Free supply of sanitary products
“As a result of a request being made via the physics department suggestion box, we are trialling the free supply of sanitary products in 1 of our toilets near the Physics Atrium, A38. A notice has been put on the toilet door to denote which toilet contains the sanitary products.”
Georgina Edwards
Bottle carriers for chemicals
If you have any 2.5 litre (chemical) bottle carriers in your lab, please return them to Physics Stores.
Steve and Grainne
PhD travel fund
I am delighted to let you know that the PhD travel fund will continue for this financial year (01.08.22 – 31.07.23). This fund is to help support travel and collaborations for students which will benefit their studies and can be used for conferences, national and international meetings. Any students wanting to use this fund to contribute towards the costs of attending such meetings must apply for it by emailing Roger Jones and Philip Simpson with a brief statement on how these funds will be used, the benefits it will provide for their PhD and the estimated costs. Funds are awarded on a competitive basis and costs should be reasonable and will be made available subject to demand. We also expect that some of the funds needed will be drawn from an another source (eg. RTSG budget).
This fund will be released in tranches to allow for it to be fairly distributed to students throughout the year. Therefore please only apply for the fund at present if the travel will be undertaken below the 31st December 2022.
If you have any questions about this please email Philip Simpson (py-deptofficer@lancaster.ac.uk)
Philip Simpson
Reminder on the process of Annual leave
Academic:
During term time annual leave need to be approved in advance by the HoD and Director of Teaching. Approval will only be granted in rare exceptions due to the department’s open door policy on teaching.
Outside of term time no approval is needed.
However, the period of resits is advertised in advance, and as far as possible you should be available for the exam and the marking. If there are problems, the teaching office will try to help but the primary responsibility for alternative arrangements (e.g. arranging another staff member to provide cover) falls on you.
All Other staff:
Any annual leave should be agreed in advance by the line manager. For technical and administrative staff annual leave should be recorded in HR core as an annual leave request. Researchers should monitor their own annual leave.
For all staff,
If you are away from the department (annual leave/at a conference/working elsewhere which is not your home) then this should be recorded in the sharepoint calendar (here) as a staff absence
and (at least for any conference or work related travel) with details of where you will be. This is needed in case we need to get hold of you in an emergency, or if an emergency situation arises and you need assistance. If you are working from home you do not need to complete an absence for this.
Please make sure that your address and telephone numbers are up to date and are correct. These can be updated in the My contacts Details section of HR core
Philip Simpson
19” racks available.
There are 5 x 19” racks available from ISS if anyone here in Physics has a use for them. Contact Paul Boyd directly for more information on 07870 594104.
Shonah Ion
Institute of Physics Communicators and Outreach Conference
The IOP Communicators and Outreach Conference is a totally free conference for the sharing of best practice being held at the IOP HQ building in London and live streamed online on the 17th of November 2022. The conference is physics focused but not physics limited and you don’t need to be an IOP member to attend.
The theme for the meeting is ‘Reaching Out, Catching Up’ and we encourage contributors to consider submitting work which focuses along the lines of reaching out to historically underserved communities and helping balancing the inequities across science communication and science more broadly especially in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic. For this reason we’re also delighted to announce our keynote speaker as Dr Jessica Wade.
Space is limited at the event but we want to make as much room as possible for people to share their fantastic work. There is space for people to present short talks, posters, a limited number of workshops and a small exhibition area for stalls. The submission deadline is the 25th of September.
You can register for the event at this link:
https://iop.eventsair.com/iop-communicators-and-outreach-conference/registration-not-live
You can submit an abstract (for talks, poster, workshop, and more) here:
https://iop.eventsair.com/iop-communicators-and-outreach-conference/abstract-submission
Got a question or want to submit something a bit out there? Contact:
James.Lees@physics.org
Georgina Edwards
Power & Business Continuity
Winter is coming ….time for Business Continuity As we approach the new term and see colder weather on the horizon now is the time to review your business continuity plans. There has been no suggestion of power cuts like the winter discontent of 1979 but if that did happen, what could you do to minimise damage to your research?
Updated or new plans will be welcomed by Rupert Prudom our BC champion.
If you need a copy of the most recent plan for your area – please contact Rupert
Shonah Ion & Rupert Prudom
Meetings on Sharepoint
“All faculty and departmental meetings are now in the Physics SharePoint calendar which can be found on the Physics Sharepoint pages at: https://livelancsac.sharepoint.com/sites/Physics2.”
Georgina Edwards
The Future of the Bulletin
Dear all, after 20 years of writing the bulletin it’s being passed to the admin team to look after as a joint effort and to probably do a better job 
. So next week will be my last “Physics Friday Bulletin”.
Maybe it’ll get a new name?
Maybe it won’t have random capitals in the headers.
Maybe it will go out at a regular time and not at 6pm on a Friday after I’ve put my coat on to head home and seen the reminder.
Who knows, but in a strange way it’s been nice doing it, I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading it and will continue to find it useful.
So for this Fridays bulletin you can send items to me but from October 2022 onwards please send bulletin items to physics@lancaster.ac.uk
Rob Lewsey