Society for Conservation Biology
Minutes of the Membership Meeting
University of Kent, Canterbury, England
July 17, 2002
The meeting was called to order at 7:30 by Mac Hunter, President
140 members attending.
Bob Curry seconded
The minutes of the last membership meeting were approved unanimously.
Revenue - Revenue is anticipated to be about $1,400,000, with about 53% received to date. About 1/3 is from foundation and grant money to support Conservation in Practice as it becomes self-sufficient. The remainder comes from Conservation Biology, grants to the Executive Office (EO), the annual meeting in Hilo, donations, interest, and other sources.
Expenses - Expenses are anticipated to be nearly $1.3 million, including publications and EO expenses, travel grants, and investment in the endowment fund.
This year, because of section development and student awards, as well as minimal profit from this meeting in Kent, we will only add $30,000 to the endowment rather than the $80,000 we normally would add. This allows the budget to be balanced. This budget has been approved by the BOG.
Much of the revenue is from institutional (e.g., library) subscriptions to CB, membership revenues are a small part of the budget.
The endowment fund is currently $548,000. Our target is to have an endowment worth one year's operating budget - which right now is about $1.3 million.
The office opened August 1, 2002, with Alan Thornhill as the new Executive Director. SCB has a two-year relationship with TNC for office space. When that is up we may need to rent space, but we may have other organizations that will allow us some office space for a limited time. Elizabeth Parrish is the new Operations Manager.
A "Welcome to DC" reception was held by Conservation International, with many co-sponsors. It was very successful.
The EO will focus on international issues, while the North American section will be the key group dealing with national policy issues. We will do this carefully to ensure that our good reputation for leadership in science will not be compromised. The membership survey two years ago clearly showed that a distinct majority wanted us to be more involved in policy issues. This will mostly take the form of providing information at the science/policy interface.
This year 6 issues were produced, on time, for a total of 1846 pages.
Submissions are up 11%, to 643 manuscripts, the highest ever.
There were three special sections.
Of the 643 papers submitted, 37% were rejected by the Editor without review because of inappropriateness of subject or low quality. Of those reviewed, 54% were rejected, 107 were accepted, and no decision has been reached on 12%. Once all decisions are made the total rejection rate will be somewhere around 75%.
Review turnaround time is reduced from last year, however, the period from acceptance to publication was slightly longer.
Approximately 68% of the articles were written by a United States author as the first author. However, many articles did have additional authors from around the world.
There were 4 issues per year, for a total of 48 pages
The name has changed from Conservation Biology in Practice because surveys showed that it would sell better without "Biology" in the name.
Conservation In Practice was recently awarded a 2002 Gold Award from the Society of National Publications (SNAP) in the category of Magazines, General Excellence - recognizing the magazine for "best writing, content, graphic design and overall packaging."
There are 3200 paid subscribers and the "membership with subscription" benefit has been extended another year
The on-line formats have diversified. You can now get it PDF with or without graphics, RTF, and HTML. Members can still get hard copy, or can have an e-mail sent as a notice about the web page version being ready or as an e-mail attachment.
For the first time, voting for the Board of Governors was also done on-line. About 80% of those voting chose this option.
Each of the new sections has up to one page to use in each newsletter.
The average cost of the newsletter was $1.13. This is a modest increase from $1.07 last year. Increasing electronic delivery may decrease this for next year, but adding pages for the sections may increase it.
The website remains the single most important communication method for SCB.
It gets about 500,000 hits per month, with 40,000 user sessions per month - 15% from non-US, up from 10% last year.
Membership renewal is much cheaper now (from $8 to $3 per renewal) because it is automated on the website instead of entered by hand.
The jobs section is the most popular section of the site,
The membership expertise database is on-line and being used.
At the Board of Governors meeting earlier, it was decided to allow all members to join and vote in two sections.
The section has had one meeting in Africa.
They held a symposium at this meeting. They plan to translate Conservation Biology abstracts into French.
Asia does not yet have a section, but does have a nucleus here at this meeting. Fifty-one people met to discuss the section and a steering committee has been formed. They will be electing the board of officers in the next year.
They have elected officers and will be working on updating the web page. They will include documentation in Spanish, Portuguese, English, and possibly French.
