I would just like to thank everyone involved in organising the BAA weekend Meeting, in Armagh, Northern Ireland. Fantastic three day event with very informative and interesting talks, tours etc. Always great to meet up with old friends and indeed form new friendships. Of course the unofficial talks that continued into the early hours over many alcoholic beverages were also equally as informative and interesting!
Thoroughly good job done!
Hi Mike,
I fully agree with your comments. It was a great weekend, I really enjoyed the programme of talks and being able to meet up again with your good self and many other friends from all across these Misty Isles. As well as the quality talks we spent hours discussing our common interests in meteors, comets, occultations, eclipse trips, etc. This generated several ideas for cooperative projects in the months to come.
Thanks also to the staff of Armagh Planetarium and to Tolis for a private tour of the Observatory on the Friday afternoon because I had to leave early on the Sunday.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Indeed it was an excellent weekend! I was particularly delighted to meet up with the Armagh Observatory director Prof Michael Burton. Michael was my supervisor when I got my first student job at the Anglo Australian Observatory in 1991.
Where does the time go....!?
As you say, the evening sessions were most entertaining. I have no doubt that this is where the real meeting actually happens ; - ))
I'm looking forward to the next one....
cheers,
Bill.
Mike. Yes a great weekend. Good to meet up with everyone and Armagh (City and Observatory) did us proud. I agree about the discussions in the bar afterwards. They are always most productive. Many thanks to our meetings secretary, Hazel Collett, for all the organisation and to the speakers and to everyone from all over GB and Ireland who turned up.
Hi Nick,
Prof. Mark Bailey offered the PDF of his fine talk. It would be great if this, and those of the other speakers, could be made available on the BAA website.
Thanks,
Alex.
Hi Alex, If you or some other willing helper can collect the material I'll find a way of getting it uploaded to the website. It would certainly be good to get it all in one place.
Alex,
If speakers offer us copies of their slides, there's no problem with putting them online, but be aware that many speakers are uncomfortable about this. At a recent conference I went to, less than a third of speakers were willing to share their slides.
There can be all sorts of reasons for this: they may plan to reuse the slides at future events, they may have shown figures or images that belong to other people, they may worry that people will steal their work, and professionals may have shown results that aren't published yet.
If you do approach speakers about this (note that the web ops team has previously advised meeting organisers not to do so), I'd recommend going very gently, and making anything you receive accessible to members only.
Best wishes,
Dominic.
I don't see that there is any harm in asking for PDF handouts, in the same way that we always ask speakers if we can post their videos. I can understand why some pros don't want to do this and, if the speaker doesn't want to have anything online then fine, but I don't see why you would recommend that we don't even ask (that is new to me by the way).
Hi Dominic, Nick,
After each ESOP we ask the speakers for their permission to add the PDFs of their talks to the Symposium website. For the reasons you mentioned not all are able to do this and we fully respect their wishes. At Armagh Prof. Mark Bailey set the ball rolling by offering his PDF before he started his presentation.
Such contributions are a great resource for members, whether they attended the meeting or not.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Alex & Nick,
You can send me the pdf's if you want. I can create an Armagh 2019 meeting page in the Publications -> Downloads -> Past Talks area of the website.
Best wishes,
Andy
Thanks Andy, we'll be in touch if any of the speakers give permission for their PDFs to be made available in that Members Download area.
Clear skies,
Alex.
As I don't have her direct contact details I'd just like to let Ann D. (on the sales desk) know that the observing guide arrived safely.
Thanks!
Bill.
I agree the weekend meeting in Armagh was excellent, thanks to the organisers and attendees. The private tour of the observatory was a highlight which I followed up with a trip south to visit Birr. (In the pouring rain!) It was very interesting to see the work that linked the two sites.
Peter