Sent electronically to Individual Members on March 22, 2013
by Thierry Montmerle, General Secretary
This new issue contains in particular the detailed structure of the new Divisions, including how Commissions and Working Groups have been reassigned, as well as the results of the all-member vote to join new Divisions. It also contains reports on actions having taken place during the XXVIIIth IAU General Assembly in Beijing, as well as an extended section on Educational and Outreach initiatives (Office of Astronomy for Development, Office for Astronomy Outreach).
A new team has taken charge of the IAU Secretariat in Paris:
New, generic e-mail addresses have been introduced for correspondence with IAU members, institutions, etc., and the public, press, etc.
https://www.iau.org/administration/secretariat/
Archiving of IAU publications and documents remains the responsibility of Ginette Rude, who is also investigating how to digitize these archives.
Following the adoption of the Resolution proposed by the Executive Committee about the new IAU Divisional structure, discussions have been conducted on how to establish the corresponding "Division Steering Committees" (DSC), set to replace the former "Organizing Committees" of the previous Divisional structure.
It has been decided that the DSCs would be composed of:
At the time of writing, these elections, conducted electronically with the help of the Secretariat, are almost completed.
This is the first time in the history of the IAU that such wide consultations, regarding several thousand members (vote on Divisions, vote on DSCs) are being organized.
The next Executive Committee meeting (EC93) will take place in Nara, Japan (May 7-10), at the invitation of Norio Kaifu, IAU President.
This will be the first meeting of the newly elected Executive Committee members. See the EC composition at:
https://www.iau.org/administration/executive_bodies/executive_committee/
In addition, an important feature of this meeting is that, as part of the implementation of the new Divisional structure, the Division Presidents have been invited to participate in this meeting. They will discuss directly with EC members about their strategy for Commission and Working Group evolution, as recommended by their DSCs.
Thierry Montmerle
IAU General Secretary
March 22, 2013