Submitted
by Pete Angwin
WIFDWC
Chairman Bill Jacobi called the meeting to order at 3:48, Wednesday, August 16,
2000. Thirty-five members were present.
Thanks were
extended to members of the 2000 WIFDWC Committee:
Jerry Beatty (local arrangements), Sue Hagle (program chair), John
Schwandt (treasurer), Pete Angwin (secretary) and Judy Adams (web site
coordinator). Sixty-three participants registered for the meeting.
The minutes of
the 1999 WIFDWC/WFIWC meeting held in Breckenridge, Colorado, were approved as
written.
John Schwandt,
WIFDWC Treasurer, gave a brief Treasurer’s report. The balance in the WIFDWC
account was about $3,500. However, approximately $1,300 of this will be used to
cover the WIFDWC portion of the budget shortfall from the 1999 WIFDWC/WFIWC
meeting. This shortfall resulted when expenses exceeded the amount of
registration fees that were collected. A complete Treasurer’s report will be
included in the next Proceedings. Approximately $1,600 was spent to bring 3
speakers (Clive Brasier, Joan Webber and Dan Nickrent) to the meeting. John
recommended that in the future, requests for travel assistance for special
speakers be made early, so that registration fees that are collected will be
sufficient to offset meeting expenses.
Future
Meetings
The WIFDWC
Railroad Committee announced the nominees for officers for the 2001 meeting:
Chairman: Dave Johnson, Interim Program Chair: Al Kanaskie and
Secretary: Katy Marshall. The selections were approved by a unanimous
vote. John Schwandt will continue in his position as Treasurer and Judy Adams
will continue to administer the WIFDWC web site.
The 2001
WIFDWC will be held in Monterey, California. Susan Frankel is local arrangements
chair. Susan showed slides of Monterey. Locations and potential dates for the
meeting were discussed. The general consensus was to meet at a moderately-priced
motel and to avoid conflicting with the APS meeting in late August (Secretary’s
Note: the 2001 WIFDWC Meeting has since been set for September 10-14, at the
Carmel Mission Inn in Carmel, CA).
The 2002
WIFDWC will be held in Powell River, British Columbia. The meeting has
historical significance as the 50th WIFDWC. Rona Sturrock gave a
status report on the planning efforts. Stephan Zegland is taking the lead in
local arrangements. There will be opportunities to visit field sites with
Armillaria root disease, laminated root rot, white pine blister rust, etc. Dates
for the meeting will be determined next year.
A lively
discussion was held regarding the location of the 2003 WIFDWC. Mary Lou
Fairweather nominated Flagstaff, Arizona for the meeting and Ellen Goheen
nominated Ashland, Oregon. Ashland was selected by a vote of 19 to 16. Ellen
Goheen will serve as local arrangements coordinator.
Old Business
WIFDWC
Outstanding Achievement Award: Current
members of the WIFDWC Outstanding Achievement Award committee are Jim Byler,
Will Littke and Bart van der Kamp. A proposal was made to have committee members
serve 3-year terms, with a new member joining and an old member leaving the
committee each year. A new member would be elected at the business meeting each
year. Jim Byler would leave the committee in 2000, Will would leave in 2001 and
Bart would leave in 2002. The motion was moved, seconded and passed. Rona
Sturrock was nominated as the new member of the committee, with a term to end in
2003. The motion was moved, seconded and passed.
Will Littke led a discussion on the criteria and process for choosing the WIFDWC Outstanding Achievement Award recipient. The committee recommended that since the award is primarily for the purposes of recognition, the recipient should be a current or active member of WIFDWC who is still active in Forest Pathology. Their sense was to not divide this into separate “research”/”non-research” awards, but to leave it open for the committee to decide who would receive the award. This year, two award recipients, Lew Roth and Duncan Morrison, made up for the lack of an award last year. In the future, one award will be given per year. Nominations should be forwarded to a committee member.
WIFWDC
Website: In 1999, the decision was
made to put the put the WIFDWC Committee Reports, as well as a synopsis of the
meeting on the WIFDWC website. A committee made up of Fred Baker, John Muir and
Judy Adams was formed to explore issues pertaining to publishing the proceedings
on the web. Fred Baker volunteered to investigate the logistics and costs
associated with publishing our past proceedings on CD-ROM. Judy reported that
the committee had not yet met, so no recommendations were made. It was decided
that Bill Jacobi or Dave Johnson would contact Fred and the issue would be
tabled until next year.
