Minutes 28 September 2007

USLUEC meeting minutes from 28 Sept 2007

Minutes of meeting of US LHC Users Organization Executive Committee of September 28, 2007

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Attended by:

Michael Barnett, Mike Albrow, Peter Jacobs, Peter Limon, Greg Landsberg, Jimmy Proudfoot, Joey Huston, Harvey Newman, Bob Clare, Sridhara Dasu, Dan Green (Tony Liss absent).

Sridhara Dasu was elected Secretary by acclamation.

A committee of Newman (chair), Clare and (third person??) will decide on the technical means of the committee’s future meetings, evaluating means such as EVO versus phone calls with slides on Indico.  Indico may be used independent of this choice.  Ability to use phone to connect is required.

The initial email newsletter will be sent to the US membership of the four LHC experiments plus the accelerator community (from a list to be made by Limon). Future newsletters and most communication between the Executive Committee and Users be limited to those who have registered as members of the USLUO. Emails may on occasion also be sent to the full US LHC User community, as warranted. Newsletters will also be posted on the USLUO website.

This first newsletter will describe who we are, what we do, and ask for suggestions for what we should do.  We will urge people to register on the website.  Among topics for the newsletter (possible areas of action for USLUO) are CERN facilities, contacts with Washington policy makers, the first annual meeting, simplifying life for CERN visitors, as well as long-term stays, an outreach committee, etc.

Landsberg and ??? volunteered to start writing a first draft of the newsletter and send the draft to Barnett and Dasu.

Proudfoot, Albrow? and ?? volunteered to look into the timing of the first annual meeting of USLUO to occur at Fermilab.  DOE and NSF will be solicited to contribute something like $2000 for the expenses of the meeting.

Dates discussed ranged from April-August 2008.

Two meetings will be held in the first half of October to get some immediate feedback from LHC physicists and engineers.  The first will be held at CERN probably on October 9 or 10 at lunch time.  This is ATLAS week but all Americans at CERN will be invited.  Non-Americans are welcome to attend if they wish.  Jeff Spalding will be contacted by Barnett to seek participation by CMS people.

Liss and Barnett will seek a day/time that minimizes conflicts in the ATLAS week activities.

The second meeting will be at Fermilab during the LPC workshop (LHC Physics Center) October 11-13.  Again all LHC people will be invited to attend.  Green will look for a convenient day/time for this meeting. [Now announced to the US-CMS community – Oct 11, 5pm, Wilson Hall, 1-West, 16:40-18:00, Co-chaired by Dasu and Proudfoot.]

The USLUO website should be kept up-to-date.  There should be a link to the new US-LHC website.  There should be links to the CERN users group and others users groups in the US.  Barnett will make contact with the CERN users group to have ongoing communication.  A committee of Peter Jacobs (?) agreed to look into the updates of the website. (Note: Peter Jacobs, Tony Liss and Sridhara Dasu have in practice become the committee by discussing and contributing to the website.)

News of the new USLUO should be placed in Fermilab Today, Interactions, Symmetry, and other labs newsletters as well as the LHC experiments’ newsletters.

USLUEC will meet approximately once a month.  Barnett will seek to find a day that is best for everyone.  If there is no day/time without an ongoing conflict, the day of the week will be alternated.

Photos of the USLUEC members will be collected and put together on the USLUO website.  Landsberg? volunteered to take charge of this.