[Difx-users] DiFX users meeting 2016 pre-announcement

[Adam Deller]

Dear difx-users and -developers,

The time has come to start planning the 10th (yes, 10th!) annual DiFX users
and developer's workshop.  At Hobart in 2015, we discussed possible venues,
and Shanghai was nominated with broad support.  Since the workshop has been
held in Europe and Australia three times each, the US twice, and Asia only
once so far, it would be appropriate and enjoyable to head to China this
year.

Wu Jiang has investigated some options for dates and locations.  The
baseline plan would be to hold the meeting in downtown Shanghai (where
there observatory headquarters are), which is most convenient for
transportation and accommodation.  We could arrange a visit to suburban
campus co-located with the Tianman and Sheshan 65m and 25m telescopes on
one day.

A visa is required for most visitors to China. No visa is required for
ordinary passport holders from Singapore, Brunei and Japan to visit China
for up to 15 days for business, sightseeing, visiting relatives and friends
or transit.
For more information, please see http://cs.mfa.gov.cn/wgrlh/lhqz/lhqzjjs/,
and note that it will be necessary to  prepare your visa application at
least 30 days before the entry date to China.
In terms of dates, the meeting has traditionally been held sometime between
September and November.  Due to some public holidays and other meetings,
the earlier part of this date range is not so convenient.  So we would like
to propose 3 options:

October 24-28
November 1-4
November 8-11

In each case, the users meeting would be held during the first two days,
and the developers meeting the last three days. If you want to attend the
DiFX users and developers meeting this year, can you please respond to this
mail with a preferred week or weeks, or any other scheduling conflicts that
we may have forgotten about?  If we can collect some responses over the
next week or two, it would be nice to select a date soon to allow attendees
plenty of time make travel plans and arrange visas etc.  Once the date has
been settled, there will be a meeting webpage put up, registration made
available, talks solicited, etc etc.

Cheers,
Adam and Wu Jiang

-- 
!=============================================================!
Dr. Adam Deller
Ph  +31 521595785 / Fax +31 521595101
Staff Astronomer, Astronomy Group
ASTRON, Oude Hoogeveensedijk 4
7991 PD Dwingeloo, The Netherlands
!=============================================================!
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