Notes from WIYN 0.9-m annual meeting phoneconf M Richmond 6/29/2016 Present: Con, Haase, Rybski, Richmond, Smith, Salzer Action items: *** Rybski and Richmond will grab what they can from wiki ---------------------------------------------------------------- 11:00 AM Paul suggests he and I look through HDI wiki to collect as much information on "code" as we can. See his E-mail of June 29, 2016, subject "Resolution of HDI documentation question". First, collect all info we can from wiki. Then, contact Onaka to request any missing items. What is warranty period of HDI? Q: Flynn, do you have documentation on HDI? A: Yes, I have a folder. I haven't looked in it for some time. Q: Could you scan the documents inside and send them to us? A: Yes, I guess I could go to an office-supply store and have them scan it all. 11:09 AM Allyn Smith joins. All present except John Salzer. 11:12 AM John Salzer joins. Start of official meeting. Con: annual meeting This is our annual WIYN 0.9-m consortium meeting, but it is unusual only EC members present phone conference, not in person Con: financial matters see E-mail with notes, sent 6/28/2016 Con: Personnel matters Hooper no longer WIYN Director; Hooper, Allen, and Rajagopal split former Director's tasks not clear yet who interacts with 0.9m Salzer no longer WIYN Board President; he is now a board member and remains WIYN Board rep to the 0.9m EC Who is the big-WIYN person who will handle interaction with 0.9-m? maybe Lori Allen Con will talk to Allen about this. ----------------------------------------------- Con: Partner Updates Partner Updates: new contract (2015-2020) compared to 2014-2015 (yr 6) 1) Partners from year 6 (2014-2015) APSU, FCAD, RIT, UWSP have same shares IU 33.35% --> 30.07% UWM 23.23% --> 9.19% UWW 5.58% --> 2.79% WSGC 2.77% --> 2.24% Haver 1.99% --> 0 St Tho 1.00% --> 0 Total net loss of 23.6% (from 81.55% in July 2015 to 57.95%) (Membership during years 1-5 varied between 83 and 90%.) NEED NEW PARTNERS! Note: SFSU paid for yr 5 or 6, not clear which, but not both 2) new leads (all under current negotiation) Jae-Woo Lee of Sejong U, 18-20K/yr (~8.8%) for 3 years Haverford wants to buy 3 nights in October (one-time?) LSST may want several nights this fall (one-time) APSU = Austin Peay FCAD = Five College Astronomy Department (Amherst, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and the University of Massachusetts) RIT = Rochester Institute of Technology UWSP = Univ. of Wisconsin Stevens Point IU = Indiana University UWM = Univ. of Wisconsin Madison UWW = Univ. of Wisconsin Whitewater WSGC = Washington Space Grant Consortium Haver = Haverford St Tho = St. Thomas All new agreements have been signed, except for IU (but IU paid) All partners are in for five years (2015-2020) except FCAD, whose agreement expires July 2016 and signed to three more years (through 2019) Q: Is NOAO still getting 20% of the time? A: yes, is part of an ongoing 5-year agreement Con: some interest from a university in South Korea would be 3-year agreement, could start in Fall 2016 Haverford may want to purchase a few nights a year could re-consider becoming partner in future Patrick Ingraham (LSST) is interested in one-time deal Smith: I've contacted Fermilab folks and another person about time Richmond: SARA consortium is one of our competitors their cost per night is lower than ours but there's an expensive buy-in to join they don't have on-site support so we might advertise our support for hands-on experience (rather than remote observing) Salzer: why are we so expensive? Con: income for last few years have been $150-$180 K expenses were roughly similar Richmond: we have on-site personnel Con: we also have costs for NOAO support Smith: SARA contracts hardware/software support to ACE and also gets some support from Ron Kaitchuck of Ball State 11:52 AM Budget: Invoices Invoices for 2015-2016 were delayed; now all have been paid Invoices for 2016-2017 are being sent out this week or next 11:53 AM Richmond: annual HDI report Rybski: how securely is grounding wire fixed to structure? Haase: secured via screw, but I'd like to include a washer once I add a lock-washer, it will be the best I can do Smith: question about photometric/not-photometric or primary vs. secondary science Richmond: check script on weather Haase: we have seen pressure rising lately -- in the past month plan to re-pump the dewar later this week is the ion pump not working properly? recently, ion pump LED has been flashing, not steady first noticed it around May, 2016 Rybski: did you keep ion pump on while pumping down? Haase: yes, and I saw that it didn't return to steady "on" Haase: I should contact Onaka about ion pump Rybski: HDI's ion pump may have used up its titanium getter that should be replaceable -- but we need documentation titanium getter was last (possibly) replaced before Oct, 2014 Rybski: did you pump the system down in early Jan, 2016? Haase: no, I don't recall doing so 12:23 PM Rybski: documentation and software and support for HDI see Rybski's E-mail, sent June 29, 2016 Con: in the HDI contract, requirement for documentation which is necessary to support maintenance over long term plan: Rybski and Richmond try to collect information from HDI wiki Rybski: note that Onaka did agree to provide this, in his own statements Rybski: there is also an option for long-term maintenance agreement between WIYN and UH but to my knowledge, WIYN has not paid UH for maintenance Con: correct note that we have not formally accepted HDI, as it does not provide numerous features described in the contract therefore, "maintenance" is not relevant yet *** Rybski and Richmond will grab what they can from wiki ------------------------------------------------------------------- 12:32 AM Con: back to budget matters Budget: recent years (preliminary assessment) $153.1K was collected during year 6 (2014-2015; 81.55%) $133.4K was collected during year 1 (2015-2016; 57.95%) $129.4K is expected during year 2 (2016-2017; 57.95%) NEED NEW PARTNERS! new leads add up to possible additional ~~~25K for year 2 STILL NEED NEW PARTNERS! It is not clear what the actual expenditures were; clarification will be sought during the summer. Note the drop in income from "year 6" to "years 1 and 2" Con: best estimates of WIYN 0.9-m consortium balance discovered that NOAO can take months to transfer $$ into or out of WIYN 0.9-m balance for example, a single transfer of $83K occurred in summer 2015 it is possible that our balance is currently low discovered some outright mistakes in the NOAO accounting often to the detriment of WIYN 0.9-m consortium led to questions about overall accounting of WIYN 0.9-m Con and Haase are investigating this right now Haase: finances are not my strong point but this is my understanding now Con: plan to go back over all NOAO charges over the past few years and look at them carefully (I learn that all accounting is done by NOAO offices) (joint-use fee is around $15-17 per year) Haase: NOAO accounting has agreed to send us monthly list of expenses (though it hasn't yet happened -- need to ask again) Salzer: some years ago, Hillary managed to have a good dialogue and channel of communications with NOAO accounting she kept a spreadsheet, updated monthly NOAO was forthcoming in providing information we noticed back then that NOAO would frequently make errors but Hillary was able to discover those errors quickly, and contact NOAO to fix them it's our responsibility to keep track of budget more frequently