8 May 2002 Minutes of the Post-Doc Society Committee meeting 08. 05. 02

8 May 2002 Minutes of the Post-Doc Society Committee meeting 08.05.02

A committee meeting was held on Thursday, 08.05.02 between 16:00 and 17:30, attended by all elected committee members: Sonja Matthee (zoology), Annegret Stark (chemistry), Honesty Makamba (chemistry), Brent Sinclair (zoology) and Nico Gey van Pittius (tygerberg). 
We decided that Brent will act as chair, Sonja as vice-chair, Anne as secretary, Nico as representative of the Tygerberg campus and Honesty as back-up.

A plan of actions was drawn up for the next month:
1. Find out (P. Steyn, M. Smith) what needs to be done to formalize the society and put the draft of the constitution into a final form.

2. A web-page will be created, either in conjunction with the page of the international office or individually. This home-page will contain anything relevant for present and new post-docs arriving at SU, such as the constitution of the Post-Doc Society, contact details, a compilation of insurance companies to choose from, media articles concerning the Society and links to other post-doc societies in SA (if we find that there are any). Please contact [e-mail] if you have further suggestions of what should go onto the web-page. Additionally, there will be details of get-togethers etc.

3. A survey will be compiled of all post-docs at SU, in which all post-docs introduce ourselves and give an idea of what expertise each of us has, to facilitate net-working. Furthermore, there will be space to indicate what problems you encounter at SU, which can be addressed by the Society. Also, we would like to include a questionnaire about the resources (photocopying, telephone, PC, internet access, office space etc.) available to each of us to get an idea how these are distributed throughout the different departments. In order to get a feed-back of as many post-docs as possible, you are invited to forward this minute to any post-docs we might not be aware of. Thank you!

4. Other SA post-doc societies will be contacted.

5. Concerning the liability of post-docs, which are required to lecture or demonstrate in labs, an appointment will be made with Prof. P. Stein or Personnel. This meeting will also serve to find out if SU has specific resources to set up offices, PCs, telephone lines for post-docs. Another issue will be the introduction of an overhead charge calculated from the lab-space taken up. This is a charge that will be paid to the university. We need to find out what that means and if this will affect us individually.

6. A draft letter informing the Heads of Department of the existence of this society, together with our aims, some guidelines, the constitution and contact details, will be compiled. This letter will be send out to the departments in June / July.

7. Other more informal documents will be written to be published in Maties, campus news, the daily bulletin, Tygerberg publications, etc.

8. An appointment (preferably end of June) to meet the Rector of SU will be made in order to introduce him to our ideas, what we would like to achieve and our plan of action.

9. The post-doc society committee will meet again on 06.06. 02. The draft letter to the Heads of Department will be finalized, and a detailed list of ideas and goals compiled, before meeting the Rector. After the meeting, the letter and the other above-mentioned documents will be officially send out to the departments and the editors of Maties, campus news, daily bulletin and the Tygerberg publications.