Quarterly update: February 2008

2006/07 Annual Report

The 2006/07 AAL Annual Report is now available on this website. As AAL only existed for ten weeks last financial year, this report primarily addresses the financial reporting requirements of a Public company.

2008 Annual General Meeting

The AAL Board has set the morning of 30th September 2008 as the date for this year's Annual General Meeting. The meeting will be held in Melbourne. The timing of the meeting has been set to coincide with the end of the Astronomy NCRIS Strategic Options deliberations. Member representatives are encouraged to note the date of this meeting.

Audit and Risk Management Committee

As is standard practice for Public companies, AAL has now formed an Audit and Risk Management Committee. The Committee will be chaired by David Warren; Martin Cole and Lister Staveley-Smith are the other members of the Committee. Membership of the Committee will be reviewed annually at the first directors' meeting following each Annual General Meeting.

Platforms For Collaboration

Following PfC's approach to AAL late last year regarding national computing facilities for Australian astronomers, AAL has reviewed two proposals for possible PfC investment:

• An Australian National Data Archive Curation Service, submitted by Dr Andrew Hopkins from the University of Sydney, and Project Leader of the Australian Virtual Observatory;
• Astrophysical High Performance Computing in Australia, submitted by Dr Geraint Lewis from the University of Sydney, and during 2007, the Convenor of the Australian National Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.

AAL endorses both proposals and will assist with these proposals as appropriate.

Australian Gemini Steering Committee

AAL has agreed with the ARC to provide secretarial and financial support for the AGSC. AGSC members will now receive reimbursement for economy travel expenses directly from AAL. Although AGSC is not formally a committee of AAL, the support provided to AGSC will be the same as for AAL's advisory committees.

Astronomy NCRIS

The final Astronomy NCRIS contractual arrangement planned for 2007/08 is now under final negotiation: The AAL Board has reviewed and accepted the CSIRO proposal for the NCRIS funded portion of ASKAP. The intention of both parties is to sign a contract and commence payments before the end of the financial year.