TradeWinds Island Grand Resort
St. Pete Beach, Florida
June 25, 2005 

Attending – The second pre-meeting Council Meeting was attended by voting members K. Jones, President; M. Tassinari, Vice President; E. Faustman, Vice President-elect; R. Tyl, Past President; G. Dearlove, Secretary; I. Washington, Treasurer; K. Filkins, and R. Parker, Councilors. Non-voting members D. Hansen, Chairperson, Publications Committee and T. Masson, Executive Secretary were also present.

1. OTIS Certification – T. Chambers presented an idea from OTIS to Council regarding the possibility of the Teratology Society providing some sort of Certification for OTIS members. Some members have Genetic Counseling Certification or degrees, but many members have on the job training with varied backgrounds. The idea was to introduce some structure in order to provide public assurance that the OTIS members had at least a minimal level of training.

OTIS would set the qualifications with an ideal package to include training, mentoring, an internship and both a written and a practical exam. This proposal is in the early stages (OTIS membership has not yet been asked to vote on the proposal). OTIS is asking if the Teratology Society would like to be the host of the credentialing committee, etc.

Discussion followed regarding the actual costs of such an endeavor, the granting of CME units, the type of program outline to be followed, who will administer the exam, the books and the archives of this committee.

OTIS was asked to provide an outline for Council to review to determine if the Society is capable of assisting in moving this project forward.

2. Fraser Award Committee – I. Washington reported that there were four nominees from which to select the winner for this year. Susan Carmichael, Ph.D. is the award winner this year

Discussion followed on B. Brent request to expand the selection committee to include input from an older member of the Society.

MOTION made and passed: to increase the committee from four former Fraser award winners plus Council Liaison to five former winners plus Council Liaison. Additionally, Council Liaison will become a voting member of the Committee.

Proposed membership of the Committee:

for 2006 is J. Peters, I. Washington, K. Augustine, S. Carmichael and G. Dearlove;
for 2007 is I. Washington, K. Augustine, S. Carmichael, 2006 Award winner and Council Liaison;
for 2008 is K. Augustine, S. Carmichael, 2006 Award winner, 2007 Award Winner and Council Liaison.

3. Website Committee – R. Felix reported that the Website Committee had spent $3857 in 2004 and $1,500 so far in 2005. They are within their budget but are still waiting for guidance from Council on further Website revisions.

Currently able to determine the number of hits the Web has during any calendar day. The data also indicate the total amount of time spent on the site. There was a peak of activity around abstract submission deadline. The Committee is generating these data to establish some history of activity.

Ways to increase Committee membership and activity were discussed.

The Primer will be placed on the public access portion of the site.

4. Education Committee – E. Mylchreest indicated that the speakers were well received, that the course materials were again of excellent quality. The Chairperson for the Committee next year will be Gloria Jahnke. Some discussion followed regarding the insertion of slides by speakers when they were not part of the course materials. This is not an issue that can be changed because the slides have to be submitted so far in advance of the meeting and many speakers are constantly updating their material.

5. Nominations and Elections Committee – D. Shuey reported the results of the election. The new Vice President-elect is T. Knudsen and the new Council member is E. Carney (who will now become the Council Liaison to the Website Committee).
MOTION to certify and accept the report of the Nominations and Elections Committee.

6. Constitution and Bylaws Committee – the proposed changes were presented and Council approved presentation to the membership at the business meeting, after which the changes will be sent to the membership for approval.

Council asked the Committee to review the documents to verify that all appropriate committees have a carryover year wherein the previous committee chairperson remains on the committee to provide guidance for the new chairperson.

7. Membership Committee – B. Brent, after referring Council to the list of new members printed in the registration materials, led a discussion on what steps the Society could undertake to retain a greater percentage of our senior members. The suggestion most easily addressed was the assignment of senior members to various committees.

8. FASEB – B. Brent suggested there be an Ad Hoc membership in Council for the FASEB representative. That way, the representatives would know what positions Council wanted to take on various issues. This would also facilitate Council knowing what issues FASEB was considering. Presently, there is no information flow either direction. The current issue of concern is the new Conflict of Interest guidance that the NIH has proposed. This is very restrictive and should be argued against.

Current points of interest are: the average age for a first time NIH grant recipient is now 42 years old; FASEB is trying to argue for longer visas for foreign students; FASEB is working for better understanding of Security Controls for scientific information.

9. Bioinformatics, Genomics and Proteomics Ad Hoc Committee – T. Knudsen reported that the committee has had three teleconferences and one face-to-face meeting at the Annual Meeting. They have put on a mini-course and a symposium on Thursday and T. Knudsen has a demonstration model of the software package he wants members to consider for data downloads to try to generate a central file in order to create an ontology of birth defects.

10. Student Affairs Committee – M. Collins thanked Council for the financial support for student travel this year. M. Collins suggested we needed to try to arrange a student get together earlier in the meeting to facilitate more communication.

MOTION made and passed to have a graduates student/postdoctoral fellow mixer on Saturday night of the CE course next year. R. Parker will attempt to find a sponsor for this event for the meeting in Tucson.

No New Business was brought up and the meeting was adjourned.