From the President

I would like to brief you about a few important tasks that the Accelerator Section is currently undertaking:
- President-elect Scott Schwahn is organizing a special session for the Accelerator Section at the next Health Physics Society (HPS) annual meeting in Cleveland, Ohio. With his effort and your support, we can look forward to a strong and exciting program. In addition, S. Schwahn is coordinating the effort of selecting and inviting an internationally recognized expert to present the Morgan Lecture at our special session.
- Past president Joe McDonald has kindly agreed to chair the section's award committee, which will start looking for member candidates to nominate for various society awards.
- The immense effort (led by Graham Stevenson and others from CERN and by Vashek Vylet representing the Accelerator Section) of jointly organizing a training course on accelerator radiation protection in Erice, Sicily, has finally come through (see their message for details). Since the course may not be readily attended by US individuals, the Accelerator Section also has a plan to organize an HPS summer school on accelerator radiation safety. However, to fit into the summer school program schedule, it seems our accelerator school has to be three or four years later.
- We finally have a webmaster, Greg Jones of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (phone: 925/423-9875), to develop the Accelerator Section's website. Greg has provided webmaster support to the Northern California Chapter of the HPS (NCCHPS) for about two years (see the NCCHPS web site). I personally appreciate his willingness to support the Accelerator Section's website in the coming months. Greg, Mike Grissom (a board director), and I will be the ad hoc committee for website development.

As always, your ideas and comments on what the section can do for its members and the accelerator community are welcome.

Merry Christmas to you and your families.