Dear Rekha,
While I understand the conflicts that prevented some people who might otherwise have attended the Town meeting, I don't think having a whinge at Science Board, or anyone else, can have anything other than a negative impact. I'm sure there are many people from all communities (solar system, astronomy, hep, nuclear physics) under the STFC umbrella who are/were unable to attend such town meeting events. This would be the case regardless of the length of lead time involved as the calendar is filled with meetings and personal commitments which are planned far in advance - and are probably much more enjoyable!
Sarah Matthews gave an excellent comprehensive talk about the UK solar community's interests and aspirations. If there are points in Monica's summary that are missing or incomplete, you can send them directly to Monica, and asap. I did not hear your or Sarah raise any such matters during the discussion session, but that doesn't stop you from doing so now in advance of SSAP's submission to Science Board.
I'd remind you that Science Board/STFC will only be able to pick up general concepts and frameworks in its word count-restricted response to the consultation. SSAP, on which you sit, will submit a separate response which can expose in greater detail the specific capital investment projects it sees as priorities to facilitate UK Solar System science. I would respectfully suggest that you solicit input for that process rather than for a list of meetings which some members of UKSP community attended last week.
You should also be coordinating a UKSP response to the consultation in which you can elaborate on the size and strength of the community and drill down into priorities. And I would also encourage you to feed comments to your university which, I hope, will also send in a response to BIS. The more responses the better, and the more they pick up common themes and add detailed flesh the better.
Finally, complaining to Science Board about the size and representation of the SSAP town meeting will only provide fuel to the other STFC communities to dismiss the solar system altogether. We have enough difficulty in that regard already - our colleagues who use ground-based instrumentation to study space weather science have already been eliminated from STFC's portfolio.
Yours is one of those letters that should be written, so you can vent some steam, and then tossed crumpled in the wastebin before it can do any harm. I am grateful that you have provided the space for that contemplation.
Best wishes
Steve
David Williams wrote on 2014-05-26:
----------------
> Dear UKSP/UKMHD member,
>
> I realise that some of you have expressed concerns about the timing of
> the SSAP Town meeting
>
> of May 22 in London. Alan and I tried our best to postpone the meeting
> but the timescale was imposed upon us, (I realise that with our busy
> academic/scientific life, one week is unlikely to be any better than
> another!)
>
> Do you want me to send out the following on behalf of you all to the
> Science Board?
>
> Please let me know either way before Wed. (28th May) 5 pm.
>
> Please let me know details for (b) and (c) etc.
>
>
>
> I need to act very quickly on this - comments before Wed. 5 pm
>
> Thanks
>
> Rekha Jain
>
> **********************************************************
> *********************
>
>
>
> For the attention of the STFC Science Board
>
>
>
> I write as an SSAP advisory panel member (who was present at the Town
> Meeting of May 22) on behalf of UK's solar physics community.
>
>
>
> (1) The May 22 Town meeting organised at RAS (Burlington House) by
> SSAP was announced
>
> at very short notice, a concern that I did indeed raise. Such short
> timescale meant people were already committed to other academic
> related issues (exam markings, conferences/meetings, other important
> travel etc.) and were unable to meet en masse to discuss such a (set of) big question(s).
>
> Particular conflicting events were:
>
> (a) UKMHD meeting at Exeter (May 22-23).
>
> (b) ......
>
> (c) .....
>
>
>
> Only about two dozen people (mainly from MIST and UK planetary
> science) attended the Town Meeting on May 22, with many solar
> institutes and projects unable to send representation.
>
>
>
> (2) The lack of attendance by majority of our community has important
> implications - STFC may have lost out on some of the best ideas in the
> community, because a large section of it was unable to attend.
>
> (3) Such short timescale for the capital-spending exercise risks
> making the process substantially substandard.
>
> The BIS Consultation deadline by STFC was extended to 10:00 AM May 26.
> Although BIS’ own consultation deadline remains 4 July 2014 at
> 11:45pm, and anyone (individual, institute, or group) can respond
> until then; nevertheless the feedback to SSAP should inform the
> consensus gathered from all the advisory panels.
>
>
>
> It may be that STFC wants to think about its own handling of time in
> order to make sure that some sections (where UK's strength may lie)
> are not adversely influenced by this rapid rearrangement of the
> meeting followed by insufficient time before a deadline of the BIS
> Consultation on Capital spending.
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Steven J Schwartz Phone: +44 (0)207 594 7660
Professor of Space Physics Fax: +44 (0)207 594 7772
Director, Imperial Space Lab www.imperial.ac.uk/spacelab
The Blackett Laboratory Email: [log in to unmask]
Imperial College London Office: Huxley 6M67A
London SW7 2AZ, UK Web: www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~sjs
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