Joint Meetings
With WFIWC: A discussion was held
regarding the issue of continuing to hold joint meetings with the entomologists
every five years. At the WFIWC meeting in Portland last March, a vote was taken
and they decided to invite us to their meeting in 2004. Frustration was
expressed regarding the difficulty of designing a fully integrated program.
Various suggestions were made, including increasing our program contributions,
holding sessions both together and apart, holding the first day of the meeting
separately, starting program planning two years in advance of the meeting,
having a unified meeting theme, and having two program chairs. Several motions
were moved, seconded and carried:
That we meet with WFIWC in 2004
That we have dual program chairs, one pathologist and one entomologist.
That we nominate a committee in 2001 to start working on the joint meeting and we recommend that the entomologists do the same.
Honorary
Life Members: In 1999, the criteria
for awarding Honorary Life Membership status and what to charge HLMs for meeting
registration and Proceedings were discussed.
As a result, two bylaw change proposals were prepared in writing by John
Laut, who was unable to attend the meeting. The proposals were as follows:
Proposed Amendments to the
BYLAWS of the Western International Forest Disease Work Conference, as published
in the Proceedings of the 46th (1998) Conference, pp159-162;
The
paragraph in Article 2 “Membership” pertaining to Honorary Members (last
paragraph on p. 159) be amended to read:
Honorary
Life Membership will be automatically awarded to those members of WIFDWC (as
defined above) who have attended at least 5 previous meetings of WIFDWC, and
have retired from active forest pathology endeavors. Newly retired members who
meet this criterion should notify the current WIFDWC Chairperson of their
status. Other MEMBERS who have retired but do not meet the attendance criterion,
or other outstanding contributors to the field of Forest Pathology, may request,
or be proposed for, Honorary Life membership, to be voted on by secret ballot,
by members present at an annual business meeting.
A list
of Honorary Life Members will be published in the Proceedings of each meeting.
A 50% or
more reduction in registration fees for Honorary Life Members, to include a copy
of the Proceedings, should be considered by the executive committee, as per
Article 7, amended in 1999.
Article 9 (p. 162) “PROCEEDINGS” shall be
amended to read:
Distribution
of Proceedings will be made to all registrants, including Honorary Life Members.
The Secretary will query all Honorary Life Members to determine if they wish to
receive a copy of the current Proceedings at cost (printing and postage).
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Notes (John Laut)
An historical review (Laut, 1997
Proceedings, p. 106) shows the preferred term to be “Honorary Life
Membership” (also see Hawksworth, Laut and Frankel, WIFDWC, A brief History
and Index to Proceedings, 1-40, (p.9), distributed with the 1992 proceedings).
The original designation of “honorary member” was made in 1964 (p. 113) and
in 1967 (p. 108) the designation was clarified by carried motion to show that it
“begins with termination of principle employment and that such designation
be irrevocable” (emphasis mine). Thus the recommended addition of the word
“Life” in this amendment.
The recommendation for reduction
of registration fees was placed in Article 7 “Meetings” by vote of the
members at the 1999 meeting. The wording of this amendment follows that
amendment.
Existing bylaws, Article 9,
provides that Honorary members will receive a “free” copy of the Proceedings
following a query from the Secretary. However, I believe that Honorary Life
Members, who do not attend a particular meeting should at least pay the cost of
the Proceedings if they want a copy.
The two bylaw
changes were discussed and brought to separate votes. The changes to Article 2
passed, but the statement, “to be voted on by secret ballot” was
omitted. The change to Article 9 failed. As a result, HLMs who wish to receive a
copy of meeting Proceedings will continue to do so at no cost.
New Business
Name Change
For Disease Control Committee: The
group next discussed a proposal to change the name of the Disease Control
Committee to the Invasive Disease Control Committee. Concern was raised that
adding the term “Invasive” would limit the current broad scope of the
committee. Following the suggestion that a new, appropriately inclusive term for
the name of the committee be developed, further discussion was tabled until next
year.
Change To
Non-Profit Organization Status: Discussion
followed on the advantages and disadvantages of WIFDWC becoming a “501C
Non-Profit Organization”. A major advantage would be gaining tax-exempt
status. Disadvantages include the numerous governmental hoops that would have to
be passed in order to gain that status, including the requirement that we
develop a WIFDWC Constitution to replace our current bylaws. John Schwandt
agreed to further investigate the requirements, advantages and disadvantages of
our becoming a 501C Non-Profit Organization.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:06pm.