Ask questions & discuss issues beforehand here.
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Thanks!
]]>The mission of the Focus Fusion Society is to bring people together to pursue the dream of safe, cheap, clean, unlimited energy from aneutronic fusion, to ensure that the ensuing technology is made available to everyone, and to foster a pro-research ethic and pro-fusion culture.
And our official tagline:
We bring people together to bring nuclei together.
We’re putting the emphasis on people and organizing over science and energy. It’s human beings (scientists) who do the science which may liberate the energy. Science doesn’t do itself. It’s other human beings who fund/support those scientists. Scientists don’t fund themselves.
Some have said that the specification “aneutronic fusion” is limiting, but we feel that the pursuit of aneutronic includes the pursuit of other types of fusion. In any case, our strategy includes a strong educational component that benefits the pursuit of other energy resources as well.
Note, the primary action verb clause is “bring people together to pursue…” and our energy dream is the best dream of them all.
]]>We’ve decided to meet on either the 22nd of September (a Friday) or the 23rd (a Saturday). Which day would be easier for most people?
The meeting will be held by webinar and will begin on the selected day at 12 pm noon EST with an online meet and greet and overview of the year with Focus Fusion Society and presentation of the strategic plan. Voting Members of the Society will begin the Annual Meeting at 12:30 pm.
Per the present bylaws, a voting member is:
A member in good standing is any person who is a paid-up member, or no more than three months in arrears. No individual may be denied membership on the basis of race, religion, creed, gender, sexual preference or handicapped status.
I.e., if you’ve joined the society, or do so between now and September 22, 2011, you can vote at this meeting.
Items of Business
This meeting has two important items of business.
1) Introduction and ratification of new bylaws.
2) Election of members to the Board of Directors.
More info to come in the official announcement, but first we have to decide on the date. So, let us know now, Friday or Saturday?
If you like something, post it on facebook, tweet about it, blog about it, post on other forums.
This is especially true for time sensitive material - like the film contest! Help spread the word!
]]>This is not the venue to discuss it at such length.
I am now instituting the Cap and Trade policy for the global warming discussion. You have until Monday, June 7 for your final posts within currently existing topics. Then they will all be closed, as this post is now.
The purpose of this website is to promote the exploration of fusion.
Let’s get back on topic folks!
]]>LPP needs your help!!! Our quest for Focus Fusion and X-Scan requires certain expensive equipment, for which we don’t have the funding. Perhaps you or a company you know about has these pieces of equipment sitting around or being thrown out. We’d love to have them! We have already received some great used equipment from a local company, based on the suggestion from a fusion fan, so we thought we’d put together a wish list and see what else we could get in this way. It never hurts to ask!
- Oscilloscopes
- 2 LeCroy Wavepro 960 or similar: 4-channel
- 1 Tektronix MSO4104B or similar: 1 GHz, 4-channel, semi-portable for checking things in the reactor room
- Mass Spectrometer
- UV-VIS Spectrometer
- Neutron Detector with associated equipment
- X-Ray Source (like used by dentists) for calibrating our X-ray detectors
- Small Lathe for those small jobs that we don’t want to send to the machinist
- Digital Geiger Counter for, you know, measuring any radioactivity
- BIG Capacitors: must handle 45 kV, 9-10 microfarads (perhaps sitting around in a hospital or research lab basement somewhere)
- Framing Camera: for capturing “video” of the of the plasmoid formation process (this is our dream camera that costs about $500K)
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We’re looking for a few good board members. We’ve put an ad up on Bridgestar. Note that being a board member of a nonprofit is an unpaid position.
For more information on why we need a board, try this article: Why Do You Need A Board?.
For information on the basic responsibilities of nonprofit boards, check out www.michaeldavidson.biz and particularly his well written Board Tool Kit.
Current members of the Focus Fusion Society are eligible to become board members. We currently have the minimum 3 board members required by law, but two of them are stepping down soon and need to be replaced. Also, our governing structure is not well developed - we’re a loose membership organization, evolving.
]]>Caution: Admin at Work
This is now a hardhat area while I shuffle some forums around and add some new forums.
Pitch in
Feel free to populate the new forums with new content. If you have any suggestions about topics that might work better in a newly devised forum, let me know by posting here, or by posting to the thread you want moved.
Discuss
How do you like this re-org? Note, it’s still unfolding. It is based on an emerging strategy.
Thanks!
]]>Derek Shannon and I tested it yesterday and it works like a charm.
I want to have a series of meetings of the Focus Fusion Society members via podcast to discuss the issues our organization faces. We can’t support LPP or Fusion, if we aren’t a well supported and developed organization ourselves. These conversations will help us clarify our understanding of who we are and what we’re supposed to be doing, and how we’re supposed to do it, and what resources we need to pull it off. And also, who’s supposed to be doing what.
After that, we can start having podcasts featuring interviews with the LPPX crew, with other physicists, other interested parties and on requested topics.
If you have original music and sound effects that we could use on the show, send that in, we’d love to use it.
Now for the Member meetings, we have the following topics to discuss:
Membership - the Focus Fusion Society is a membership organization. “Members” are those who have paid their subscription. This is a loose definition of membership, and people who are registered on the website site but not paid are not members in the legal sense. “Membership” is a legal category with responsibilities and voting rights. We need to discuss this. Most nonprofit organizations choose not to have this sort of memberhip structure for various reasons, to be discussed on the podcast. Others make it work - but it takes more people to make it work. Like we’d have to hire a membership coordinator to really do it that way.
Board - Currently, the FFS board is nominal, consisting of the minimal 3 members who have never had a meeting together, and are standins for the legal requirement that, as a 501c3, we have a board. This is unacceptable for a nonprofit. Without a board, there is really no fundraising. Even membership organizations like the Sierra Club have a strong board. Occasionally, the board and the members come into conflict, as in the Sierra Club, when the Board made a decision to sell the Sierra Club name for product endorsement. The Members put an opposing measure on the ballot and voted to change the board’s decision.
Aside from these conflicts, the Board is key to credibility as an organization. If we’re going to advance as a fusion advocacy group, we need to develop the board.
Mission statements, From “The Board Member’s Guide to Fund Raising” by Fisher Howe:
]]>A structured strategic or long-range planning exercise is often the best approach to the preparation of a mission statement. The mission statement will be what comes out of a planning exercise, not what goes into it; it will be the core understanding around which can be built a clear, unambiguous articulation of purposes, programs, and priorities - clearly of great value to board and management. It also affords a firm basis for arriving at an estimate of the resources needed to support the organization on which a fundraising program depends.