View source for Talk:Consultation

===How to Participate in the Membership Consultation? ===

The consultation is open to all PCG-SCMP members and it will run for three months (15 June - 15 September). We hope that this will provide sufficient time for useful and constructive discussions. 

Please email your views on the PCG group name to the PCG-SCMP committee at: [mailto:PCG-SCMP@JISCMAIL.AC.UK PCG-SCMP@JISCMAIL.AC.UK]

Contributions will be posted on this website, so that different views can be read and discussed.


PCG-SCMP Committee

= The comments we have received are posted below =

== Received Wednesday, 22 June 2011 12:19 ==

Dear All

this is obviously hard. I agree that keeping the stress on fundamental  
aspects is important and 'Applied Fundamental Crystallography' is a  
good compromise. It is a little unwieldy, but I cannot think of  
anything better.

Best wishes

Andrew

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'''Dr Andrew S. Wills''', Department of Chemistry, UCL

== Received Monday, 20 June 2011 14:37 ==

Dear Committee,

I am well aware of the problems with the name and of attracting large numbers of condensed matter physicists to attend PCG meetings. I am happy with the suggested "Functional Materials Group" name. I do not support the "Applied Fundamental Crystallography" name, it is so poor that I would prefer to continue to live with PCG. How about "X-ray and Neutron Scattering"? Maybe it is too specialised?

Yours,

Peter

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'''Professor Peter Hatton'''
Professor of Physics
Department of Physics
University of Durham
DH1 3LE

== Received Monday, 20 June 2011 12:56 ==

Dear All,
 
I think a renaming of the group would be appropriate only in the context of a more general renaming of BCA groups along the “special interest” lines described in your document.  I don’t think it would make a lot of sense to have “Functional materials” alongside CCG, but it would fit in parallel to, say, “Small molecule crystallography”.   Moreover, as you have pointed out, the name seems to exclude large sections of more fundamental work, which has been actually at the core of the activity of many PGC members.  Overall, at this stage I am rather against changing the name.
 
Paolo

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'''Professor Paolo Radaelli'''	 	 
Dr Lee's Professor of Experimental Philosophy, Department of Physics, University of Oxford  

== Received Monday, 20 June 2011 10:32 ==

Changing the name - an excellent idea 
 
I have probably attended more ACA meetings than BCA ones partly as a result of their more enlightened structure eg Fibres, Small-angle Scattering etc
 
Working in polymers and liquid crystals, I would feel it would be a more inclusive name 
 
I wonder whether Materials Group is better than  Functional Materials Group not least because all materials are functional  and the meaning will vary from person to person.
 
Good to encourage BCA as a whole to review the Groups and the names
 
Geoff
 
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'''Professor Geoffrey Mitchell PhD FRSC FInstP'''
Director and Professor of Microscopy
Centre for Advanced Microscopy 
University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AF UK 

== Received Friday, 17 June 2011 12:48 ==

Physical crystallography grew up in the context of other BCA names 
such as chemical crystallography. As such it seemed to me entirely 
appropriate. Agreed that much work - increasingly - cuts across 
boundaries, but that can be dealt with through joint meetings, which 
is often the case at BCA meetings. I think it is important to 
emphasise the physicality rather than broadening it to something 
else, which would also potentially tread on the toes of other groups. 
e.g. 'functional' could also be applied to systems focussed on by 
'chemical' and 'biological' crystallography. A similar comment 
applies to 'applied'.

I favour keeping the name as is.

John.

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'''Professor John Finney'''
Emeritus Professor of Physics
Dept of Physics and Astronomy
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT