AGENDA

1. Call to Order
2. Approval of agenda
3. Approval of Minutes for:

• 48th General meeting of CFBS Board of Directors, June 18, 1997.
• 49th CFBS Board of Directors meeting, June 22, 1997.

4. Business arising from the minutes

• review of bylaws re: revision
• exhibitor liaison committee
• Burroughs-Wellcome/FASEB contact
• other

5. President's report (Anderson)

• membership
• office location
• newsletter

6. Report of the Executive Director (Hough)
7. Report of the Honourary Treasurer (Hilliker)

• budget & accounts
• financial report on Quebec City meeting
• role of the treasurer

8. Report of the Honourary Secretary (P. Anderson)

• planning for meetings 2000 and beyond

9. Report of the Program Chair (McCargar)

• Edmonton meeting
• Winnipeg plans (Fitzpatrick)

10. Reports by Board Representatives

• fundraising
• exhibitor liaison committee

11. Other Business

Adjournment

Present:

1. Paul Hough to determine the notification time prior to the Annual General Meeting specified in the By-Laws for changes to be proposed.
2. Paul Hough to oversee putting the By-Laws on the CFBS web site and to distribute them to all Board members.
3. Kem Rogers to pursue the idea of providing the exhibitors with free tickets to the exhibit area for the companies to distribute to their contacts in the Edmonton region.

1. Call to Order: 9:08 a.m.
2. Agenda: approved
3. The Minutes of both the 48th and 49th General Meetings of the Board of Directors were presented. Motion to adopt them moved/seconded by Fitzpatrick/Brown - carried.
4. Business Arising from these previous minutes: the President noted that all related issues would be covered in the agenda of this meeting.

• The Hon. Secretary has not had an opportunity to assess which provisions of the existing By-Laws require up-dating or other changes.
• Suggestions were made to also look at the selection processes for the Gordon Kaplan Award and the Malcolm Brown Lecturer

b) Exhibitor Liaison Committee (Kem Rogers)

• The lessons learned from the Quebec meeting are being applied to the Edmonton meeting. Specifically, the layout of the exhibit area must be such that the maximum flow of people possible is ensured through the exhibits and the posters. Kem proposed that he form a committee consisting of himself, Dennis Vance, the exhibitor coordinator for Edmonton, and Peter Anderson to design the layout for the posters and the exhibits.
• Any refreshments must be close to the exhibits to again encourage more people visit the booths, and the Executive members should all visit each of the exhibits.
• Action: Kem will pursue the idea of providing free tickets to the exhibitors for them to invite outside people to come to the exhibit area at the Conference Centre.
• The suggestion was made that selected companies be invited to put on seminars during the conference. It was noted that this has always been possible but that it has not worked well in the past.
• Regular communications between the Exhibitor Liaison Chair, the Local Organizing Committee, the Hon. Secretary and the CFBS office are essential to ensure a successful meeting for the exhibitors and for CFBS.

c) Burroughs-Welcome Visiting Professorships in the Basic Medical Sciences

• The announcement concerning this opportunity needs to be dispersed through the community. It should also be placed on the CFBS web site.
• To assess the nominations that are received, the Hon. Secretary agreed to form a committee of appropriate reviewers from CFBS societies, working with the Executive Director.

Action: Paul Hough to prepare a list for these letters to be sent out.

5. President’s Report

• The need to sustain the CFBS membership was emphasized, and the actions taken by some societies to increase membership was recognized.
• Office space: a motion was put forward by Peter Canham and Stephen Pang that CFBS move to the University of Ottawa as soon as possible; carried. Joel Weiner underlined the need to have a written understanding with the university as to respective expectations and responsibilities.
• Newsletter: Judy Anderson expressed the requirement to connect more effectively with the membership. The web site has a lot of potential that has yet to be exploited. The use of the central e-mail servers of the constituent societies that have then was urged. In addition, the society secretaries should receive the Newsletter for distribution as widely as possible. It was also strongly suggested that the Editor be invited to future Board meetings.

Action: Judy Anderson to prepare a newsletter with Steve Brooks prior to year end.

Action: Paul Hough to pursue registering the domain CFBS.

Action: Paul Hough to find out if we can access the current web site in order to maintain it.

