NPIC-AFS
March 6, 2008 at the Lakeway Inn, Bellingham, WA
EXCOM Conference Meeting Notes
Attending: Eric Knudsen, Julie Henning, Rachel Keeler, Jim Shannon, Mark Pederson, Larry Dominguez, Cleve Steward, Keith Wolf, Tad Schwager
Election and nominations
We need to send out a ballot for 2 positions, Assistant Newsletter and Vice President as well as a ballot for the name change. The voting will be completed electronically. There was discussion about having the Secretary/Treasurer job split. It was decided that it may be better to have an assistant Secretary/Treasurer position instead.
Eric suggested that it is very healthy for our organization to have 2 candidates to vote on for an election. Eric asked for ideas on people to fill the positions. Cleve asked us to review the individual duties of the ExCom positions including Vice President, President Elect, and President. Keith suggested that who ever engages now could also help with the 2009, 2010, and 2011 meetings. He suggested we ask NOAA and WDFW to market these positions. Also, visiting key politicians may help provide ideas for nominations.
There was discussion about creating a position to find and archive information. Gary Sprague has a lot of files and we should get these into an electronic format. Also, there is many other documents that end up getting lost because we don’t have a central location to keep the archives. Mark suggested that we may want to work with University of Washington to store archives. Keith suggested DART which is a fisheries database to store information.
Genetics Meeting
WDFW contacted NPIC about co-sponsoring a genetics conference in Olympia in June. NPIC members would be invited.
Larry made a motion based on the initial letter that we approve the idea of partnering with WDFW on this conference. Rachel seconded the motion.
Eric will call Todd from WDFW to work to get an agreement set up.
Contributions from NPIC
The parent society has requested that chapters contribute funds toward the national conference. We discussed contributing $500 toward a poster or booth at the exhibit during the Ottawa AGM
Jim motioned to give $500 to the Ottawa conference for the AGM. I don’t have a second???
Debriefing of the Meeting
Rachel commented on the student activities. Students really increased and improved the science and overall program of the conference. She said she would like to review the student judging criteria, refine the form for next year and plan ahead to get judges next time.
Eric assigned Tad to work with the students and to have presentations on how AFS can benefit their career. Cleve emphasized the importance of having job fairs and connecting with students. He suggested that we co-sponsor some student socials next year to connect with university facility that are willing to support AFS. We need to provide an incentive for those professors such as if you give a paper at the AGM and bring say 3-5 student their registration is free.
Ways to improve the overall program include: longer breaks between sessions, including a longer lunch, give more specific instructions for visual aids, need to have stricter deadlines, their were problems with the A/V equipment that will need to be worked out next year. Also, posters and exhibitors together worked out well. People liked having two socials. Finally, a comment was made to get the program up on the web 2-3 weeks before the conference.
Keith and Greg’s monitoring proposal
A motion was announced to appoint Keith and Greg to a monitoring committee called the Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation Committee (RME). The first task would be to provide a product of the symposium RME to the ExCom and ask for their review.
Also, there was discussion about getting a booth at the Western Division in Portland. That booth would be an NPIC booth and focus on the 2009/2011 AGMs.
2009 AGM
Jim requested that everyone at the meeting review all fisheries calendars and events to find the best week to hold the 2009 AGM. He asked us to do this before the next conference call on March 27th. At that next meeting we need to figure out the timeframe, place, and after those are decided start working on the conference theme.
Jim discussed that the general plan that Skamania could work was questioned because he got some feedback from the meeting that folks may want to stay closer to Puget Sound. Some ideas on the table include: Skamania, Rochester, Microsoft, Olympia, and Shelton. The ExCom continued to brainstorm about the location with the overriding goal being to select a location that could have the biggest attendance.
Meeting adjourned at 3:45?