EB-ESA Executive Committee Meeting, Ocean City, Maryland
Sunday afternoon, March 10th, 2002 Meeting Minutes prepared by R. R. Youngman, Secretary
Members present: Franco Badenes-Perez (Student Affairs Committee Representative for EB-ESA), George Hamilton, Ellen Klinger, Tom Kuhar, Jay McPherson (current President ESA National Organization) Brian Nault, Jan Nyrop, Jim Steffel, John Stoffolano, Susan Whitney, and Rod Youngman
1. Welcome and Opening Remarks by EB-ESA President: Jan Nyrop
2. Comments by ESA President:
Jay McPherson
Jay McPherson discussed the vague budgeting style of Darrel Hanson,
the Executive Director from 1979-1994. He said there was no micromanaging
or any real oversight of the budget by the ESA Governing Board.
After Hanson stepped down, the next two Executive Director's also
were fairly hands-off. Money was set aside for building maintenance,
but this was not being done. In 1998, the Governing Board hired
an engineering firm which determined that renovating the DC building
would be more expensive than constructing a new building from
scratch. The needed repairs would not increase the market value
of the building. Only the land occupied by the current building
was valuable. Building repairs were estimated at $1.4 million
over 5 years. In addition, computers at the DC office are antiquated.
The necessary upgrading and maintenance was estimated at $200,000.
In 2000, the Governing Board adopted a $267,000 deficit. This was necessary for electronic publishing, etc. In May 2001, the deficit budget was actually over $400,000 due to lack of sales. To solve this problem, Paula Lettice was asked to save $250,000. Paula came close to meeting this target. Unfortunately, inflation for the next year will cost an additional $100,000 to $150,000. This led to major restructuring. At the 2001 San Diego meeting, the Governing Board came up with 64 items needed to run the organization. The strategic plan has not changed, just some things the ESA National organization has done in the past have been shelved indefinitely.
The following Motion was passed: "Moved to eliminate sales of merchandise, the public affairs function (excluding the ESA Newsletter), and meetings support; consolidate marketing and membership; outsource membership services to save money; investigate outsourcing journal editing to save money; investigate outsourcing the Annual Meeting process to save money; consolidate financial management into a chief financial officer position; reengineer the awards process to save money; reduce administrative staff to consolidate the functions of personnel management, governance, administrative support, and mail, and accomplish this with the ultimate goal of saving the equivalent cost of five full-time positions (or approximately $270,000) in 2002."
3. Representative to ESA Governing
Board Report: Brian Nault
Brian Nault reported on the current sales status of the ESA office
building. He said a prospective buyer has provided a letter of
intent. The ongoing financial problems of the ESA national organization
continue to be discussed and addressed.
The ESA Governing Board agreed that the following four items were
the most important functions of the ESA national organization:
1) Membership
2) Meetings
3) Publications
4) Finances
Publications: There is a new editorial
structure for the journals.
2002 membership projections: There were 6,160 members in 2001;
as of February, 2002, membership renewal was 80% of projected
renewal figures despite dues increase to $125.
4. Past President's Report: Dick Casagrande - not present
5. President Elect's Report: Susan
Whitney
Susan Whitney reported that plans for Harrisburg 2002 meeting
are on track. The Potomac Division of the American Phytopathological
Society is on board. Program chairs for Harrisburg meeting are
D. Ames Herbert, Jr. and Faith Kuehn. A June planning meeting
in Harrisburg has been set for 1 p.m., 17 June, through 4 p.m.
18 June. George Hamilton and Susan Whitney will make a preliminary
trip to meeting site in April.
6. Treasurers Report: George Hamilton
George Hamilton reported that EB-ESA has taken in $11,000 and
that the current meeting expenses are estimated at $9,500. George
indicated that his Treasurers Report was one-week old as of this
meeting. At start of fiscal year, July 1, 2001, EB-ESA had $20,638.34.
Total funds available as of Dec. 31, 2001 were $63,416.58. Jan
Nyrop asked if we are on the right track about our budget-saving
measures, such as increasing meeting registration dues by $10,
minimizing morning and afternoon coffees, etc. George reported
that we were on track.
7. Secretary's Report: Rod Youngman
Rod Youngman discussed need for moving to an all electronic format
for EB-ESA mailings. Jan Nyrop felt this was a good idea, but
he had two concerns about moving to an all electronic format:
First, some people do not have access to e-mail; and second, by
not having paper in hand, some members simply will disregard meeting
and registration announcements. George Hamilton raised a third
concern about those members who routinely delete e-mail attachments
without opening them because of the possibility of embedded viruses.
