SRP 1998: Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Board

Present: Mike Raulin, Mike O'Hara, Greg Miller, Barbara Cornblatt, Deborah Levy, Phil Holzman, Keith Nuechterlein, Ray Knight, Jill Hooley, Richard Davidson, Suzanne King, Scott Monroe, Lee Anna Clark, Michael Green

Unable to attend: Mike Dawson, Elaine Walker, Howard Berenbaum

Called to order at 6:20 PM by Mike O'Hara for Phil Holzman

Welcome of new board members (Keith Nuechterlein and Barbara Cornblatt) and the new secretary (Mike Raulin)

Local Arrangements: Jill Hooley

Jill reported that attendance looks strong for the convention. She expects to break the old record for attendance. The hotel is not charging us for the space because we have met other contractual obligations. Mike O'Hara thanked Jill for her fine work with local arrangements.

Meeting turned back to Phil Holzman upon his arrival

Program Committee: Deborah Levy

Deborah reported a 71% increase in Smadar Levin Award applications this year. There were more papers this year, and the program is expected to be quite packed. Deborah noted that there were problems with informing non-members about arrangements for the conference. Suzanne King suggested a web site for local arrangements, which she had planned to set up for next year's convention. Mike Raulin will look into getting a suitable domain name for an SRP web site. Deborah suggested that the "work in progress" category be dropped or clarified because many of the submissions had no data at all. No formal action was taken, but it was agreed that the program chair should try to clarify this category in the next call. There was some discussion about clarifying the criteria for the Smadar Levin Award to indicated that the project should be complete at the time of the meeting in order to be competitive. Deborah noted that there seems to be some confusion about how sponsorships should be counted. After considerable discussion, a motion was made to clarify the situation.

Motion: Each member is allowed to present or sponsor a maximum of three items on the program, one of which can be an oral presentation (paper, symposium, etc.). Counted in that list of three items are any sponsorships or co-authorships, including sponsorships of Smadar Levin Award posters. Motion passed unanimously.

There was a brief discussion of the policy on honoraria and expenses for speakers. The society normally pays all reasonable expenses for the Zubin Award Winners and a small honorarium for other invited speakers. This year the program committee made a concerted effort to bring in invited speakers from the Boston area to minimize expenses.

Motion: Any non-member invited speaker at the SRP conference (invited presentation or symposium presentation) will have their registration fee for the conference waved. Motion passed unanimously.

Membership Committee: Barbara Cornblatt

27 completed applications (14 full members and 13 associate members) were presented and accepted for membership.

New Full Members: Nicholas B. Allen, Mary C. Blehar, Tyrone D. Cannon, Yue Chen, Irene Elkins, Gordon C. Nagayama Hall, Edward S. Katkin, Carolyn M. Pepper, Seth D. Pollak, John H. Riskind, Paul D. Rokke, Debra Titone, Anne Wuerker, Til Wykes

New Associate Members: Heather L. Barnett, Joanna Brownstein, Helen Bruce, Michael Coleman, J. Jeffrey Crowson, Jr., Michelle Friedman, Lauren Korfine, Stuart Quirk, Esther Rabinowicz, Amy Schaffer, William A. Schmitt, Denise Sloan, Mitzi S. White

We discussed having some resources for membership, such as the membership list and recent newsletters, available on a web site for the organization. An ad hoc committee was appointed (O'Hara, Raulin, King, Cornblatt, and Knight) to look into a web site.

With the new members, the organization now has more than 200 members, although Ray Knight reports that some members have not paid dues and therefore are about to be dropped from the membership rolls.

Treasurers Report: Ray Knight

Ray reported that we had 70 member and 91 non-member preregistrations for the conference and that at this pace we will likely break an attendance record. He reported that expenses last year were higher than expected, but that we came close to covering conference expenses from registration fees. The fees for this year's conference were adjusted to reflect the experience of last year. Ray reported that he anticipated that total expenses for this year's conference should be between $14,000 and $18,000. He will break out the expenses after the conference to provide guidance for Suzanne King, who will handle local arrangements for next year's conference in Montreal.

There was a brief discussion of raising dues, but it was decided to take this matter up at Sunday's Board meeting.

Local Arrangements for 1999 Conference: Suzanne King

Suzanne reported that she has been negotiating with a hotel in Montreal for next year's conference. The room rate that she was quoted was $160 Canadian (about $100 US). After some discussion, it was decided that the conference would be held the weekend of November 4, 1999 to November 7, 1999.

Meeting was adjourned at 7:55PM

Respectfully submitted,

Michael Raulin

Secretary