[Newathena-cg-telecon] NewAthena Community Call

Wed Mar 12 12:30:41 CET 2025

Dear NAGC, 

Thank you for your valuable suggestions and comments, which we have carefully considered. 

We have revised the introduction, reorganized the order in the application form, updated the FAQ (including today's comment from James), and added more details in the email: 
[ https://nextcloud.ifca.es/index.php/s/95t5LFatgHoHE75 | https://nextcloud.ifca.es/index.php/s/95t5LFatgHoHE75 ] 

We have decided to send this email to the entire current Athena community today to provide an extra working day for those who are hesitant to apply. Additionally, we will publish a news update on the community portal and distribute the announcement through the Spanish Astronomical Society. 

Best regards, 

Silvia. 

----- On 12 Mar, 2025, at 11:24, James Aird <James.Aird at ed.ac.uk> wrote: 

Hi Thomas and NACG, 

That’s some really useful feedback. On a related note, I’m a little worried about this in the FAQs: 

“How much time will be involved for an active membership on average?” 

One can estimate that those members contributing most actively to a WG should count with a ~5-10% time investment until the delivery of the Red Book (autumn 2026). 

10% of one’s time for people who are not somehow part of funded NewAthena activities is a * lot *. That’s half a day per week. I agree, someone actively contributing to the Redbook may start to approach such a level of contribution as that deadline approaches (or if they wish to lead an A&A paper), but I don’t think it’s a sensible expectation for a standard WG member and could certainly put people off. In fact, I think a 10% commitment for someone acting as a CHAIR may even be on the high side as to what people could be able to contribute, given it’s essentially a voluntary role. 

I think we might expect ~monthly telecons of each WG at most, and attending those to provide input to science activities would be more than enough as a contribution for an “active” WG member in my mind. Even this may seem on the high side for a project still 12 years away (even if the important activity of mission adoption is coming up sooner). I feel the old Athena WGs/TPs maybe had telecons ~every 6 months at most, and there was perhaps an ~annual meeting (mainly for chairs) + maybe WG get-togethers within other conferences such as X-ray Universe on Athena science meetings themselves (so ~twice over a three year period). 

If it looks like a commitment much higher than that then I think we’ll put people off. (I appreciate that is says “ those members contributing most actively to a WG” but there are lots of words elsewhere about seeking active members). 

Cheers, 

James 

From: Newathena-cg-telecon <newathena-cg-telecon-bounces at lists.mpe.mpg.de> on behalf of Thomas Dauser <thomas.dauser at fau.de> 
Date: Wednesday, 12 March 2025 at 07:25 
To: Newathena-cg-telecon <Newathena-cg-telecon at lists.mpe.mpg.de> 
Subject: [Newathena-cg-telecon] NewAthena Community Call 

This email was sent to you by someone outside the University. 
You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain that the email is genuine and the content is safe. 

Dear ACO, dear Matteo, dear all, 

after our discussion yesterday in the telecon on the NewAthena community 
call, I had a lengthy discussion today with a larger group of people at 
our institute (lots of them PhD students). 

Their main message why they did not sign up, yet, was that the 
application "looked scary" to them. They want to support Athena and also 
help within their time they have available in the Working Groups. 
However, to basically all of them the call (so meaning mainly what is 
written on the form you have to fill out) sounded like they have to 
devote a significant fraction of time for the Working Group. And in 
order to be able to join any of the working groups they have to provide 
a strong motivation, otherwise they may even be rejected. The majority 
of the PhD students here who were in principle interested thought hard 
about the motivation (scared of being declined the membership) and then 
just gave up. 

Re-reading all of this myself I have to say I understand this. And I 
don't think this is what people should think when they try to sign up 
the the NASC. 

A few possible suggestions that could help: 

- Can we make the text of the call sound a bit more open and friendlier, 
to make it obvious that we care for everyone to sign up and that this is 
not a competing call (except for the chairs). If you can still change 
the text of the application form, I would add more advertising thoughts 
at the beginning. What we want is to get people who think they can 
contribute to a science working group. And not make is sound that this 
is a strict and competing selection process. Linking the FAQ right at 
the beginning would also help, because most people here were not aware 
it exists, as they only clicked on the link for the form (and it 
explains a lot of things nicely). 

- Name clearly what you expect as written "motivation" and that (only) 
under certain circumstances the NASST reserves its right to reject an 
application. I think this scared off most people I talked to who did not 
sign up. 

- If still possible change the order to the sign up. First make the box 
a "I want to be part of the NewAthena Community", then secondly the sign 
up for an active member of a working group, and only lastly as a chair. 

I hope these thoughts and feedback help writing the next reminder email 
and possibly update the form such that more people sign up. 

Thanks everyone for putting so much effort into this. 

Cheers, 
Thomas 

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