The annual NSO summer workshop on Synoptic Solar Physics was held this year from 9-12 September in the new Sacramento Peak conferencing facility, which is part of the just-completed Visitor Center. The new conference location allowed a wider participation in this workshop than has been possible in the past. Thanks to the scientifically stimulating presentations and interactions of the participants and the efforts of the scientific and local organizing committees, including Sac Peak administrative and technical staff, this inaugural meeting was a great success, with the added benefit of demonstrating the quality of the new facility as a superb conference venue.
Immediately following the summer workshop, the Sacramento Peak staff celebrated two major occasions: the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the observatory and the 40th anniversary of AURA. AURA President Goetz Oertel visited Sac Peak for the occasion, and as part of that visit, he presented a safety award to the staff for outstanding safety performance at the site in 1996, a year in which not a single work hour was lost due to accidents.
The SOLIS proposal has passed the scrutiny of the NSF Director's Review Board and is now in the hands of the NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. Although there are a few remaining issues, we are hopeful that we will indeed see a new start early in 1998.
The NSF and the US Air Force are in the final stages of renewing the Memorandum of Understanding which provides for the fund transfer from the USAF to NSF for support of the Air Force program at Sacramento Peak. This program itself has seen a change in its operational structure. Effective 31 October, its affiliation has changed from the Phillips Laboratory to the Air Force Research Laboratory and is now referred to as the Solar Effects and Mitigation Branch.
Jacques Beckers