Minutes of the AsCA Council Meeting 2015
Date and time:

Sunday, December 6, 201512:30 – 13:30

Location: Board Room, Science City, Kolkata, India
IN ATTENDANCEDELEGATES
Pinak Chakrabarti (President), India
pinak@jcbose.ac.in
Jenny Martin (Vice-President), Australia
j.martin@imb.uq.edu.au
Se Won Suh, (Past-President) Korea
sewonsuh@snu.ac.kr
Alice Vrielink (Web Secretary), Australia
alice.vrielink@uwa.edu.au
Duong Ngoc Huyen (Councilor) Vietnam
duong_huyen@yahoo.com
Takashi Kamiyama (Councilor) Japan
takashi.kamiyama@kek.jp
Altaf Hussain (Councilor) Bangladesh
altaf@du.ac.bd
Champika Vithana (Councilor) Sri Lanka
champikav@pdn.ac.lk
Neeraj Sharma (Councilor) Australia
neeraj.sharma@unsw.edu.au
Ashwini Nangia (Councilor) India
ashwini.nangia@gmail.com
Eiji Nishibori (Councilor) Japannishibori.eiji.ga@u.tsukuba.ac.jp
Christopher Squire (Councilor) New Zealandc.squire@auckland.ac.nz
Genji Kurisu (Councilor) Japangkurisu@protein.osaka-u.ac.jp
Shin-ichi Adachi (Councilor) Japan
shinichi.adachi@kek.jp
Ian Williams (Councilor) PR China
chwill@ust.hk
Hanna Yuan (Substitute for Chwan-Deng Hsiao) China Taipeihanna@gate.sinica.edu.tw
Shih-Lin Chang (Substitute for Shie-Ming Peng) China, Taipei slchang@nsrrc.org.tw
GUESTS
Masaki Kawano (Japan)
Srinivasulu Aitipamula, Singapore
Martin Schreyer, Singapore

mkawano@chem.titech.ac.jp
srinivasulu_aitipamula@ices.a-star.edu.sg
martin_Schreyer@ices.a-star.edu.sg

APOLOGIESJ J Vittal (Singapore), Kurt Krause (New Zealand), Bostjan Kobe (Australia), Sheena McGowan(Australia), Stuart Batten (Australia), Jianping Ding (PR China), Xiao-Dong Su(PR China), ZhiJie Liu (PR China), Shie-Ming Peng (China Taipei), Chwan-Deng Hsiao (China Taipei), N.
Gautham (India), Dinakar M. Salunke (India), Dhananjai Pandey (India), Yessi Permana(Indonesia), Maqsood Ahmed (Pakistan), Eunice EunKyoung Kim (Korea), Myoung Soo Lah(Korea), Siti Nadiah Abdul Halim (Malaysia), Neil Andrew David Bascos (Philippines), WimKlooster(Singapore), Thammarat Aree (Thailand) and Deleg Sangaa (Mongolia).

1Minutes of the AsCA Council Meeting 2015
1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
The meeting commenced at 12:30 hrs. Pinak Chakrabarti welcomed all to the meeting andall the guests introduced themselves. As J J Vittal could not attend the meeting, Ashwini
Nangia was requested to record the proceedings.
2. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETINGThe minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday, August 8, 2014, 12:15 – 13:45, Room516e, Palais Des Congres, Montreal, Canada and circulated by e-mail on 26 February, 2015
by the Secretary/Treasurer, J J Vittal, were approved.
3. CONDOLENCES
Prof Koh Lip Lin has passed away early in 2014. He organized the first meeting of the AsianCrystallographic Association in Singapore in 1992. He served as the Co-editor of Acta
Crystallographica from 1994 until 1999. He would be missed by the AsCA community. Themeeting observed one minute of silence in his honor.
4. PROGRESS REPORT FOR AsCA 2016 (14TH AsCA CONFERENCE)
Prof Duong Ngoc Huyen (Chair, LOC) presented the status of the next meeting to be held atHanoi, December 4-7, 2016. The website is already in place (http://www.asca2016.org/tintuc/welcome-to-hanoi-a286.html) with preliminary information. The venue would be at theTaquangbuu Library, Hanoi University of Science and Technology. It has been proposed thatthe student registration fees would be USD 150 to enable them to attend in large number.
There is plenty of cheap accommodation to suit their budget. The fees for regularparticipants would be USD 300.
Prof. Masaki Kawano (Chair, IPC) mentioned that he has got proposals for names that could
constitute the IPC, which would be formed in the near future. He is already working on
possible plenary speakers.
5. SELECTION FOR IPC CHAIR FOR AsCA 2018
There has been a suggestion that for passing down the experience of organizing the scientificaspects of one AsCA meeting to the next, it would be wise if the International Program
Committee of the next AsCA have as a member the IPC Chair of the following AsCA meeting.
Thus it became important to have the IPC Chair of AsCA 2018 to be held at Auckland, NewZealand, in place. The name of Prof. Ted Baker was proposed for this position and accepted
unanimously.
6. PROPOSAL/INTEREST FOR ORGANIZING AsCA 2019
Martin Schreyer of Singapore made a proposal for organizing the meeting of AsCA 2019 inSingapore. Considering that there has been no meeting in Singapore after the first one in2

