Thursday, June 10, 2004 at 4:00 PM (EDT) / 1:00 PM (PDT)

Council members in attendance: R. Tyl, President; K. Jones, Vice President; M. Tassinari, Vice President-Elect; Wm. Slikker, Past President; J. Rogers, Treasurer; G. Dearlove, Secretary; J. Graham, R. Parker and P. Wier, Councilors; R. Miller, Chair of Publication Committee; T. Chambers, Chair of Public Affairs Committee and T. Masson, Executive Director.

President’s Report – Shelley Tyl

Fundraising Update –

The contributions for the Annual Meeting are currently approximately $30,000 below the budgeted amount ($58,000 rather than $88,000 year to date). Possible reasons were discussed and Council felt that part of the shortfall was due to consolidation of many of the contributing companies and to the reduced amounts made available by granting agencies.

If we are unable to gain last minute contributions, the meeting may run at a loss for the year. Part of this potential short fall is related to the Council decision to give each student presenting a platform or poster a $500 travel grant (see below for numbers).

Registration numbers are slightly above the numbers for this time last year (357 registered) however the total for last year reached 370 with late registrations. The number of student registrations is up this year (45 vs 22 last year)

Council suggested the creation of an Ad Hoc Committee to look into having fundraising activities continue throughout the year (including the activities of grant applications) and to more fully coordinate these activities with OTIS and NBTS. G. Dearlove was appointed chair and is to meet with the appropriate representatives from OTIS and NBTS at the Annual Meeting.

On the up side, the Hotel has not required a specific room block for the meeting this year, so we do not have to worry about meeting the room night requirements.

Issues Forum Agenda (June 28 – 4-5 PM—10 minutes each)

Council discussed the topics for the Issues Forum and R. Miller agreed to request the Editors of BDR-A, -B and –C report to the membership with 10 minute power point presentations. T. Knudsen will be given 15-20 minutes to report on the progress the Bioinformatics Committee has made this past year. P. Wier will have the remainder to discuss the various possibilities of holding a joint meeting with another Scientific Society. The members will be asked to voice their opinion on some of the possible approaches (joint symposium, joint meeting, federation style meeting, etc)

Vice President/Program Committee – Ken Jones

Annual Meeting Update/Issues

The program for the AM has been printed and distributed in the Journal. One complaint has been submitted by a number of former Society Presidents. These individuals felt that there were not enough platform presentation sessions to accommodate the increased number of students this year. Council discussed ways to add more sessions without overloading on concurrent platform presentations. Wm. Slikker to ask for clarification from letter authors as to what was the main concern, too few sessions on one day, too few days with platform sessions, too many concurrent platform sessions on the one day of presentations, etc.

The current program committee had 19 abstracts that requested platform presentation only, 55 abstracts that said they would do either platform or poster presentation and 66 abstracts that requested only the poster format.

Council Annual Meeting Evaluation

There were very limited responses to the questionnaire distributed at last year’s meeting and Council discussed ways to increase membership input for this year. The decision was made to have a selected number of Council members actually canvas five or six members with the questionnaire at the meeting this year. The resultant feedback will then be published in the Newsletter so the members can evaluate their responses in relationship with other members’ opinions. The questionnaire will be limited to the Annual Meeting to avoid being too broad for this initial approach at capturing the membership input.

Vice President-Elect/Site Selection – Melissa Tassinari

Future exhibits & Future meetings—decision for 2006/07

Council reviewed the hotel data gathered by AIM for site selection for the Annual Meeting for 2006 and 2007. In order to fully evaluate the space to be made available at the various hotels, Council had to first determine if the Society would continue to have a designated Exhibitor Space at the Annual Meeting. To evaluate this issue, Council reviewed the costs/contributions of the exhibit space and the increased numbers of hotel package that would be qualified to host our meeting if we did not require the additional exhibit area in the same location as the Society functions. A preliminary decision was made (by voice vote) to move forward in 2006 without the additional space necessary for exhibits. This decision resulted in the selection of the Loews Hotel in Tucson as the site of the 2006 meeting (room rate quoted at $105).

Discussion of the site for the 2007 meeting, consequent to the decision to eliminate the exhibitor space requirements, was inconclusive. AIM will gather more data on the various hotels in question and Council will decide the location of the Annual Meeting in 2007 at Council I session of this year’s Annual Meeting.

Publications Committee – Rich Miller

Publisher Issues (Lack of Communication from Publisher Representative)
Subscription increase for 2005- exact amount has not yet been finalized by the publisher. R. Miller is trying to get them to commit to a figure before the Annual Meeting.

Electronic Access to BDR- the cost/no cost issues about electronic copies of the Journal are not yet finalized. R. Miller to press Wiley-Liss for details prior to the Annual Meeting.

Public Affairs Committee – Tina Chambers

NIAAA Workshop Update

To date there are about 90 registrants for the workshop. The NIAAA is sending two Educators to help with the workshop. They will have free curriculum materials for all registrants to take back to their respective school districts. The speakers being provided are reported to have a great deal of experience in speaking at workshops and this appears to be an ideal program for them.

Special Presentations to Council

Who to invite, purpose of presentation, and when

FDA White Paper/CDER/FDA Presentation was distributed by M. Tassinari and may be discussed at Council II

National Children’s Study Presentation will be presented by C. Kimmel on Sunday, so does not need to come before Council at the Annual Meeting.

Maternal Fetal Medicine Presentation & SPER Presentation will both be invited to Council I together (reflecting the joint symposium they are coordinating)

High School Student Poster – Robert Parker

Poster variations prepared by A. Parker were discussed and the version incorporating a radiograph provided by J. Graham was selected for production to be distributed to all attendees at the Annual Meeting. The purpose of the poster is to encourage younger students to stay in the science programs at their schools. Council approved printing 5,000 copies and purchase of 500 mailing tubes to facilitate transport of the posters by the meeting attendees. The posters are to be displayed prominently throughout the meeting and attendees will be encouraged to distribute them to the school districts in their home locations.

Council dismissed until Council I on Saturday, June 26, 2004 in Vancouver.