From the Editor and a call for a New Editor

Ernie Malamud

Many thanks to the authors for their excellent articles in this issue. They cover a wide range of international physics activities and events in different countries.

With this issue and the next one in the fall (DEADLINE August 15, 2016), I will have edited 12 issues of the FIP Newsletter (two 3-year terms). It is now time for someone else to take over this important FIP activity in 2017. A point to mention to those interested in the job is that in contrast with many other APS units, the Newsletter Editor is a voting member of the FIP Executive Committee which, with the Editor numbers 13.

The relevant sections of the FIP by-laws are the following:

ARTICLE V – EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 2. Composition. The FIP Executive Committee shall consist of the immediate Past Chair, Chair, Chair-Elect, Vice-Chair, Secretary/Treasurer, six Members-at-Large, the Editor of the FIP Newsletter, and the FIP Councillor elected in the manner specified in Article VII of these Bylaws. All current APS International Councillors shall be ex officio members of the FIP Executive Committee.

ARTICLE IX – APPOINTED COMMITTEES, 4. The Newsletter Committee: The Executive Committee shall elect an Editor for the Newsletter to a renewable term of three years. The Editor may recruit Newsletter Committee members as required from among FIP members. The Newsletter Committee shall be responsible for collecting and reporting on issues and events in the interests of FIP members, and producing two issues of the Newsletter each year; one of which shall be sent to FIP members and shall include election and balloting information, and the other of which, if the Secretary/Treasurer so approves, shall go to the entire APS membership.

To summarize what from the by-laws has been followed and what has not:

1. We have produced two newsletters/year but for financial reasons, the newsletters have only been distributed electronically. With the approval of our Secretary-Treasurer I have printed a small number (roughly 100) for distribution to authors, the Executive Committee, the Newsletter Committee and made some available in the registration area at the APS spring meetings.
2. The FIP Newsletter has not been distributed to the entire APS Membership, although it is, of course, available on the APS website. However, there is a column from the APS Office of International Affairs which appears in the monthly APS News.
3. Balloting information has not been included. Sending an “email blast” from the Secretary-Treasurer to the membership is more appropriate to election timing. As for the election, each newsletter spring issue has covered the results of election to the Executive Committee.
4. I have found it very helpful to have a newsletter committee of 5 people.

The Newsletter is an important way to communicate with members, complimentary to sessions at the APS spring meetings. Many of our 3,000 plus members cannot attend the spring meetings; rarely can they attend both the March and April ones, both of which have FIP sessions.

Hopefully a new newsletter Editor can be found and confirmed during our FIP Executive Committee meeting in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 16. Then I would be very pleased if this new “Editor-Elect” could work with me on my last issue, fall 2016. Our new Editor would solicit articles and announcements, and could change format and layout to give our newsletters a “new look.”

Please contact me or other members of the FIP Executive Committee if you want to discuss this possibility and throw your hat in the ring to become FIP’s new newsletter Editor.

Ernie Malamud spent three decades at Fermilab participating in high energy physics experiments and accelerator design and construction. He is a Fermilab Scientist Emeritus and is on the adjunct faculty at the University of Nevada. During a meeting in November this year in Grenoble he was elected to the African Light Source (AfLS) Steering Committee.