• Retreat will be similar to last years and will be 1 ½ - 2 days long.
• Possible dates for retreat are during first week of December, either Monday-Tuesday or Thursday-Friday – consensus favored Monday-Tuesday, Dec 3-4.
• Location of retreat will be Portland-area.

• Time:  April 27^th – May 1^st in Spokane, Washington
• This will be a large meeting shared with Transboundary Group (Columbia Basin), Sustainable Fisheries Foundation, and NPIC.
• WDAFS Business meeting will probably be a breakfast again.

• WDAFS and California-Nevada Chapter will co-host.
• Ideas for meeting were to focus on marine/coastal issues.
• Possible locations:  Sacramento and San Diego.  The general consensus of the group was that this would be a large meeting (probably 600 – 800 attendants) and we should plan accordingly.
• It was suggested that Tom McMahon serve as Program Chair since he will be the WDAFS President in 2003 and Dave Manning (Cal-Neva) serve as Local Arrangements Chair.

• At least one Division officer should be in attendance at the Annual Meetings of each Chapter within the Division. Eric is coordinating a schedule among the WD officers.

• Dave Zaft requested volunteers for the Riparian Watershed and Habitat Committee, and George Guillen responded that he would attempt to recruit interested people.
• The new Grants Funding Committee was discussed in depth.  This is an ad-hoc committee but will be converted into a standing committee (which will need approval of membership by vote).  The purpose is to invest $50,000 initially with a goal of building up to $100,000.  The three major components of the new plan are, and subcommittees to work out the necessary details as appropriate: 

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• A volunteer is still needed to take over The Tributary.  Eric and the rest of the Executive Committee agreed to assist in funneling news items to the new editor.  Paul Evans is willing to train a new editor in Pagemaker.  Ideally, we would publish an issue quarterly and post a copy on our website, but this may fall short this year.

• We received an early grant request from the Canadian Conference for Fisheries Research (CCFFR) for $500-1000 to fund graduate student travel to their annual meeting (January 3-5, 2002) in Vancouver, BC.  CCFFR is an academic group that serves mainly as a forum for graduate students to present thesis materials and receive quality critiques from researchers.  By funding their request, the Western Division would hope to attract more student members and would request that we are recognized in the award letters.  It was also conferred that a stipulation be put on the grant so that AFS student members would be given priority and be the first selected as recipients.  Although we did not have a quorum, everyone was in favor of granting the CCFFR $1000 with the stipulation.

• It was suggested that all new officers read the bylaws and rules.  It was also suggested that the rules and procedures should be updated, and Eric said he was going to work on this item.
• It was suggested that the Western Division modify the website to create more of a consistent look with the parent society, however, this is problematic since the parent society developed their website using frames.

• Our email protocol needs refining.  Currently, we have a list server with moderators.  Need to work on this at the retreat.

• Our next telephone conference will be held October 16^th at the same time.