GeminiFocus December 2012 | Page 44

Prior to the meeting, we sent a survey to our international user community to capture the main issues they face with Gemini and were very pleased to receive 180 responses. We assessed these responses during the meeting and began forming a picture of which issues caused the most concern for users. A discussion followed with Observatory and National Gemini Office staff where one of the major issues became readily apparent: Gemini has not communicated effectively with its user community, because many of the specific issues the users raised had already been solved. This is great news for the user community, but flags an important communication issue between users and the Observatory that needs to be addressed. The Committee distilled the users’ input and our experience at the telescope into a report listing a series of issues that the community experiences and specific recommendations for the Observatory to address. There were also a number of areas in which the Committee wanted to commend the Observatory for its efforts in addressing user needs. If you would like to share thoughts on this document, or the Observatory in general, please feel free to contact any member of the UCG listed below. Mike Gladders, Chair: [email protected] Vicky Alonso: [email protected] Sarah Brough: [email protected] Eduardo Cypriano: [email protected] Craig Heinke: [email protected] Armin Rest: [email protected] Tom Richtler: [email protected] Stuart Ryder: [email protected] The Committee also would like to thank the Gemini Observatory for supporting every aspect of their visit. Sarah Brough is a Research Astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory in Sydney, Australia. She can be reached at: [email protected] This report has been delivered to the Director of the Observatory for his response and and will be available on the Gemini website. 44 GeminiFocus December2012