CERN seeks guides for open days
CERN is calling for volunteers to help organize two exceptional open days in April, one for CERN employees and their families on Saturday 5 April; and another for the general public on the following day. This will be the last chance for the general public to get up close to the LHC and its experiments.
In addition to visiting the surface facilities, visitors can go underground to see the accelerator and will have access to the caverns where the experiments are located. In addition, most of the points around the ring will be open.
The success of these two exceptional days will require volunteers to give guided tours of all these areas. Many guides will also be needed at the LHC points, for the activities at the surface and to look after the reception and information points. The aim of these open days is to give the local population the opportunity to discover the fruits of almost 20 years of work at CERN.
The organizers are hoping for some 2000 volunteers, all of whom will be given prior training and will be provided with suitable clothing for the Open Day and a meal and a souvenir on the day itself.
If you are a staff member, a retiree or one of CERN's user-community, and would like to volunteer, you can sign up at https://espace.cern.ch/Volontaires08/. For more information, see http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/?name=CERNBulletin&issue=04/2008&ln=en.
Bergen launches first mini winter school at CERN
The new year began well for 14 students from Bergen who came to CERN on 9–11 January to participate in the first Bergen mini winter school. The aim is to introduce undergraduate students from Norway to particle physics and to show them CERN, Europe's largest research centre in that field.
The three-day school was packed with lectures and visits. Augusto Ceccucci, Jos Engelen, Gian Giudice, Steinar Stapnes and Frank Zimmermann from CERN, and Anna Lipniacka from Bergen, provided highly interesting lectures, covering topics from particle detectors to physics beyond the Standard Model. In addition, CERN's Alvaro de Rújula and John Ellis gave excellent evening and "end-of-school" talks. The students where equally enthusiastic about the many visits, organized by Ole Rohne (ATLAS), Daniel Denegri (CMS), Hans Braun, Erik Adli (CTF3), Christian Carli (LEIR), Susanne Koblitz (COMPASS), Lasse Normann (LHC control room) and Sverre Jarp (Computing Centre).
The organizers were pleased that so many Norwegian students had travelled as far as CERN to learn more about physics, and hope that the mini school will inspire further studies. It is hoped that more students will join the school from other parts of Norway next year.