From the Past President

I suppose one could call this submission to the Accelerator Radiation Safety Newsletter a "Schwahn Song." I'd like to thank the members of the section who were active this year in shaping the activities of the year and of the upcoming years. The annual report as submitted to the Health Physics Society (HPS) board of directors outlining our activities may be found below my initial comments here. A couple extra items to note came from our officers' meeting the morning before our section meeting.

1. The H. Wade Patterson Memorial Award was approved by the Accelerator Section board of directors. The exact name and method by which it will be administered will be forthcoming. However, some details that we agreed on were that it will be in the amount of $250 to the best student presentation at the annual meeting. The student must be present to win. We will advertise in the HPS newsletter three or four times during the year. The judges will be the section past president, president, and president-elect.
   
2. We agreed that the section will encourage volunteers from the section to present professional enrichment programs (PEPs) and continuing education courses (CECs) during the midyear and annual meetings. Timely calls will go out to section members to volunteer, and submissions will be made to the section president. The president and the board will make recommendations to the HPS Continuing Education Committee (through Lorraine Day, who is on the committee). We see this as a positive way that the section can contribute to its membership as well as to the membership of the HPS as a whole. Timelines and other details will go out in the call to section members. (I hope the Accelerator Radiation Safety Newsletter readership will see this as a subtle hint to consider joining the section if not a member already...!)

The accelerator session at the annual meeting was outstanding. All of the speakers were well prepared and informative. There were ten oral presentations and six posters. The section business meeting following the session boasted only thirteen persons, but a quorum was achieved through balloting. Some other items that were brought up during the business meeting included the following.

1. The current treasurer is on sabbatical. It was agreed by all present with a formal vote that the secretary will fill out the term as the treasurer as well. No objections were raised.
   
2. We will change the bylaws this year to limit voting to e-mail, web, and/or mail votes so that we can have all new officers prepared prior to the annual meeting. There will be no more votes at the meeting itself. This rule needs to be formally put to the HPS Rules Committee, if I recall correctly.
   
3. Our section request for a section volunteer award (in the same spirit as the chapter volunteer award) prompted the HPS Awards Committee to author a new HPS rule that codifies awards such as the chapter volunteer award and section volunteer award. Vashek Vylet received the first Accelerator Section volunteer award for his work in organizing the school at Erice, Sicily, this year. Congratulations, Vashek!

Further details regarding the business meeting will be published with the minutes.

Finally, congratulations go out to Don Cossairt. He was nominated by the Accelerator Section to receive the HPS Fellow Award and was indeed selected this year!

I wish Carter all the best during his tenure as president, and I would encourage the section members to contribute more to the section goal this year of increased education through participation.

The 2001-2002 Annual Report of the Accelerator Section of the Health Physics Society

Abstract

This report summarizes the activities of the Health Physics Society (HPS) Accelerator Section for the 2001-2002 business year.

Recommendations for Action

None

Section Information

The Accelerator Section of the HPS held their annual business meeting during the 2001 annual meeting of the society in Cleveland, Ohio. At this meeting, newly elected officers were announced, and their terms began. The officers of the section are as follows.

President	Scott Schwahn	Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Past-President	James C. Liu	Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
President-Elect	Carter Ficklen*	Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Secretary	Scott Walker	Los Alamos National Lab
Treasurer	Marcia Torres*	Argonne National Lab
Newsletter Editor	Linnea Wahl*	Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Directors	Nolan Hertel	Georgia Tech University (2002)
	Bob Casey	Brookhaven National Lab (2002)
	Wes Dunn	Consultant (2003)
	Sayed Rokni	Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (2003)
	Ted deCastro	Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (2004)
	Tosh Ushino	ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (2004)

* new officers or new terms

There was no section meeting at the midyear meeting in Orlando.

Our treasurer, Marcia Torres, left midterm on sabbatical; our previous treasurer and current president-elect, Carter Ficklen, has filled in the gap. Though the section by-laws are not specific, the spirit of Article VII, paragraph 7, would imply that the offices of secretary and treasurer may be combined in the event of a vacancy. The section executive committee will meet at the 2002 meeting in Tampa to discuss this prospect. The responsibilities of treasurer are not very time-consuming. As of April 30, 2002, the section account is as follows.

ACCELERATOR HEALTH PHYSICS SOCIETY
STATEMENT OF INCOME & EXPENSES AND ACCOUNT BALANCE
FOR THE 8-MONTH PERIOD ENDING APRIL 30, 2002

ACCOUNT BALANCE 8/31/01	5,691.75
INCOME RECEIVED
Dues from HPS Members	600.00
Contributions	0.00
Interest Income	0.00
TOTAL INCOME COLLECTED	600.00
EXPENSES PAID
Reimburse Schwahn	35.53
Collection & Management Fee	60.00
TOTAL EXPENSES PAID	95.53
NET INCREASE FOR YEAR	504.47
ACCOUNT BALANCE 4/30/02	6,196.22

The technical program for the accelerator special session at the annual HPS meeting to be held in Tampa was arranged by the president-elect, Carter Ficklen. A full program of 10 presentations was secured, as well as a poster presentation. Due to time constraints, we opted not to propose a G. William Morgan lecturer.

The section (led by Vashek Vylet) has successfully worked with CERN to arrange an international training course on accelerator radiation safety at the Conference Center in Erice, Sicily, Italy, which was held on October 2-9, 2001. Seven out of thirteen lecturers are Accelerator Section members.

In 2001-2002, we issued four quarterly volumes of the Accelerator Radiation Safety Newsletter. We distributed the newsletter via e-mail to all members of the Accelerator Section and to others interested in accelerator safety. We also posted each issue of the newsletter on a website at http://www.hps.org/iarpe.

The content of the 2001 newsletters included reports from officers of the Accelerator Section and news from correspondents at accelerator facilities around the world. Featured articles included a history of accelerator radiation safety; reports on high-temperature superconductivity at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's Advanced Light Source; announcements and reviews of the accelerator radiation protection course held in Erice, Italy; and news of upgrades at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD) at Louisiana State University and at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab. The newsletter also served as a medium for announcing job openings and training opportunities.

A nomination committee was appointed in March 2002 to search for candidates for openings in the slate of officers this year. The committee consisted of James Liu (past president who served as chair), Carter Ficklen (president-elect), and Vashek Vylet. Candidates were proffered to the membership, and the new officers will be announced to the membership before the annual meeting.

Nomination of Don Cossairt for HPS fellowship was made and he was indeed selected to receive the HPS Fellow Award in Tampa.

Requests were made for HPS board approval on two items.

1. Approval for an annual cash award to a student for the best presented paper or poster to be given by the Accelerator Section in honor of H. Wade Patterson. The criteria need to be set, and approval from the section board at the next meeting in Tampa needs to be achieved before announcement to the membership. Approval for the concept was given through our board liaison Tom Gesell.
2. Approval for a section volunteer award in the same spirit as the chapter volunteer awards. Approval was granted through our board liaison, Tom Gesell. He indicated that we could simply request one to be made by the secretariat.

The section will hold its annual business meeting just after the accelerator session on Tuesday, June 17, 2002.