WDAFS Archives, Reports and Minutes

Western Division of the American Fisheries Society
EXCOM Teleconference Minutes
Date: October 16, 2001

Participants: Eric Knudsen, Bill Bradshaw, Tom McMahon, Monica Hiner, Ken Hashagen, Dave Zafft, Chuck Knutson, Gary Birch, Steve Elle, Scott Tolentino

Agenda

WDAFS Retreat

Retreat will be held December 3rd - 4th at the Aldenwood Inn in Portland. We will meet from 1 - 5 p.m. on Monday and 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Tuesday.
Dave Zafft proposed setting up a meeting with Smith-Root before or after the retreat – it was agreed that he would investigate that independent of WDAFS.

2002 Annual Meeting Update

Meeting will be held Saturday through Wednesday (April 27th - May 1st) in Spokane, Washington.
WDAFS Excom will meet on Sunday evening, and either host a breakfast or lunch on Monday or Tuesday for the Business meeting.
Awards and Scholarships would be presented at a banquet.
A second call for papers is coming out with a January 15^th deadline.

2003 Annual Meeting

Chuck Knutson said that the Cal-Neva Excom is leaning towards San Diego as the location (want marine involvement).
Alex Vejar (spelling?) offered to help and will start looking at facilities.
The dates of the meeting are still in question, but it will probably be held in April or May.
Tom McMahon is going to the upcoming Cal-Neva meeting to get an idea of their expectations for the 2003 meeting.

2004 Annual Meeting

Possibility to meet concurrently with World Fisheries Congress, Vancouver, British Columbia in early May 2004.
There are pros and cons associated with this meeting. First, it is a very large meeting (1500-2500 attendants), which would give the Division a lot of visibility. One downfall is that the meeting is limited to plenary-type presentations, although unlimited posters can concur with each session. The Division would likely sponsor one plenary session. The Program Committee is already assigned, and Pete Bisson is sitting on it. Eric thought that if we asked Pete to assist in organizing our plenary that he would definitely help out.
The Division would profit $10,000 from the meeting, which would be gained solely from fundraising solicited from the Division. The Division would target corporate and agency sponsors to reach their goal, and it was expressed that this was an achievable goal.
There was also a suggestion that we meet either before or after the World Fisheries Congress to avoid the fundraising obligation, but it was thought that the combination of meetings would be too long.
Concern was also raised that the WD would be subsumed in such a large meeting and that perhaps the WD should have an independent meeting that year.
There was also a question of the Parent Society's support of our involvement in such a large meeting, and Eric was going to talk to Gus regarding this issue.

2005 Annual Meeting

There was a suggestion that we have our Annual 2005 meeting in Anchorage. Steve suggested that we make a resolution at the retreat.

Best Paper and Poster Awards

There was a question about how much these awards generally are and how they are funded. Currently, the funding source varies from year to year as do the amounts awarded (sometimes they are not awarded).
We need to formalize the awards so they are consistent from year to year.

Scholarships

Scholarships awarded at the upcoming Annual Meeting in Spokane will not be paid until the next fiscal year (June) since a set of scholarships have already been awarded for this year. This problem arose since we changed the time of our meeting from August to April, and we are effectively having two Annual Meetings during this fiscal year.
Bob Greswell will set deadlines for scholarship applications, and we will advertise in our upcoming newsletter.

Newsletter Editor

Mary Whelan (from Eric's office) graciously volunteered to become our new Newsletter Editor!
Paul Evans has agreed to continue printing the Tributary.
Deadline for mailing: November 15th.

Budget/Finances

Grant the Canadian Conference for Fisheries Research (CCFFR) $1000 to fund graduate student travel to their annual meeting (January 3-5, 2002) in Vancouver, BC. Eric will draft a letter so funds can be dispersed.

Next Teleconference

Our next telephone conference will be held November 20^th at the same time.