, I would like to thank all the committee members for their help and support during the last year.

This ends the Chairman's report for the year 2005.

Jeremy Cockcroft
April 2006

Chairman's Report for 2006

delivered at the AGM at the University of Kent, April 2007.

This is my third and final report as chairman of the Industrial Group. I will try to keep this report short. Firstly, I have been on the BCA Industrial Group committee for many years now, in fact longer than I care to think about having started off as an ordinary member and then "risen through the ranks to the position of chairman". I do strongly encourage other members who, even if they may feel that they have little to offer initially, to serve as committee members. It is very healthy for all committees to experience new blood and everyone has something to offer.

The main activity of the committee is to organise meetings and workshops of interest to the members, and a large number of the sessions at this meeting were organised by IG committee members. In particular, as mentioned in my previous chairman's reports, the industrial group has taken on XRF "under its wing" and 2 of our committee members, namely David Beveridge and Dave Taylor have been very active in promoting this complementary technique by organising a parallel set of XRF sessions at this year's BCA Spring Meeting. I hope this can be maintained in future years, and a planned 1 day XRF meeting for 2008 is already underway.

With regard to meetings held last year, the BCA had a well-attended autumn meeting held at Pilkington's research base at Lathom, Lancashire. Personally, it was certainly a pleasure, not only to hear a set of interesting talks, but to see Pilkington's research exhibition. I'm sure all those who attended enjoyed the visit and I would like to thank Mark Farnworth for the organisation and Pilkington's for the hospitality shown to all those who attended. Many thanks!

Our next autumn meeting on 7th and 8th November 2007 will be held at our AstraZeneca's Alderley Park site set in the middle of lovely the Cheshire countryside. It will be a 2 day event with a pharmaceutical SIG held on day 1 and with our usual autumn meeting on day 2. The themes for the autumn meeting will be applications of Rietveld and more general crystallography in industry. If you feel you can contribute in anyway, do contact the organisers (and full details are on the BCA IG web site). So don't "sit on the sidelines" and just wait to be invited! The BCA Industrial Group has had mixed successes with 2 day events from highly successful to a poorly attended one at Birkbeck College a few years ago. Hopefully this year will we have a good attendance on both days.

The BCA Industrial Group has several special interest groups. We still have interests in residual stress and one of our committee members, Judith Shackleton, organised a workshop with the British Society for Strain Measurement earlier this year. As mentioned in my last report, a new SIG is small angle scattering led by our vice-chairman, Richard Morris. We plan to hold a 2-day meeting in early July. Unusually for the BCA IG, this meeting will be held outside the UK at the European neutron and synchrotron facilities in Grenoble, France. Many meetings are held at RAL in Oxfordshire, but given cheap airfares, Grenoble is easy to get to and the cost of holding a meeting at European facilities (for which the UK is paid up member) is not expensive, so we strongly encourage anyone with interests in this area to attend. It will also be an opportunity to view neutron and synchrotron facilities for those who have never seen them and perhaps for those wanting to take their partners, to have a long weekend either in Grenoble or in the surrounding French Alpes.

I realize that I haven't yet mentioned all of the committee by name. For example, Roy Copley has been the Industrial Group representative on the Spring Meeting programme committee and Steve Norval continues to represent British interests in the field of European PXRD standards. For those joining the committee, you will soon find yourself with a role to play.

Again this last year we have been fortunate to have had the use of facilities at the Natural History Museum in London for our committee meetings and I would like to express my personal thanks to Martin Gill for both arranging these facilities plus the additional tours. As mentioned in my last report, it is now planned to have just two committee meetings per year since much of the detailed discussions on future meetings can now be held electronically and this will enable money save to be spent, say, on inviting promising speakers from further a field or let young people in industry attend events.

