h17

The old year is over and a new one has just started, but our life is never flat: we have news, good and worrying, we exclude the adjective “bad”.
We have a new EGO director. Federico Ferrini has been with us for a few weeks, and we already feel very easy with him, as if we had been working together for much longer. We wish him a long and very satisfactory mandate, as was that of Jacques Colas. We are happy to publish an article by each of them.
Worries, we have a few: not having yet boosted the sensitivity as we were expecting with the new monolithic suspensions; not having yet confirmed the 2011 budget (although, happily, this worry has already passed); not having yet fully agreed the Advanced Virgo optical scheme. To list the major ones.
Hopes: we have many, at least we are confident of soon overcoming all of the problems and rapidly progressing forward.
As for surprises, well, we had a big snow-fall on December 17th, as shown in the cover page picture and, at the other extreme, a fire near the site, as covered in Fred’s safety article, but let us hope that the best surprises are still to come…

C.Bradaschia
Chief Editor