Awards Committee / Comité des prix et médailles Radio Astronomy Committee / Comité de la radio astronomie Joint Subcommittee for Space Astronomy / Comité de l'astronomie spatiale NGST (Simon Lilly) FIRST (Christine Wilson) Planck (Richard Bond) ARISE/VSOP2 (Peter Dewdney)
GEMINI PROJECT: Update on construction & integration (Andy Woodsworth) The Gemini instrumentation (Tim Davidge) Future Gemini instrumentation and Canadian universities: A problem (J-R Roy) JCMT TAC CFHT TAC DAO (Jim Hesser) DRAO (Tom Landecker)
Saint Mary's University, 1999 University of British Columbia 2000 McMaster University, 2001
Motion 1. Moved by Colin Scarfe, seconded by Jim Hesser, that: The minutes of the 1997 Annual General Meeting be adopted. Carried
The President explains that as requested in 1997, the committee reports have been posted near the room entrance for members to read.
Two scrutineers, Serge Pineault and Colin Scarfe are appointed to count the ballots.
John Landstreet thanks members of the Awards and JSSA committees for their involment in the Society activities. These two committees had lots of work during the year. The President mentions the new electronic version of the Society Newsletter, Cassiopeia, and thanks the past editor Jack Penfold and the new one Gordon Walker for their excellent work.
John Landstreet reports on the IAU 1997 General Assembly in Kyoto. The new members proposed by Canada were accepted. No Canadian centers have shown interest in hosting the 2006 General Assembly. Landstreet explains that NRC is ready to help organize the event. He points out that the deadline for a decision will be next year.
The President announces that the Board has created a new committee: The Graduate Student committee which will consist of students from the Society and will deal will student concerns. He explains that the prize for best student presentation will be given at the end of the meeting because there are oral presentations on Friday afternoon.
The President announces that NRC has asked CASCA to form a Long Range Planning committee to look at the astronomical facilities being proposed and developped by Canada during the next ten years. A short report, written for non astronomers, should be presented by the committee at the end of the current year. He states that the committee will be formed in the next few weeks.
The Secretary reports that since the last Annual General Meeting 4 scientists and 13 students have applied for membership to the Society. Four student members became ordinary members. Twelve members resigned, 29 were expelled for non payment of dues and one member passed away. Thus the membership of the Society decreased by 25 members.
New ordinary members:
| Stéphane Claude | HIA/JCMT |
| Daniel Friedli | Université Laval |
| Patrick B. Hall | University of Toronto |
| Joanne-Marie Rosvick | University of British Columbia |
Members who changed from student to regular members:
| Stéphanie Côté | DAO |
| Leopoldo Infante | U. Catolica de Chile |
| David A. Lyder | DRAO |
| Dean E. McLaughlin | Berkeley |
New student members:
| Loïc Albert | Université de Montréal |
| Peter Bartzakos | Université de Montréal |
| Sébastien Blais-Ouellette | Université de Montréal |
| Olivier Hernandez | Université de Montréal |
| Alain Malo | Université de Montréal |
| Christian Marois | Université de Montréal |
| Thierry Morel | Université de Montréal |
| Stéphanie Plante | Université Laval |
| Stephen Shorlin | University of Western Ontario |
| Julie St-Germain | Université de Montréal |
| Marcin Sawicki | University of Toronto |
| Kate, Y. L. Su | University. of Calgary |
| Pascal Thériault | Université de Montréal |
Members who resigned from the Society:
| Bryan Andrews | Pierre Bergeron |
| Alan Blackwell | James Brewer |
| Jean Gionnakopoulou | Richard Gray |
| Tatsuhiko Hasegawa | Joanne Rosvick |
| Benoit Tremblay | Benoit Turgeon |
| Fred Vaneldik | David Wing |
Members who were expelled from the Society for non payment of dues:
| France Allard | David M. Anthony |
| Louis Asselin | Julien Belley |
| Jean-François Bertrand | Christopher Blake |
| Stephen Butterworth | Wayne Cannon |
| Laird Close | Sonya Delisle |
| Nadine Dinshaw | Gordon Drukier |
| Peter Garnavich | John Griffith |
| Paricia Hanlan | Nicholas Kaiser |
| Robin Kingsburgh | Sylvie Landry |
| Michael Mahoney | Robert D. McClure |
| Robert McKellar | François Ménard |
| G. Moriarty-Schieven | Ue-Li Pen |
| Harvey Richarson | Ian Shelton |
| Sylvain Turcotte | Douglas Wade |
| Bradley Wallace |
One member passed away
| Karl Kamper | University of Toronto |
Peter Dawson presents a tranparency detailing the financial statement, for 1997-98, of the Society. He explains that this statement has not yet been audited because the auditors need more time between the end of our fiscal year and their audition. Our annual meeting is just too close to the end of our fiscal year. Following the presentation of the CASCATRUST statement, J. Hesser asks if the Society is still contributing to the ASP Universe in the Classroom. The Treasurer replies that the Society has not stopped its contribution and is still assessing the usefulness of this newsletter now available on the Web.