They will be having a sectional board meeting in Cuba this December. The Neotropical Conservation Biology Bulletin (NeoCons) is in its 9th issue. It is an electronic bulletin on the SCB web page, with Table of Contents and Abstracts from Conservation
Biology in Spanish. There are 900 subscribers - most are not SCB members.
The Australasian group has elected their board and is developing their bylaws
8.5 Europe
The European section has elected their board.
The Marine section has elected their board and developed their by-laws which are so far the only ones ratified by the BOG. They have developed a number of standing committees and held a social event at this meeting.
The North American section has elected its board, which as had one meeting by conference call. At this meeting in Kent several members met and determined a number of priorities, with highest short-term priority going to development of bylaws, increasing communication among members, increasing membership, and having a workshop at the Duluth meeting.
There are three positions to be filled in the next election:
President-elect (two year term)
University or College (three year term)
Zoos/Botanical Gardens/Aquaria/Natural History Museums (three year term)
Nominations should be in to Erica by Sept. 1, 1002, with complete contact information for the candidate. It should be noted that BOG members are expected to attend all meetings, at their own expense. However, there is some potential for assistance for international members.
The February BOG meeting was mostly a strategic planning exercise. The BOG feels we have three developing strong areas of emphasis right now, the Executive Office, Internationalization, and Conservation in Practice that need continued development. Conservation Biology remains a key area of emphasis. They also hope to move the society towards advising on the science behind international policy and increasing support for teaching of conservation. External grant support is needed to achieve many of the goals of the society.
We have 25 active chapters in the US, China, Philippines, and Bolivia. The newest chapter is in New Orleans. We have had inquiries from Indonesia, but they have not yet formed a chapter.
The 2003 meeting will be in Duluth, MN, from June 29-July 2. Registration costs will be about the same as the Kent meeting, but housing will vary widely.
In 2004 the BOG has accepted the proposal from a group of institutions in New York City.
We are now accepting proposals for 2005 and would especially encourage proposals from outside the United States.
were reduced to 5:
Academia
Government
Outside Academia and Government
Social, Economic, and Political Work
Education and Journalism
There were 29 nominations, with 17 non-US and 9 were women.
The LaRoe award for a distinguished career translating science into policy had five nominations for the 2002 award. All were very deserving. The winner of the 2002 award is John Lawton, president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Nominations for the 2003 candidates should be to Mike Scott by October 1, 2002.
There were 43 abstracts submitted and the committee selected 12 as finalists. The winners for 2002 have not been determined. In 2001, four awards were given.
Additional committee members are needed.
The policy committee has worked to determine the criteria by which policy issues are selected for the United States. They are now transforming this to a global approach. They would like one person from each section on the committee.
The committee is large, with 30-35 people on it, so they are planning on working mostly in subcommittees to make the sizes more manageable. They have worked on conservation literacy guidelines. These will be available on the website by the end of summer 2002. They also sponsored a roundtable discussion at this meeting for educators and practioners. It was very successful, with around 50 people attending.
The committee is about 1.5 years old and is moving from an ad hoc to a standing committee. We are now at an all-time high for membership and need to work on how we keep members. A lapsed member survey showed a number of reasons for people leaving, from it being too expensive to not being relevant to their work anymore.
The BOG has created a low membership rate of $10.00 (US) to make membership more affordable for many international members. This will only include an electronic version of the newsletter and access to member-only sections of the website. The society is also working on sponsored memberships that would include publications.
The BOG proposes a number of minor wordsmithing changes and five major changes. The major changes are:
1. Make the Executive Director an ex officio (non-voting) member of the BOG,
2. Change the President from speaking as the voice of SCB alone, to speaking as the voice only after consultation with the Executive Committee,
3. Formalize the Executive Committee to Current President, President-elect, two most recent past presidents, Secretary, and Treasurer/Chief Financial Officer,
4. Make Student Awards and Membership standing committees,
5. Formalize how proxy votes are done within the BOG.
The motion to accept these changes was made and seconded and it passed with a unanimous vote of the attending members.
Mac Hunter thanked the out-going BOG members:
Robert Curry
Peter Kareiva
Curt Meine
Sarah Reichard
John Robinson
And welcomed the new members:
Paul Beier
Luigi Boitani
Paula Kahumbu
Bryan Norton
David Norton
John Ogden
Jon Paul Rodriguez
Kathryn Saterson
Bruce Thompson
David Wilcove
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
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