NAAIC Executive Committee-December 20, 2012

NAAIC Executive Committee-December 20, 2012

Members present: Charlie Brummer (Pres.), Dave Miller (Past Pres.), Mike Velde (Vice-Pres.), Debby Samac (Sec.), Surya Acharya (Local arrangements for 2014)

Not present: Craig Sheaffer (Treas.)

The following agenda items were discussed.

1.  Executive Secretary

A. The need for a dedicated Executive Secretary for NAAIC was presented.

i.  Beth Nelson at NAFA developed a draft contract to carry out the duties of an Executive Secretary in her organization. The duties include: website maintenance and improvement (web master), coordinate executive committee meetings with Pres. and Vice-Pres., help the local host with meeting arrangements as needed, and ensure that meeting activities run smoothly (meeting notices, mailing lists, registration, scheduling, printing meeting materials, etc). The cost will be $22,000 for 2 years taking the organization through the 2014 meeting. The contract could be dissolved after 2 years if the relationship is not satisfactory.

ii.  Conversations with industry representatives resulted in potential commitments of $11,000 toward supporting the Executive Secretary. The remainder would be covered by the NAAIC general fund.

B. Exec. Committee discussed the other services listed in the contract for clarification on what they would entail (Facilitate and manage funding requests, Serve as spokesperson for NAAIC) and the cost for business and office expenses.

i.  Possible to modify contract to ensure that: Executive Secretary will be acting only with the approval of the President and/or Exec. Committee; all expenditures will be approved by the President; Executive Secretary activities will be reviewed at each Exec. Committee meeting.

C. All members of the Exec. Committee approved of going forward with the contract.

ACTION: Charlie will contact Beth Nelson regarding the contract.

2.  Combining NAAIC, GBC, and TC into a single entity

A.  The benefits of combining the three organizations were presented.

i.  The three organizations have shrinking memberships although NAAIC is the largest. By combining we could have more interesting meetings and larger number of attendees would facilitate registration and management of travel awards. As a single entity we could speak more forcibly on policy issues regarding forages. Many public alfalfa researchers also work with clovers, grasses or bioenergy crops so they have overlapping interests. This would be a way to grow all three organizations. Possible to add grass seed research community as well.

B.  Concerns about combining were discussed. There may be a loss of identity by combining. Private research emphasizes alfalfa and if industry helps fund the Exec. Sec. position, they would likely want to retain alfalfa identity in the organization. It may be possible to retain the identity of the three organizations such as has been done with ASA-CSSA-SSSA. Some possible names were suggested: North American Forage Improvement Conference, Alfalfa and Forage Improvement Conference.

C.  Any change in organizational structure will need to be approved by the memberships of each organization, possibly at the next business meetings in 2014.

ACTION: Charlie will ask Beth Nelson to look into the tax implications and other activities that would be needed to merge the organizations.

3.  Planning for next the conference

A.  Timing of the next conference: Three possibilities were discussed: week of June 24, week of July 8 or week of July 15. Dates of the Molecular Breeding of Forage and Turf meeting need to be checked. Tentative date of the week of July 8 was selected.

B.  Length of conference: The length of the last meeting was agreed to be sufficient. Time for committee meetings and business meetings need to be scheduled. The NE1010 meeting will be held just prior to the conference.

C.  Possible schedule:

a.  Monday: NE1010, evening mixer, committee meetings

b.  Tuesday: Oral and poster sessions, business meetings

c.  Wednesday: Half day oral session, awards luncheon, tour

d.  Thursday: Optional post-meeting tour

D.  Sponsorships: The Executive Secretary will work with Surya to obtain sponsors for the meeting.

E.  Meeting jointly with other groups (e.g., Canadian Society of Agronomy)

a.  This could reduce costs and increase the interest in the meeting.

b.  The Exec. Committee members felt that meeting with CSA would complicate the meeting and reduce the time for interactions among alfalfa researchers.

ACTION: Charlie will get the dates of the Molecular Breeding of Forage and Turf meeting and forward them to the Exec. Committee and Surya.

ACTION: Surya will contact hotels in Lethbridge as meeting sites.

4.  Other items

A.  Agenda item for the next meeting is to discuss the status of the white paper.

B.  Next meeting to be held by conference call in February.