NOTES OF THE 21^st JACOW BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING

This meeting was held during IPAC'19 in Melbourne
Wednesday, 22 MAY 2019 at 10:00

Present: Ivan Andrian, David Button, Christine Petit-Jean-Genaz, Todd Satogata, Volker Schaa
Invited for TM'19 Discussion: Gustavo Barbosa, Dominique Calafa, Ximenes Resende

1. Approval of BoD'20 Notes

Meetings 19 and 20 Notes have been distributed. The Notes of BOD'20 are approved without modification.

2. Debrief of SPC/LOC/OC Chairs meeting Tuesday, 21 May during IPAC

Having noticed a decline in the number of attendees at the annual Stakeholders Meetings, and also a lack of understanding of the JACoW model and running of the Collaboration on the part of SPC Chairs who are newcomers to the JACoW Collaboration, it has become evident that JACoW needs to take more initiatives to bring the SPC Chairs back into regular communication with JACoW management.

These contacts will address issues relating to the running of the Collaboration – which implicitly involves each conference in each series - past, current and future - leaving the more general Stakeholders meetings to address the issues relating to electronic publication in general.

The SPC Chairs need to feel just as involved in JACoW management as they do in the organization of their conferences because the two are inter-dependent and a successful conference is the result of a successful collaboration within JACoW.

Write-up of 21 May SPC Chairs Meeting

The meeting held on Tuesday, 21 May during IPAC was thus the first. Invitations were sent to close to 90 SPC Chairs inviting them to share the invitation with their LOC Chairs, and/or OC Chairs. Only 10 or so SPC Chairs or their representatives attended. Christine will prepare a draft mail to SPC Chairs to report on the issues discussed for the approval of the BoD.

The discussion began prior to Ivan's short introduction. Christine explained that the attendance of two MEDSI SPC Chairs at TM'18 in Cape Town brought home to us how little SPC Chairs, and by definition the LOC and OC Chairs, know of JACoW and its inner workings. The inter-reliability and shared responsibilities between the conferences and JACoW are the guarantee of efficiently organized events with prompt professional electronic publication of the proceedings, drawing on all of the accumulated JACoW expertise.

As a reminder, the JACoW Editors/Stakeholders are the Editors, past, current and future, in each conference series. From the TM perspective, we are always disappointed when conferences only decide the next venue during the "current" one, meaning the Editor of that future event is unable to attend the "current" event and learn from those who have the experience.

A lack of continuity within most conference series can be the source of numerous difficulties. Each conference series is strongly encouraged to think about having one or more events lined up in advance to offer the continuity with the series that is so important to the passing on of knowledge and expertise.

During the discussion several conference representatives mentioned that once the conference is over it is difficult to fund the attendance of the Editors at the JACoW TM. But, that is precisely the JACoW model whereby the "past" and experienced editors are needed to pass on what they have learned to the newcomers in the Collaboration, for the future events in their own series, and for newcomers in general. With no permanent staff JACoW has to rely on trained editors to pass on their skills to the newcomers.

David suggests that a check sheet might be prepared for new SPC Chair/OC Chairs on what is expected of them when they join the JACoW Collaboration. This could be published and maintained on the wiki and part of their introduction to JACoW.

Ivan shows the wiki area where the new events are entered. This might be improved upon to have a more efficient calendar of JACoW events. It is agreed to improve this tool as a starting point for communication when we hear of new events.

Christine suggests that meetings with SPC Chairs might be organized during events other than IPAC.

Christine will follow up on the communication process, and Ivan will talk to Stefano.

3. Elections to BoD at TM'19

There have been a few discussions in the past on how to improve the rotation between the Board members to avoid the current almost 50% turnover.

Todd has mentioned that he is going to be heavily involved in his "other" employment and that he would find it extremely difficult to balance IPAC, JACoW and the new projects emerging. He offers therefore to step down one year before the end of his mandate. He will be with IPAC at least until IPAC'20, and perhaps some further years but he feels he should step down from JACoW as Deputy Chair.

He adds that JLab is transferring to Evelyne some role within JACoW to the future.

Ivan mentions that Charlie is also a potential candidate and she has good support from her leadership too.

Ronny Billen needs to be informed that the role of Deputy Chair will come up for election at TM'19. The mandates of the two Directors also finish at the end of this year.

Ivan is ready to stay in his role until the end of his mandate.

David is facing similar problems to those mentioned during the SPC Chair meeting the previous evening. His management may raise objections to his remaining. Christine underlines that the JACoW Collaboration has certain boundary conditions, which is indeed that an Editor remains for at least one TM following the event. She also feels that there should be more of an undertaking on the part of the major laboratories to guarantee their support of JACoW. This already exists for some laboratories, Elettra, JLab, GSI, KEK, .... who regularly allow their staff to join the various editorial teams when they are not involved otherwise.

The JACoW model is not sustainable if the conferences do not hold to their side of the bargain. The support of the larger labs is essential to the sustainability of the JACoW model.

This message needs to be repeated since new SPC/OC/LOC Chairs are completely ignorant of how important it is.

4. Future Meetings

Ivan suggests we next meet mid-September to discuss elections, progress on Indico and TM’19.

In the meantime, Christine and David will liaise with the locals in Brazil to have a draft programme and the wiki populated with the information concerning registration, accommodation, etc.

5. TM’19

The discussion on TM’19 results in a number of decisions which will be pursued by the TM’19 LOC, including Christine and David for the programme and organizational issues.

Notes prepared by Christine