minutes meeting in Siena Computing school 2005

["Alessandro F. Gualtieri" <alex@unimore.it>]

Dear all,

Here are the minutes of the meeting held in Siena (Tuscany region, Italy)
on june 23rd with Ton Spek, Marcello Mellini and Alessandro Gualtieri.
The meeting was organized to take an explorative tour to the possible
selected site for the 2005 IUCr School of Computing Crystallography,
just prior to the Florence meeting (23-31 Aug).

THE PLACE
The place we visited is the "Certosa di Pontignano" (10 Km away from Siena),
a medieval, very quiet and attractive place located in a marvellous
position on the top of a hill with a direct view to the town of
Siena and nearby a famous Chianti winery...
Although there is a bus connection to Siena, there are no facilities in
the surrounding and the place could be considered a bit remote!
In any case, it is perfect to get full concentration on Computing Science...
The site offers a computer room with about 6 desktop computers connected
to internet and the possibility to be connected in every hotel room
using the University line.
We were positively impressed by the place, logistic conditions and
organization so we decided to make a pre-reservation of all the rooms
available including one large (about 100 people) lecture room
and a smaller lecture room for about 50 people. The rooms booked are:
20 single rooms, 18 double rooms, 5 rooms with 4 beds, and 3 flats for a
larger number of lodgers. In case the number of room is not sufficient,
there is another hotel (Casa S.Lucia) at about 2 Km away from the Certosa
with 20 more single and double rooms available. In addition there is a
Camping site about 5-6 Km away from the Certosa in between Siena and the
Certosa for the more tricherous scientists.
The pre-reservation of the rooms at the Certosa (5 nights from august
18th to august 22nd, full service including breakfast, lunch and dinner)
should be confirmed no later than Jan 2004.

Attendence is limited to about 100 (including speakers)

THE COSTS
Certosa di Pontignano
1 single room per day (full service) = 62 euros (VAT included)
1 double room per day (full service) = 103 euros (VAT included)
flat 4 beds (service excluded) = 103.5 euros (VAT included)
flat 5 beds (service excluded) = 114.0 euros (VAT included)
flat 6 beds (service excluded) = 129.5 euros (VAT included)
1 meal = 15 euros
Large lecture room for 5 days = 310 euros (VAT included)
Small lecture room for 5 days = 124 euros (VAT included)

Casa S.Lucia (very nice!)
1 double room per day (+breakfast) = 84 euros (VAT included)

SCHOOL PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE
Based on Ton's proposal of having common plenary lectures and two parallel
sessions on macro- and small molecules (which includes powder), a rough
schedule of a day at the school could be:

9.00-10.30: plenary (shared)
10.30 coffee break
11.00-13.00 lesson (split)
13.00 lunch
15.00-17.00 lesson (split)
17.00-19.00 lesson (split) or practical lesson / software demos /
exercises / interactive open discussions on some topics presented
during the classical lessons (split)

In the current proposal, august 18 will be the day of arrival, with
some activities during the evening, followed bij 4 full days of sessions.
Travel to Florence is sceduled on Aug 23.

COMPUTING FACILITIES
At about 10 min drive away from the Certosa, the Chemistry Dept. of the
University of Siena makes available a computing room for the practical
sessions and software demos. The room is equipped with about 30 Pc desktops
with Windows OS, 5 Pc desktops with Linux OS and 5 more Mac Pc desktops.
There are no problem for the reservation of the room for the whole week
of the school, no problems for installing new software (via the local
server) and of course no problems for internet connection.

LOCAL ORGANIZATION
Prof. Marcello Mellini kindly offered to help with the local organization
of the school by taking advantage of the local conference organizing
agency (Servizio Congressi). This has a great advantage: the cost of
renting the school site (Certosa) for the school will be discouted of 15%
if the reservation id made by a member of a Faculty of the local University.
In addition, under these conditions, one lecture room is offered totally for
free during the period of the school.
Of course, Marcello will be totally supported by our Computing committee as
far as the scientific organization is concerned with my extra logistic support.

SPONSORSHIP
We were thinking of seeking for financial support to private companies or
maybe even the European Community. We believe Philips, Bruker, Rigaku, ARL,
and others could be interested in the sponsorship of our school. Taking
advantage of on-going conferences and meetings, we will approach this issue
with people form those companies to get their first feeling and comments about
this issue.
All IUCr money is channelled through the Florence organisation.

OPEN ISSUES
1 - Number of speakers (15-20 ?).
2 - Financial compensation for the speakers (local expenses only to keep
     costs for participants low ?)
3 - Program details
4 - Publication of the course material ?

Cheers

Ton Spek and Alessandro Gualtieri