Awards
Christine Clement reports to the members that the Beals Award was given to Gordon Walker from UBC and the Plaskett medal to Dean McLaughlin a PhD graduate from McMaster University.
Radio Astronomy
Claude Carignan explains that several radio astronomy projects are currently going on. Progress reports can be found in the latest issue of E-Cassiopeia. He introduces Ken Tapping, the CASCA Spectrum Manager. Tapping describes briefly his role in the Society and the community. He warns members that hundreds of communication satellites will be put into orbit during the next ten years. He explains that astronomers need to develop a long range strategy to get communication companies to develop hardwares to reduce the effects of satellites on radio astronomy. René Racine comments that it is in the public ground that this battle will be won or lost.
Joint Subcommittee for Space Astronomy
Russ Taylor gives a brief overview of the space astronomy projects within the Canadian Space Agency Long Term Space Plan III (LTSP III) and introduces the following speakers.
NGST (New Generation Space Telescope)
Simon Lilly describes the 8 m class space telescope which will eventually replace the HST. It is expected to be launched in 2007. To guide the Canadian participation to this exciting project, the JSSA committee has formed a NGST steering committee. The committee will be chaired by Simon Lilly and includes: David Crampton, Laurent Drissen, Paul Hickson, Simon Morris and Don Morton.
FIRST (Far infrared sub millimeter telescope)
Christine Wilson presents to the members the principal characteristics of this infrared satellite which should investigate a wavelenght domain not yet really studied, 80 to 670 microns.
PLANCK
Richard Bond decribes this European project to observe the millimetric flux. Its observations should be a huge step to resolve all the unkowns in the Universe.
ARISE/VSOP2
Peter Dewdney talks about the future Canadian contribution to space radio astronomy projects.
JCMT (James Clerk Maxwell Telescope)
John Macleod presents a short report for the JCMT.
CFHT (Canada France Hawaii Telescope)
Jacques Vallée presents a short report giving statistics on the number of proposals and the oversubscription.
DAO (Dominion Astrophysical Observatory)
Jim Hesser is quite happy to mention that the DAO is celebrating its 80th anniversary. Service observing is now set up on its telescope. This observing is done by private individuals who charge $50 per hour of data aquisition.
DRAO (Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory)
Tom Landecker is pleased to mention that his observatory will go on into the 21st century. He discusses the different projects done with the facilities.
GEMINI
Andrew Woodsworth shows slides and a video of the progress of the two telescopes. Tim Davidge describes the instrumentation which will be available on both telescopes. He also presents the time table of the implementation of theinstruments. Jean-René Roy stresses that 3 million dollars will be spent each year for instruments and that very few sites in Canada can take advantage of this aspect of the Gemini project. He suggests that the few university groups dealing with instrumentation should share contracts with larger groups.
There is no motion from the floor.
Saint Mary's University
Dave Turner invites the members to participate to the next annual meeting in Halifax. The meeting will take place from Sunday June 27th to June 30th. He notes that 1999 marks the 250th anniversary of Halifax.
University of British Columbia
The President announces that the Society has accepted the invitation of UBC for 2000.
McMaster University in 2001
No new announcement is made at this time
The President reports that the Board has appointed Kim Innanen and David Clarke to CITA Council.
Motion 2.
Moved by Peter Dawson seconded by Christine Clement that: The Society appoints the firm of Shurdeff, Savage & McIlquham as auditor. Carried
John Landstreet announces that Gilles Fontaine has been elected.
Motion 3 Moved by Jim Hesser, seconded by Paul Delaney, that: The ballots be destroyed. Carried
There is no other business
Motion 4 Moved by Russ Taylor that: The meeting be adjourned. Carried
| John D. Landstreet, President | Serge Demers, Secretary |
CASCA'98 Abstracts
CTAC
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