Dear Colleagues,
I do wish to present a problem that we hadn’t previously considered from our (ORNL) side. DOE has a rather strange aversion to conferences, which severely limits our ability to send many participants to at once. For example, we were limited this past year from sending more than 5 scientific staff to the ICNS meeting (that’s 5 total from the entire lab- both SNS & HFIR). There is not as much restriction on a school. Unfortunately, with our coupling of these together the school is being seen as part of the workshop, and I am already being told that likely only 2-3 technicians (from both facilities) will be able to attend, and this will also prevent others from attending the conference. So we have this dilemna, where the target audience for the school was junior staff, and our general presenters at the workshop are senior staff, developers, & management. In hindsight, I likely would have suggested that we do the schools in the ‘off-year’ as to provide a meeting for new, junior, or those who need some expertise hands on. It is an unfortunate situation for us, as we were very much looking forward to attending the workshop, as always.