6. Executive Director’s Report

• Having distributed a written report to the Board prior to the meeting, this report consisted of up-dating comments. Sessions involving the Consortium, AUCC, CAUT, HSSFC and the graduate student groups had recently been held with both the House of Commons Industry Committee and Finance Committee. The former is planning to conduct an extensive number of meetings to issues related to S&T. Presenting a common front by so many organizations continues to be recognized in political circles as appropriate and useful.
• The primary focus of these presentations is on the support of basic research, through the granting councils. While the specific proposals in the joint document, Sustaining Canada as an Innovative Society: An Action Agenda, call for a 50% increase in the budgets of the MRC and NSERC over the next four years (60% for SSHRC), some people have proposed requesting considerably more. All meetings in recent weeks reveal a reluctance on the part of government to put a lot of resources into research, or at least into the councils. This is seen as reversing the decisions made in Program Review, and potentially would be a precedent for other programs to argue for renewal of their budgets. However, numerous lobby meetings have been arranged during November with ministers, M.P.s of all parties and senior officials in Health, Finance and Industry.
• The work with the scientists at Health Canada has continued, and a meeting with Minister Rock has been scheduled for November 17th.

7. Hon. Treasurer’s Report

• The situation at this time is much better than a year ago. This has to a large extent been due to the contract to produce the IUNS conference proceedings. Thus, the financial situation remains in an unstable equilibrium.
• The outlook for 1998 is for a further improvement, especially given the pending move with lower rent costs. Other savings in communications costs may also be realized.
• The revenues from the annual meeting are essential to the operations of CFBS.
• Maurice Hirst suggested that the society treasurers meet with the CFBS Hon. Treasurer. They would discuss such matters as dues, when CFBS fees are to be remitted (some societies have yet to remit their 1997 fees), and other details related to the ways in which different societies handle membership categories and payment.

Action: Arthur Hilliker to send a request to all society treasurers to meet in Edmonton.

• Communications on financial matters with the societies must be sent to the President and Secretary as well as the Treasurer of each society.

Motion: That the ad-hoc budget advisory committee be transformed into the Committee of Society Treasurers; carried.

• Some societies have paid their 1997 dues based on 1996 rates, and a couple have decided to remit the difference from reserves rather than going back to their members. It is the ultimate objective of the Hon. Treasurer to be able to reduce the fees.
• Dennis Fitzpatrick noted that the financial situation had forced the Executive to compress the office support perhaps too much, and that it had put an enormous level of expectation on the Executive members ("sweat equity").
• With the Hon. Treasurer based in Guelph there is a need to develop reporting systems and the mechanism to ensure that cheques receive approval and go out without delay.

Motion: Peter Canham moved that the report of the Hon. Treasurer be accepted; carried.

8. Hon. Secretary’s Report

• Main focus is on Edmonton where there is a strong LOC. On the organization front, a few of the hotels had insisted on advanced payment and/or guaranteed numbers with penalty clauses if those numbers were not met. Thus, the number of hotels listed has been reduced somewhat.
• Edmonton has all the makings of a very successful meeting - a excellent program, good facilities and an accessible location.

9. Program Chair’s Report

a) Edmonton, 1998

• The activities of the GSC and of PENCE have been integrated into the program as much as possible, and the details of the program of the Canadian Society of Plant Molecular Biology have been obtained for inclusion in the Call for Abstracts.
• The fact that CSPMB is not a member society of CFBS presents a few options with respect to the fees to be charged to their members.

Motion: That the members of CSPMB be charged the CFBS member rate for the meeting. Carried (with 1 vote against).

• Julia Levy, from QLT, will give a public talk on the Saturday morning.
• An application will be submitted to Alberta heritage for funding for the meeting.

b) Winnipeg, 1999

• The description of the themes was handed out (see attached page). These are designed to be attractive one-day events to different constituencies. There is considerable strength in all areas within the catchment area of Winnipeg, so that the meting should attract a number of people.
• Meting dates of June 2-5, 1999 are somewhat earlier than usual, to take advantage of overlapping with student research days. Also will try to bring in high school students to some portions of the meting.
• The venue is in the Medical School. This is a new facility that is ideal for exhibitors and posters.

Action: Dennis Fitzpatrick to verify that adequate power is available for the exhibitor area.

10. Fundraising

• Peter Dolphin noted that CFBS must establish and build up an endowment fund to provide a cushion for those times when operating revenues are short of projections.
• The suggestion was made that CFBS approach the related American societies directly to convince them to direct a small amount of money per Canadian member to CFBS. Previous discussions with FASEB on this topic have not been encouraging.

11. Other

• The suggestion was made that CFBS publish the abstracts from each meeting in a recognized journal. The cost of this was noted as likely being too high for CFBS. The NRC Press could perhaps do this, but it was noted that people would want their abstracts placed in different journals.

Special Representation

12. Meeting Adjourned: 12:50 p.m.