Meeting Notes for SRP Board Meeting
Teleconference – Friday December 2nd, 2005
Present
Michael Green
Michael Young
Michael Pogue-Geile
Deanna Barch
Marty Harrow
Keith Nuechterlein
Lee Anna Clark
Tom Widiger
Ann Kring
Dan Klein
David Miklowitz
1) Secretary’s Report – Deanna Barch
a) Previous Meeting Notes Approved
b) Results of online voting
Extending terms: 58 yes, 2 no
Program: 56 yes, 3 no, 1 no vote
Federation: 56 yes, 3 no, 1 no vote
c) Review of this year’s election results.
President – Scott Monroe
Treasurer – Michael Young
Board Members – Tom Oltmanns and Sheri
2) Treasurer’s Report – Michael Young
We took in $840 of dues for 2005 calendar year. We took in $3860 in dues for 2005-2006 year
We received $5000 from Bristol-Meyer’s Squibb, which we can keep for next year’s conference. We also received $5000 each from Jansen and Pfizer, which we had to return. We also received $350 from Thompson-Learning, which we can keep for next year’s conference. Approximately 12 people asked that their banquet and conference fees be kept for next year. All others were refunded. We had approximately $3000 dollars of expenses. These expenses included Web and credit card fees, both for people paying for their conference fees and for refunding their fees. In the future, should we have to refund a large number of fees again, it may be less expensive and no more time-consuming to simply send checks. We had a net on the year of an income of ~ $10,000. However, ~$8,000 is committed to next year’s meeting. We need to pay the web -site manager ~$3,500. We started out the year with $25,000, and we have ~$79,000 in our investments. Thus, we have total assessments of approximately $115,000.
3) Investment Report – Marty Harrow
The finance committee is a three-person committee consisting of: Marty Harrow, Keith Nuechterlein, and Michael Young. We invested in Fidelity Funds. We choose Fidelity for three reasons: 1) it is a large company that provides many different choices: 2) there is a great deal of information available about the performance of Fidelity funds; and 3) they are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Michael Young raised the issue of how to formalize oversight of the investments. We agreed to review the investment portfolio every 6 months and when there is a major change to the investment plan. The question was raised as to whether this committee is an ad hoc committee. If not, then it needs to be added to the bylaws as a formal committee. The board’s preference was to make it a permanent committee and to add it to the by-laws).
4) Revision of Bylaws
Discussion of how to proceed with suggested changes in bylaws. Under the current bylaws, we need to wait for the next meeting to discuss the proposed changes with the members. However, we had discussed the possibility that issues related to the recent cancellation of the meeting and how some of the decisions resulting from this should be incorporated into the changes in the bylaws. For example, the bylaws currently do not clarify who has the authority to cancel the meeting. In particular, the suggestion is that we draft an emergency powers section. It was suggested that we use phrasing involving the decision being made by the officers of the board with the approval of the board members. In San Diego, the Board will endorse the changes and it will go before a vote before the membership at the Business Meeting, followed by a formal paper vote.
5) SRP Development Committee
This is an ad-hoc committee formed three years ago for a trial period. It had a trial period because of concerns that active fundraising may change the feel of the meetings. Feedback that Michael Green has gotten suggests that the members do not feel that this fundraising has changed the feel. We have raised $45,000 dollars, in addition to previous funds raised by Michael Green, for a total of approximately $70,000. We have to return $10,000 this year, but have been encouraged to apply again next year. However, the committee has decided to disband. The reason for this is that the reasons for forming the development committee no longer apply. The formation of the committee was based on the approach that one requests funds from a regional industry representative. However, the unrestricted education grants have been completely revised and now are all reviewed centrally and in a very formal fashion. Thus, the concept of having connections in order to request funds no longer applies. The proposal is that we continue to request funds, with the president and treasurer submitting applications. One of the implications of this process, though, is that we will need a program overview earlier in the conference planning process than the time at which this program overview has been typically produced. This program overview would need to include invited speakers and possible titles for symposia and paper sessions. This would be needed by early spring, such as February or March. Michael Raulin has been approaching publishing companies. This year he had two interested, Thompson and Atomic Dog. Thompson will push back to next year. Michael Raulin raised the issue that Guilford is interested in buying our mailing list. The board discussed this issue and agreed that we do not wish to give out our mailing list even for payment. Stuart Steinhauer submitted an R13 application for conference support. The grant did not get a fundable score on the first submission (low 200s), but we have not yet received our critiques. We wish to thank Stuart Steinhauer for the great work that he did in submitting this application. In addition, Stuart S is willing to revise and resubmit the application.
