The frenetic pace characterizing CHESS since the renewal in April of 2014 is continuing into 2015. CHESS implemented the new on-line proposal system for the third running period of 2014 and users submitted over 200 general user proposals. This created a significant strain on our reviewers, schedulers and our safety committee. Please keep in mind that, under the new proposal review system, users can simply submit a "beamtime request" using an existing proposal; it does not need to go out to review each time (the deadline for early review and scheduling consideration is March 10).
We once again thank the user community for their patience as we commission our new undulators and x-ray optics. These upgrades both increase CHESS's scientific capabilities and improve the quality of data collected at CHESS. It is quite gratifying to see that the undulator is shattering international x-ray flux records at G-line. With improved x-ray optics scheduled to be installed later this year, those numbers will be pushed even further.
The Users' Executive Committee is in the final stages of picking speakers for this June's Users' Meeting. Please put the dates on your calendar (June 9, 10). Workshop titles and invited speakers will be announced shortly. Note the deadline for the student paper prize. Each year, the outstanding quality of the student research papers and the presentations by the winners is astonishing.
Finally, please note that User Office is beginning a "lab notes" section in our monthly eNewsletter to help keep everyone up to date on procedures, streamline check-in, and so on.
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