Present: Howard Berenbaum, Nancy Docherty, Suzanne King, Ray Knight, David Miklowitz, Keith Nuechterlein, Mike O'Hara, Mike Raulin, Elaine Walker, Mike Young,
Unable to attend: Robert Bilder, Barbara Cornblatt, Robert Dworkin
Called to order at 7:35 AM by Elaine Walker
Elaine thanked Suzanne King for her excellent work as the local arrangement chair and Michael Young for his excellent work on the Program.
Nancy Docherty has agreed to be program chair for next year’s conference.
Ray Knight suggested that we might want to have the fee set by the local arrangements person based on the costs. This would probably represent a slight increase in the meeting fee over past conferences.
Motion: That the registration fee be set to 115% of the estimated cost of the next meeting to provide a little cushion so that the meeting covers costs. Motion passed unanimously.
Mike O’Hara noted that we need to elect a new board member to replace Elaine Walker who became president this year. He proposed that Ray Knight be drafted to the board. It was approved unanimously.
The issue of honorariums to speakers was raised. Last year we gave honoraria because we had no travel expenses. This year we also gave honoraria, but we do not have a formal policy on this. It is difficult for program chairs to get good speakers without offering some honorarium. Several people felt that an honorarium was quite reasonable. There was some discussion of honoraria for members who give invited talks as well.
Motion: That we pay a $500 honorarium to each invited speaker, member or nonmember, and that we will also waive the cost of registration for nonmember speakers. Motion passed unanimously.
We discussed further the issue of seeking external support for the meeting. Mike O’Hara noted that there did not seem to be opposition in the general membership meeting. Howard Berenbaum suggested that we need a general policy to cover the solicitation of sources of support. Elaine Walker suggested that our guidelines for support should be that outside sources of support should not have influence on the nature of the program. There is a sense that some members have strong feelings about having drug company sponsorship. Mike O’Hara suggested that we draft a proposal to circulate among the members through the listserv. Mike O’Hara noted that it is a lot of effort to attract support money, and it is not clear who would solicit the money. It probably would take someone with a personal relationship to start the process of approaching companies. Keith Neuchterlein noted that most drug companies would probably not be interested in advertising to us because we have so few MDs. Since people with contacts with companies are likely to be better at getting funds from companies, it might be better to have a subcommittee, separate from program and local arrangements, to solicit support. People on the subcommittee would have individual connections. Elaine suggested that there might be a request among members to contribute to such a committee. Potential members include Phil Harvey, Bob Bilder, Nina Schooler, and Richie Davidson because of either their interests or their connections. There was considerable discussion of whether it would be better to solicit funds for specific things or whether it would be better to try to get funds for unspecified costs. As the conference grows, we may want to use funds to hire people to help organize the conference. Looks like we are not ready to seek external funding for the next meeting. We will discuss this among the members.
A proposal was raised at the women’s presentations about the distinct difference between papers and posters. It was suggested that there might be a lunch session with oral presentations by students, probably advanced students. The question was whether people would show up was raised, as was the question of information overload for members. It was suggested that it might be useful to plan an experimental procedure for next yea, most likely a lunch program. If it does not work, we can always rethink the idea at next year’s board meeting.
Next Year’s Meeting: David asked about the budget for the meeting. He would like to be able to hire an assistant to help with the details. It was noted that our earlier decision to set the conference fee at a rate sufficient to cover the costs of the conference.
We discussed the possibility building in some sight seeing time. There were considerable differences of opinion on how that handle this. There may be costs associated with having sessions run later than we currently do because some hotel will require considerably higher fees for the room.
The issue of how many posters, papers, or symposia a person could participate in was raised again for discussion. There was considerable discussion about the problem of how to handle the number of presentations. The program committee does need some guidelines to help handle the problem of the number of papers and posters. The physical limitations may be the defining issue in some years. It was proposed that we might discourage non-author sponsorship. No formal action was taken.
Suzanne made a number of suggestions for next year’s meetings. She suggested that it might be a good idea to try to mail out the program in advance to all members. She also suggested that it would be helpful to have the secretary’s database include a field for affiliation for the badge. We should also have non-members on the mailing list. Mike Raulin will look into ways of sharing the database more easily. We also considered the possibility of having the web site indicate who has registered.
We discussed the possibility of supporting the use of equipment to allow PowerPoint presentations. We decided it should be a decision of the local arrangement person.
The issue of the meeting for 2002 was raised. Mike O’Hara suggested that he would be willing to host it in Iowa City. Ann Kring had suggested that she might be willing to host in the Bay area. Sherri Johnson had suggested that she would be willing to host in Miami. It would be nice to have it on the West Coast because we have not had many meetings on the West Coast.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:25 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael Raulin
Secretary
