1. Technical news:

• The replacement of the vacuum control system is ongoing as well as the work on the target area and the new front-end FE6. The advancement is very satisfactory.
• The new PVSS control system should be tested in the next weeks.
• A new PC for the control of the new front-end and robot control should be installed locally (building 179).
• A new insulator for the HRS Boris tube has been delivered. It will be installed at HRS. The insulator at GPS will be inspected and cleaned. However, this may not be sufficient to guarantee operation at 60kV or even 50kV next year. This would affect solid state physics and laser spectroscopy. Replacement of the GPS Boris tube will be done next year.
• Cooling water will be available again on the 26 of February.

• A new smoke-detection system will be installed. During the installation the crane has to be shared with the team working on it.
• Enlarging the door to the hall extension for the removal of the MISTRAL magnet is still not authorized by the responsible department at CERN. This should happen during February.
• The shielding of REX should be completed this week.

2. A.O.B.:

• The call for abstracts for the European Radioactive Ion Beam Conference EURORIB 2010 which will take place in Lamoura - Jura is currently standing until 15 of February (It will be extended to Feb. 22). Students and postdocsare particularly encouraged to submit abstracts (through INDICO). There will be grants available for some young people who present oral or poster contributions.
• Projects for summer students should be submitted by February 12-th. At least 10 proposals from ISOLDE are expected. Copies of your projects should be sent to Yorickand Alex. We will discuss a ranking of the ISOLDE proposals at the Feb. 17 Group meeting.
• Two students from Slovakia have joined ISOLDE and the teams of ISOLTRAP and MINIBALL for the next 6 months.
• ISOLDE has been represented, at the Spiral-2 week at GANIL, France and the workshop “Physics for health in Europe” at CERN.

3. Talks:

• Marek Pfützner(University of Warsaw) presented “Exotic nuclear decays in digital photography”. Marek is considering bringing his very nice apparatus to ISOLDE.

• Next week, 10/02 talk by Kirby Kemper (Florida State University) on reactions with light nuclei.
• 1-3 March MortenHjorth-Jensen (University of Olso)will give lectures on the latest advances in the nuclear shell model.

Minutes by DTY