Minutes for the 2009 PIRA business meeting held July 27, 2009
Called to order by President David Sturm at 6:04 PM.
I. The members present introduced themselves.
II. The minutes from the 2008 meeting were approved.
III. In old business, Michael Thomason (University of Colorado) was thanked for his great contribution in maintaining the Website and the Demonstration Wiki at pira-online.org.
IV. Officers' reports
A. Wayne Easterling reported that the PIRA session: "Demonstrations and Misconceptions" with Richard Berg, James Reardon, and Peter Hopkinson, earlier in the day was a great success, with standing room only!
We had an interruption of the agenda by an announcement by Becky Thompson of the APS Outreach Office about the celebration of the Laser's 50th anniversary: Laserfest! APS is looking for novel, sustainable ways to use lasers to extend outreach to women, minorities, and ADULTS. Applications are available at <Laserfest.org>
action item: place a link to Laserfest.org on the PIRA website.
B. Dale Stille reported that the resource room had been well prepared in person by Sathappan Ramesh and Adam Beehler, and with advance work offsite from Zig Peacock. There was lots of traffic in the room, perhaps due to its great location adjacent to registration. Most of the free stuff was gone by noon. Dale thanked Pasco for the copier and other prizes as well as: Vernier, Arbor Scientific, Spectrum Techniques, TeachSpin, Cenco, Educational Innovations, Klingler, Daedalon, American 3B, Tel-Atomic, AAPT, and SciSupply. Other valuable equipment was donated by Iowa, Clemson and other institutions, and books from Rutgers.
C. Steve Wonnell reported that we had $8,900 at the beginning of the meeting, with $2500 in the Creason Fund. He thanked David Healey, Ramesh, and Annie Atiyeh for handling the cash receipts at the resource room.
D. David Sturm reported that PIRA was asked to do the demo show for the meeting by Myron Campbell, chair of the University of Michigan physics department at the last summer meeting. He also reported that many PIRA members helped in presenting a demo hour for the Topical Conference on Advanced Labs on Friday. It was very well received.
V. The Lecture Demo Workshop report was given by Sam Sampere. We had about 30 participants both days. About 8 signed up at the meeting for the second day. Great thanks were extended to Warren Smith, Mark Kennedy, and Ryan Wilson for their extraordinary support in setting up the demonstrations. Randy Peterson was also thanked for his part in the Advanced Lab Topical Conference.
We then took a break from the meeting to take a picture of the PIRA members and guests present by roping in an obliging passing student. The picture as then uploaded to the PIRA sharing website at: PIRA-online.org (in the upload section)
VI. Randy Peterson was also thanked for his part in the Advanced Lab Topical Conference.
VII. Committee Reports
A. Dale Stille reported that the DCS committee meeting would take place at 9 AM on Wednesday. Prof. Sprott's new demo text has been added to the bibliography, as will Dave Maiullo's book, "A Demo a Day." Also, Dale will fill the gap in references from AJP and TPT that occurred after Phil Johnson's death.
B. Tony Papirio has agreed to continue to chair the Constitution committee, and will be given some work to do latter in the meeting.
C. The Demo Show Committee was noted to be meeting after adjournment of the business meeting.
D. Van Bistrow reported that a large number of participants (about 36) attended the Advanced Lab Topical Conference that preceded the summer meeting. He thanked Ramon Issa Torres of the University of Michigan for being such a great host to help the participants enjoy the high level labs.
VII. New Business
A. News from around the PIRA world. A group formed in 1984 that set up the founding of PIRA. 2010 will be the 25th anniversary of the naming of PIRA which we will celebrate in Portland. Sammy called Zig, and we all wished him well.
B. David Sturm reviewed his goals for the PIRA membership, asking us all to get involved; apply for a grant from the Bauder Fund, join ALPha the advanced labs group, join appropriate AAPT committees as friends of the committee.
C. A discussion of an increase in the dues as suggested by Wayne Easterling lead to a straw vote in which the majority of the meeting's attendees agreed to an increase. Wayne will prepare this proposal for a vote next summer.
D. A suggestion that PIRA should have an executive board was presented by David Sturm. After some discussion, the idea was given to the Constitution Committee to discuss and report their conclusions at the Portland Summer Meeting.
E. Future meetings.
Winter meeting, 2010 in Washington, DC,
PIRA will do a 1-day Lecture Demo Workshop.
Summer meeting, 2010 in Portland, OR,
PIRA will do a shortened Lecture Demo Workshop.
Winter Meeting, 2011 in Jacksonville, FL.
Summer Meeting, 2011 in Omaha, NE
Winter Meeting, 2012 in Ontario, California.
F. A call for someone to produce a PIRA poster for the Portland, OR, meeting, to follow the sequence of Cliff Bettis's production of the PIRA 200 poster for Greensboro, and the poster this year done by Wayne Easterling.
IX. Election of new officers.
A. Past President Brian Andersson explained the search for nominees.
B. Ramesh and Adam Beehler were introduced and the floor was opened for other nominations. None were presented, so nominations were closed.
C. Current treasurer Steve Wonnell was introduced as willing to stand again as the sole nominee for treasurer. The floor was opened for nominations. None were presented, so Steve was elected by acclamation.
D. Ballots were passed around to those who had not voted on-line.
Ramesh won the election.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:37 PM, with the passing of the gavel by David to Wayne Easterling.
Respectfully submitted, Tom Senior <
tomseniorphysics@yahoo.com>
Meeting attendees with email on the list:
Tony Papirio UMass Amherst
papirio@physicsumass.edu S. Ramesh Johns Hopkins
ramesh@pha.jhu.edu J. Hester Clemson
jerryh@clemson.edu D. Stille U of Iowa
dale-stille@uiowa.edu Tom Greenslade Kenyon
greenslade@kenyon.edu Simcha Segev Tel Aviv, Israel
simcha@post.tau.ac.il Paul Nord Valparaiso U
Paul.Nord@valpo.edu Clifford Bettis U of Nebraska, Lincoln
Cbettis@unlserve.unl.edu Dick Berg U of Maryland
reberg@umd.edu Anna Kiefte Acadia U
anna.kiefte@acadiau.ca Krishna Chowdary Evergreen State College
chrowdark@evergreen.edu Peter Nelson Kansas State U
pnelson@phys.ksu.edu Mike McFarland U of Notre Dame
mcfarland.1@nd.edu Clarence Bennett Oakland U
bennett@oakland.edu Paul Dolan NEIU & Alpha
p-dolan@neiu.edu Gerald Zani Brown
gerald_zani@brown.edu Vacek Miglus Wesleyan U
vmiglus@wesleyan.edu Pati Sievert Northern IL U
psievert@niu.edu Adam Beehler U of Utah
beehler@physics.utah.edu David Maiullo Rutgers U
maiullo@physics.rutgers.edu Tom Senior Northwestern U
tomseniorphysics@yahoo.com David Sturm U of Maine
sturmde@maine.edu Those who did not sign an attendance sheet with email addresses:
Richard Flarend
Annie Atiyeh
Marsha Hobbs
Mary Ann Klassen
Steve Shropshire
David Haley
Van Bistrow
Steve Wonnell
Brian Andersson
Wayne Easterling
Randy Peterson
David Tam