Minutes of the AsCA Council Meeting 2015
1992, and as there was no other suggestion, it was decided that AsCA 2019 would be held atSingapore.
7. AsCA FINANCIAL REPORTThe statement of finances was prepared by Alice Vrielink on behalf of the AsCA trustees.
The trustees are Professors Mark Spackman, Alice Vrielink, and Charlie Bond, all at theUniversity of Western Australia.
AsCA UniBank account balances at 12 November 2015 (by Alice Vrielink)
Note: UniCredit was absorbed into UniBank in July 2015 Member number: 630482
All figures in Australian dollars.
S1 Everyday Account 603614822:
I10 Member Term deposit 379042685:
Combined balance =$3,023.93$194,172.37$197,196.30

Interest earned in each financial year (July 1 to June 30):
2012 – 20132013 – 20142014 – 2015
2015 – present$6524.89$4575.01$4407.40$2673.32

The interest rate on the new term deposit (3 monthly rollover) account varies monthly, and iscurrently 2.8% pa.
Activity on the account since August 2013 (as presented at AsCA2015):
Debits: nil
Credits:

$800
$2190
$1000
$200
$500
$500
$400
$1000

Aug 2013Jan 2014
Oct 2014
Oct 2014
Oct 2014
Oct 2014
Dec 2014
Jan 2015

India
ANSTO
Australia
New ZealandSouth Korea
TaiwanChinaJapan

Pinak Chakrabarti reported receiving a letter from Claude Lecomte, who is involved in organizing
the first Pan African meeting on crystallography to be held in Cameroon, requesting forcontribution from AsCA to support some young participant to the meeting. As it is a very goodinitiative from IUCr, it was decided to contribute equivalent of ~ AUD 1200 to the meeting.

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Minutes of the AsCA Council Meeting 2015
8. UPDATE ON THE STATE OF THE AsCA WEBSITE
Alice Vrielink reported that the web designer in Perth has completed the upgradation of theAsCA website based on the suggestions received from all concerned. It is hosted at the IUCrwebsite, and thanked Alice for her supervision of the renovation. Everyone appreciated thelook and the content of the website. Decision was taken to make the payment of AUD1750 tothe web developer. Se Won Suh suggested to recruit a person who will succeed Alice Vrielink
to supervise the maintenance of the newly-built AsCA website.
9. CONSIDERATION OF CORPORATE MEMBERSHIP FEES
Although AsCA has corporate membership, nothing noteworthy has happened in having
members in this category. In the earlier EC meetings there were discussions on different fees
structure depending on level of membership. However, as the amount considered at thelower level was rather small it is realized that no company would be interested in going
through all the paper work involved in remitting such small amount. From the AsCA side also
it is difficult to raise invoice every year. As such it was decided that the membership amountwould be USD 1000 (just one category) for a three year term. The corporate member would
be able to advertise their product release in the AsCA website (under corporate news). All
the sponsors of the ASCA 2015 may be contacted with this proposal.
10. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Prof. Altaf Hussain from Bangladesh handed over the annual subscription of AUD 100 for hiscountry. This was accepted and Alice Vrielink has taken the responsibility of depositing theamount to the AsCA account. According to the decision taken at the AsCA Council meeting,2013(http://asca.iucr.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/108196/2013-AsCA-CouncilMeeting-Minutes-Final.pdf) the fees for category B members (to which Bangladesh belongs)
were waived for 2013-1016. As such this payment from Bangladesh is for 2017.
The next Council meeting will be held during AsCA 2016 meeting at Hanoi, Vietnam in 4-7,December 2016.
The meeting adjourned at 13:30.
Minutes prepared by Prof. Ashwini Nangia, vetted by Prof. Pinak Chakrabarti.

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