The industrial group is incredibly fortunate to have the services of Dave Taylor who is a pillar of support when it comes to both the group's web pages and the newsletter. We really are grateful for all the hard work that he puts into this job. Financially, we are also very grateful to the various sponsors of our newsletter. Since the last AGM, our two newsletters have been sponsored by Bruker and PANalytical, and I would like to thank both companies for their support. I should add that the various X-ray companies support us not just financially, but most are good at sending representatives to our various 1- and 2-day meetings.

As this meeting sees the end of my 3 year period in office, I'm fortunate in knowing that the group will continue in healthy hands. I wish our new chairman every success for the next 3 years and will continue to offer my services to the group, if only from the sidelines. Already I have been roped in with helping out at the Grenoble meeting, having worked at the site for the whole of the 1980s, and with this year's autumn meeting too, so this no immediate rest even for a retiring chairman. So Anne, be warned!

This ends the Chairman's report for the year 2006.

Jeremy Cockcroft
April 2007

Chairman's Report for 2007

delivered at the AGM at the University of York, April 2008.

This is my first report as chairman of the IG, and I am pleased to report on a very productive year for the IG, in which all the members of the committee, and a few non-members as well, have been active. However, despite all this, I shall keep this report short.

As Jeremy Cockcroft pointed out in his outgoing address last year, the main activity of the committee is to organise meetings and workshops of interest to the members of the IG, and the past year has seen several examples of this.

However, before I mention past and future meetings I'd like to thank some particular individuals. As well as organising meetings, the IG issues a newsletter, and I would like to thank our editor, Mark Farnworth for all his sterling efforts, and patience with contributors such as myself. Our website is maintained in amazingly up-to-date fashion by Dave Taylor, on top of his usual, considerable role in organising meetings. Both the newsletter and website are invaluable in presenting the work of the IG to the wider community. I'd also like to thank David Beveridge for all his work as Honorary Treasurer/Secretary to the committee.

In July 2007, the IG held a meeting on SAXS at the ILL in Grenoble; this was our first-ever non-UK event; and was organised by Richard Morris, Dave Taylor and Jeremy Cockcroft (who had already realised that stepping down as chairman would not be the end of his IG involvement). The meeting attracted delegates and speakers from the UK and Europe, as well as participants from the ILL. One of very pleasing side effect of this meeting was that Michela Brunelli from the ILL came over to the UK to speak at our Autumn meeting.

In Autumn 2007, a back-to-back meetings were held at AstraZeneca, Macclesfield; a general industrial day and a Pharma SIG, with the subject of structure determination and refinement from powder data provided a bridge between the two. Both sessions were very well attended: ~50 for the Industrial meeting and ~70 for the Pharma SIG. Organisers and session chairs were: Steve Norval and Judith Shackleton for the Industrial day, and myself and Roy Copley for the Pharma SIG. These meetings always require local help on the day, and I had considerable help from my AZ colleagues.

We are now about ¾ of the way through the 2008 Spring meeting, the IG have organised sessions on pharmaceutical hydrates, an Industrial Showcase, and awarded a prize for the best oral contribution from the YC workshop. Later today we have more sessions devoted to industrial applications of crystallography. Session organisers for these have been Chris Staddon, Steve Norval and Judith Shackleton. Plus the 'usual suspects' (myself and Roy) for the pharma strand.

Looking forward to later this year, we have back-to-back meetings in May for the XRF SIG (jointly with the RSC) and a joint meeting with the BGS on Minerals, to be held at the BGS in Keyworth. I'd like to thank the organisers David Beveridge, Dave Taylor and Martin Gill for their work here: the programs can be found on the website, and look very interesting indeed.

In November we will have an IG meeting at AZ Charnwood; the topic has yet to be decided, but there will certainly be a considerable pharmaceutical element. More details will be found on the website in the near future.

Finally, I would like to say a grateful farewell to Roy Copley, who has served on the committee for the last 3 years, including as IG rep on the organising committee for the Spring meeting. We will all miss Roy and hope to see him again in the near future.

This ends the Chairman's report for the year 2007.

Anne Kavanagh
April 2008