TradeWinds Island Grand Resort
St. Pete Beach, Florida

June 29, 2005

 

The Annual Business Meeting of the Teratology Society was called to order by President Ken Jones at approximately 5:00 PM. There were 37 regular members in attendance at the start of the meeting.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Ken Jones reviewed the progress the Society has made in implementing our Strategic Plan during his year in office. The various areas were highlighted and the progress made in each of the action items was presented.

This year, the Office of the President has created a new Diversity Committee, which held its first meeting ever. The focus of this committee will be to emphasize the widely diverse nature of our membership and to focus on ways to utilize this diversity as a strength, not a weakness of the Teratology Society.

VICE PRESIDENT’S REPORT - Melissa Tassinari thanked the program committee for their tremendous program. The Society had 350 registrants for the meeting this year; we have had our normal excellent exchanges of scientific programs with NBTS, OTIS and with BTS this year.

All students presenting at the meeting were awarded $500 travel awards by a combination of grants and awards from the Society itself.

The Beach Party, which will be held inside due to rain, will have slide presentations of the attendees from the meeting this year. Bob Parker was thanked for providing this photographic history of the meeting for this year and for the last number of years.

VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT’S REPORT – Elaine Faustman presented slides indicating that the meeting next year will be at the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, Arizona. The meeting dates are June 24 – 29, 2006. Housing costs negotiated by the Society for this meeting will be $105/night for regular members and $89/night for students. Elaine also pointed out that the temperature in Tucson would be about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but there was a low probability of rain.

SECRETARY’S REPORT – George Dearlove announced that the campaign to “recapture” delinquent members who had not paid their dues last year was partially successful. However, there are still 57 members who have not paid their 2004 dues. There are also 123 members who have not paid their dues for 2005. This number does not include the Sustaining Member category which has lost seven members this year. This means that of the 729 members on the roster, only 549 have paid their dues in the last two years. The Secretary will be contacting each of these members within the next two months to determine if they really wanted to withdraw from the Society, or if there were some clerical error that put their names on the list.

TREASURER’S REPORT – Ida Washington reported the current status of the Society financial figures for 2004.

Council will move forward with an investment plan that will put 25% of Society funds in higher yield/higher risk investments; 65% in fixed return/secure investments and 10% of funds will be retained as liquid investments to cover operating expenses.

There was some discussion of this plan by those members in attendance.

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE REPORT – Deborah Hansen reported that the Journal Royalties this year were in excess of $117,000; the Wilson Publication Award Winner this year was Karen Augustine, Ph.D.; the Wiley Liss Symposium was a great success; and we have a new representative from Wiley Liss who is attending the meeting.

Additionally, all regular members will still have electronic access to all three parts of the Journal through 2006 and we can expect the price of the Journal to remain constant until 2008 (at which time the subscription rate is expected to increase by $5.00 = $70.00 for Part A or Part B with all receiving Part C, or $120 for those subscribing to all three parts).

All early issues of Teratology are now available electronically to members (institutions have to purchase electronic access as a package) and Wiley is working on getting back issues of TCM available electronically as well.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE – Tina Chambers reported for Tony Scialli that the Causation paper was recently published in Part A of the Journal, the Obesity paper is almost completed and the committee is beginning work on a paper defining usage of the word “safe” in labeling.

The committee would also like to make the Primer (all received complementary copies in their registration package) available to the public and is seeking suggestions from the membership.

NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS COMMITTEE REPORT – Dana Shuey reported the results of the 2005 elections. All candidates were strongly supported by membership votes. The Vice President-Elect this year is Tom Knudsen and the new Council Member (for a three year term) is Ed Carney.

Dana thanked the members who ran against these individuals and asked that they continue to remain active in the Society.

STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE – Mike Collins reported that 32 students received $500 travel awards this year. $1,000 came from Eli Lilly, $5,000 from the NIH Grant and $10,000 from the Teratology Society. Mike thanked the Society for its continued support of students.

EDUCATION COMMITTEE – Eve Mylchreest announced that the Stem Cell Continuing Education Course had 106 registrants and the Mini-Course on Developmental Immunotoxicology had 86 registrants.