Jan inquired if there was a way to get the best of both. One suggestion
was to have a single mailing using a single piece of paper that
instructs branch member to fill out and return the hard copy if
they want to continue to receive paper mailings; otherwise they
will only be sent electronic mailings. Someone suggested we send
out a postcard to conduct this exercise.
What about non-ESA members?
Could we utilize html documents in the EB-ESA website?
Could we include text directly in an e-mail sent out on our listserve?
Bill Gimple needs to include Susan
Whitney and George Hamilton as primary users of EB-ESA listserve.
8. Committee Reports:
a. Program: John Stoffolano
John Stoffolano noted that we ended up accommodating the presentations
of ten individuals who submitted materials after the deadline.
Should we continue to accommodate late comers? Tom Kuhar spoke
to the issue of not being able to tell people what was on the
final program, and said we need to do a better job of getting
the program out earlier next year. Susan Whitney felt that having
something up on the web is better than nothing, but Jan Nyrop
said the problem with that is the program still needs to be organized
ahead of time to the extent that every presentation needs to be
assigned its particular date and time.
b. Auditing: Jim Lashomb - not present
c. Awards: Dick Casagrande - not present
d. Graduate student: Ellen Klinger
Jan Nyrop singled out Ellen Klinger for all her efforts in putting
together the student symposium and scheduling student volunteers.
Ellen said she increased University student representatives from
7 to 11, and she coordinated the 2002 Asa Fitch and Comstock award
winners.
e. IDEP: Mark Rothschild - not present
f. Site selection: George Hamilton
The Harrisburg 2003 meeting will take place 16-18 March with room
rates set at $92 per night. George mentioned that the Binghamton,
NY site was good, but possibly too central for the majority of
the EB-ESA membership. Jan Nyrop disagreed, and went on to say
that he felt being too central was not a problem, and he proposed
that the branch select a central "corridor" of meeting
sites for future meetings. George went on to discuss potential
sites for the 2004 meeting. Mystic, CT was ruled out because it
was unable to accommodate a group as large as ours. Subsequent
discussion ensued around a possible meeting site at the Marriott
Hotel in Truble, CT, and the OMNI Hotel in New Haven, CT. After
brief discussion about the proximity of the OMNI Hotel to Yale
and the Peabody Museum, the OMNI Hotel was approved by unanimous
vote for the 2004 meeting.
g. Nominations: Peter Shearer
- not present
Jan Nyrop said he asked Peter if we could announce the winners
of this year's elections at the 2002 meeting. Unfortunately, the
nominations committee had not received the ballots from the National
office.
h. Registration and hospitality:
Tom Kuhar
Tom reported that the latest number of meeting registrants was
150 of which about 60 were students. This compares to 33 students
who attended last year's meeting. Ellen Klinger said many students
felt the registration packet was unclear about their need to pre-register.
Jan Nyrop said it must be made clear that students need to pre-register
for future meetings. Tom Kuhar asked about the possibility of
using the 2002 student registration numbers to determine which
Universities have student representatives and which do not. This
would be done for the purpose of targeting Universities which
currently lack student representatives to send more students.
The Executive Committee felt it might be useful to look at these
results for future meetings.
i. Screening for EB-ESA awards:
Frank Drummond - not present
Jan Nyrop asked to make three comments: First, EB-ESA is not receiving
the nominations that it should be for these awards, and he encouraged
us to make sure eligible people are nominated from our departments.
Second, there are no pictures of awardees for the 2002 meeting
because several of the provided pictures were not of suitable
quality. This should be addressed in time for the 2003 meeting.
Third, Frank Drummond has asked that he be relieved of his responsibility
as chair of the awards committee. George Hamilton suggested Sridhar
as someone who might be interested in taking over the awards committee.
j. Linnaean games: Glenn Holbrook
- not present
George Hamilton proposed not providing travel money to winning
team until after the students return from the National meeting
and submit receipts to Treasurer. The Executive Committee strongly
supported this proposal.
k. Corporate support: Jim Steffel
About $3,000 of the $6,000 pledged by 18 sponsors for the 2002
meeting has been received. Paul Bystrack has agreed to help Jim
with his effort toward increasing Corporate sponsorship.
Susan Whitney inquired about the possibility of a conflict if EB-ESA and APS ended up sharing some of the same sponsors. If this is the case, will the sponsors end-up paying twice? Subsequent discussion felt this would not be the case; and concluded we might end up with better overall sponsorship and support as a result of the combined meeting.
l. 5k run: Richard Hoebeke - not present
9. New Business
Susan Whitney inquired if EB-ESA makes it known that winners of
student poster/presentation sessions receive a cash award. Subsequent
discussion indicated this was not the case. A suggestion was make
to add text to 2003 registration materials indicating that cash
awards are provided to student winners.