6) Website Committee
The website committee wanted to raise the issue that Angus MacDonald was approached by Larry Seidman about advertising a conference that he is organizing on the web-site. This raised the question of whether we should add an announcements page. We would need to clarify what constitutes an announcement, setting reasonable guidelines. We could call it conferences and meetings to clarify that this is the type of thing to be advertised. The Website committee added a new jobs page to the web site, as well as a new award page. The website had it first year of on-line payment. It went well overall. There were still a large number of people who registered by check, which was fine. We lose about 3% of payments due to Paypal fees. We did not get mailing addresses, email, affiliation, etc. for payments. The Web site will be changed to acquire this information. It became clear over the course of the year that a number of pages can be updated quite easily by the web-site committee. However, there are a number of things that Aaron still has to do. Thus, over the next year, the committee will approach Aaron to find out if he can change the structure of the web site to make it more changeable. The virtual conference is up. The web-site committee wondered whether this should be a permanent feature of the website. This would allow members who could not attend the meeting to get the information. The Board agreed that it would be a good idea to do this every year, and to keep the information up for one year. One issue that it will raise is the issue of whether slides can be “borrowed” if they are put on the website. It was suggested that people put their information on the website as pdfs to reduce the borrowing of slides. It will be voluntary for people to upload their presentation. It was also suggested that there be a statement on the website indicating that you need to get the permission of the author if you wish to borrow any of the information on the website. A goal for the upcoming year is to move the membership application on-line. Another goal will be complete the resources page. The committee expects that the costs for these changes will be approximately $3,600. The board agreed to these expenses. The membership committee would like to move ahead with the original rotation schedule proposed for the committee given that the membership of the committee is not strongly tied to the occurrence of the annual meeting. The hope is that the person who rotates onto the committee would be willing to become the chair in the following year (Angus MacDonald will chair the committee in the upcoming year). LeeAnna Clark suggested that we think about reminding members once a quarter that the job posting section is up and available.
Michael Pogue-Geile suggested that the posting on the website saying that the “most recent conference is complete” and “thanking the members for attending” should be deleted. In addition, there was work on getting an archive of former officers and old award winners, which has not yet been posted to the web site. This is change that needs to occur with Aaron Burke’s help. The question was also raised as to whether to archive previous newsletters, programs. The board agreed that this is a cost-benefit issue. If the web site committee can get more control of the web site, then a work-study could be hired to do this fairly inexpensively.
7) Membership and Poster Presentations
The issue related to whether an SRP member needed to be a co-author on a poster presentation of a non-member, as some people who are in the process of applying for membership may want to present. It was suggested that we change the rules so that a member has to sponsor the poster, but does not have to be an author on the poster. We could also say that anyone who has applied for membership, then the person sponsoring the application could also sponsor the poster. However, Keith Nuechterlein noted that some people would like to attend the meeting once before deciding whether they wish to apply. Thus, it was suggested that people be allowed to present once if sponsored by a member, but the member does not need to be an author. If they wish to present again, they must either become a member or have a member as a sponsor and co-author.. Michael Young recommended that we change the fees for pending members, as people get confused as to how they should register. Our non-member registration is currently the sum of member registration plus dues. Thus, Michael Young suggested that people who applied for membership should be told to pay their dues and register as a member. If they were not accepted for membership, then Michael Young would change their fee to a non-member registration. This would be a notational change only, and would not change the amount of money they were required to pay.
8) Dual Tracking at 2006 Meeting
Scott Sponheim requested that the board consider dual tracking for the 2006 meeting to deal with the issue that there will be more constraint in the development of the 2006 program due to the carry over in program from the cancelled 2005 meeting. This issue was not resolved and will be discussed further at the next teleconference.
9) Dates / locations of future meetings
– 2006 San Diego, CA (October 12th -15th)
– 2007 Iowa City, IA (Oct 4th – 7th)
– 2008 Pittsburgh, PA
– 2009 Minneapolis, MN