CTBR (a Charles River Laboratories Company) and Keith Robinson were acknowledged for providing the course books for both courses. The quality of both sets of materials was again outstanding.

The Committee is still looking for ideas for future course topics and members were urged to let the members know if they wanted to assist in the future.

Bill Scott requested that Council consider some permanent recognition for Narsingh Agnish for his early work in establishing the Education Course and for having his employer provide the course materials for most of the early years. Council was to take up this motion at the Council II meeting following the Annual Meeting.

WEBSITE COMMITTEE – Robert Felix reported that a great many of the website links had been modified, but more activity is needed by the members themselves.
The Primer will be put on the Website and the fetal slide set will be removed. This will be in the public access of the site to further utilization of the primer.

The Membership Directory will be available as a PDF download by this Fall.

The committee is in need of students who are interested in helping with the Student part of the Web pages.

The winner of the Fraser Award is going to be posted up front this year.

MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE – Bob Brent asked the membership to stand in silent remembrance of three members who have recently passed away. Bob then pointed out the listing of new members for the year and asked those who were considering the emeritus status to remain active as full dues paying members.

Retention of older members as active, participating members was discussed and remanded to Council II for further discussion.

BYLAWS COMMITTEE – Linda Roberts indicated that two changes were being requested in the bylaws as indicated in the handouts: the terms of Vice Chair, Chair and Past-Chair were discussed and the rationale for the change was presented. This revision may be necessary for many committees and the Bylaws Committee with review the Bylaws and make recommendations for discussion at the Annual Meeting next year.

BIOINFORMATICS, GENOMICS AND PROTEOMICS COMMITTEE – Tom Knudsen reviewed the charge to and the function of this Ad Hoc committee for the membership.

Tom reported the mini course on Bioinformatics this year had 53 registrants and the Symposium following the mini-course will be a good one tomorrow.

The goals of the Committee are first to have a long-term project of constructing a formal Ontology of Malformations and Associated changes. (D. Wise and E. Faustman are going to spearhead this endeavor). Secondly, to establish a Birth Defects System Manager (computer program) that will be on display at the meeting for all to use. This is to be a Society-wide function. Third, Tom is stepping down as Chair after two years and has suggested the President appoint George Daston to be the new Ad Hoc Committee Chairperson.

NOMENCLATURE (TERMINOLOGY) COMMITTEE – Sue Makris indicated that the committee requested recommendations for terminology updates and corrections from the Teratology Society, the European Teratology Society, and the Japanese Teratology Society.

To date, MARTA/MTA input has been received, Minimal comments were forthcoming from JTS and the ETS has just sent their comments.

The work phase is now being planned and D. Wise, K-W Hew and K. Hazleton have been added to the committee. Recommendations for comment by the membership are targeted for this Fall.

TERATOLOGY SOCIETY PRIMER – Barbara Hales thanked the people in Tony Scialli’s lab for their efforts in getting the publication put together and printed. The Society has had 20,000 copies made for distribution to graduate and medical students. The intent is to introduce the field of Teratology to the students. The publication will be distributed at no charge to students. Members who want copies for technical staff in their labs will be asked to pay a $10.00 charge to cover \storage, shipping and handling. The main intent is to get as many copies into the hands of students as possible.

NEW BUSINESS:

B. Brent asked about the financial plans being followed. What are the current Society investments, what were the associated costs and what interest rates are we obtaining.

Legg Mason, our investment firm, does not charge us a management fee; they make their commission on trades.
The Certificates of Deposit have been invested over a number of years and each of them was for a maturation term of five years and was invested at the best interest rate available at the time of investment. One matures each year in the current scheme.

P. Mirkes asked what the plans were for investing the Royalty from Wiley Liss. There are many places where the Society could use the money, and the annual amount is not guaranteed beyond the $50,000 noted in the contract. The general discussion indicated that the membership was in favor of using some of the funds to support student travel and for Educational Outreach programs. An additional portion will be used to invest as the Society strives to achieve one and one-half times its normal operating costs in a reserve. This is the minimal amount recommended for non-profit organizations to guarantee stability.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 6:00 PM.