AGM April 2016 (minutes) – The Early Stage Crystallographers Group

Minutes of the YCG AGM 2016
4th April 2016, Nottingham University

Committee members present:

Scott McKellar (SM),
Claire Hobday (CH),
Pascal Parois (PP),
Jonathan Brooks-Bartlett (JB),
Lucy Saunders (LS),
Sam Horrell (SH),
Jerome Wicker (JW),
Natalie Johnson (NJ).

1. Formalities

1.1. Apologies for absence

Jorge Sotelo (JS), Anneke Klapwijk (AW), Lucy Saunders (LS), Adam Crawshaw (AC), Giles Flowitt-Hill (GF).

1.2. Acceptance of agenda

SH accepted, seconded by JB

1.3. Minutes of the YCG AGM 2015

Lucy Mapp accepted, seconded by Charlie McMonagle.

2. Election for ordinary member

Ruth Lunt (University of Bath) and Genevieve Baker (University of Bristol) are both nominated for one ordinary member position. Each candidate says a little about themselves (SH speaks on behalf of Genevieve Baker) before, votes from all members at the AGM are cast and counted during the AGM.

3. Reports

3.1. Chairman’s report (SM)

This year’s satellite meeting has been organised to follow the format that has been established in previous years. This year our plenary speakers were Prof Sally Price from the University College London and Dr James Errey from Heptares Therapeutics. This year’s Parkin lecture was awarded to Jonathan Brooks-Bartlett from University of Oxford, and the YCG’s vice-chair, for his unparalleled track record of teaching and public engagement. He will be delivering his lecture tomorrow, as will our teaching session, “Forgotten Methods in Crystallography”. This session is being presented by Paul Raithby from University of Bath, Mike Glazer from the University of Oxford and University of Warwick, and Bob Eady from the University of Liverpool. I would encourage you all to attend, since many here represent the youngest generation of crystallographic researchers, but traditional and important crystallographic methods are increasingly being lost to computation and automation, so I’m sure some experienced voices imparting some wisdom will be greatly appreciated.

At this year’s AGM there are a number of posts up for nomination. Claire Hobday steps down as our secretary/treasurer, so on behalf of myself and the rest of the committee, I would like thank her for all her hard work and efforts. The same goes for Pascal Parois, who has come to the end of his term as webmaster, in which he has done a fantastic job. Sam Horrell retires as an Ordinary Member and our Education and Outreach coordinator, while Jorge Sotelo, Anneke Klapwijk and Jerome Wicker are stepping down as CCG, IG and PCG rep respectively. All four have put in huge efforts to the committee and we really appreciate all their hard work over the last couple of years. Finally, I step down this year as chair, but will be co-opted onto the committee for another year in an advisory capacity during this change over period.

Over the last year, members of the YCG, along with several other volunteers, have been involved in outreach events at Diamond Light Source and a school visit at the University of Liverpool. Sam Horrell has also been active in the promotion of the “I’m a scientist get me out of here” competition, in which Jonny Brooks-Bartlett was in fact the winner from his category. This is a great achievement, and Jonny has very kindly donated his £500 prizemoney to the YCG to be used in outreach events, so thank you very much for that Jonny, that was very generous of you.

As I mentioned earlier, Sam is stepping down as the YCG’s outreach rep, but if anyone is interested in becoming more involved in public outreach activities, I encourage you to speak to his successor. This is, for the time being, a coopted position so will be decided by the next YCG committee and made clear on our website, and/or you can speak to Simon Coles, the BCA Outreach and Education coordinator.

We gratefully acknowledge sponsorship by the journal Crystals for this year’s 2016 YCG satellite meeting, and ongoing financial support by the BCA. As regards YCG funding, it is generally difficult to find suitable funding bodies to cover YCG activities, since we are not allowed to ask people or groups who already support the BCA, but we are happy to receive suggestions if anyone has any ideas. If so I suggest speaking to the new YCG committee.

We have been making a concerted effort to increase the traffic to the YCG website (http://escg.crystallography.org.uk). We have been uploading more posts, which are now tweeted automatically. We have added pages to promote YC publications and are now gradually getting more traffic as well as increasing the number of followers on twitter and, in particular, facebook. The publications page is to promote research by members of the YCG, which means most of you, so if you would like us to link to your paper, please do get in touch. Again, all relevant contact details can be found on our website.

The YCG are keen be actively involved with our members and encourage others to get involved with outreach events and meeting information. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please add your name to the list which we’ll leave down the front at the end of the AGM.

3.2. Secretary’s report (CH)

We are pleased to announce that the journal Crystals has sponsored the YCG £500 for the running costs of this Young Crystallographers Group Satellite meeting. We would like to thank the journal for their contribution and support to the Young crystallographer community, and we hope this meeting provides a welcoming environment for PhD students and early career researchers to present their work.

In 2016, the YCG also received a £500 donation from our 2016 Parkin lecture recipient Jonny Brooks-Bartlett, this was the prize money he won from that year’s “I’m A Scientist” competition. Jonny has requested that this money be used to help finance future outreach events also, in particular making school visits and also for a one day visit to an X-ray facility for local school pupils. With the idea of the pupils making crystals, collecting and processing data.

Our young crystallographers were present at many outreach events in the past year, including: the Edinburgh International Science Festival teaching small children the importance of light from x-rays to radio waves, Diamond open days and much more.

We would like to report that the YCG bank account is still extremely healthy and the committee welcome any volunteers and ideas for future outreach events that the Group could contribute to and also if they are aware of any funding opportunities for crystallographic outreach.

We would like to also take this time to thank SM for all his hard work as chairman of YCG for the past two years and we really appreciate all that he has done for the committee.

4. Elections to the committee

4.1. Chair

SM steps down from the position of Chair after his 2 year term. One nomination for this position was received:

Sam Horrell, (University of Essex). Nominated by SM, seconded by CM.