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Minutes for NAPB

Minutes for Teleconference (monthly) and National meeting (annually)
please contact the NAPB secretary for changes.

2012

NAPB-PBCC Executive Committee Teleconference Meeting
Tuesday, Dec18th, 2012 1:00-2:30p Central time. 

Participants:  David Stelly, Liz Lee, Barry Tillman, Keith W., David F., Donn Cummings, Don Blackburn, Pat B., Sarah Potts, Shelley Jansky, Ann Marie Thro, Allen

Regrets:  Jamie Sherman

Notes:  David Stelly is presiding, minutes by Liz Lee.

Items for Information and/or Action and Upcoming Meeting(s): (running list)

HHMI, ASPB, CSSA, etc. - Information and links about the previous meetings were sent by Peggy Lemaux since our November Telecon are copied into an appendix. 
How do we stay engaged with that group?  Probably involving the GC committee is the best way.  Having someone from the committee having a seat at the table.  Keith W. will be in contact with Peggy to try to get a seat at the table.   This group probably represents one of our needs but does not fully meet our needs.

Pat – Wheat Belly response.  The Washington grain alliance is putting together something that is better to link to.  A shorter response that is geared more to the public would be nice to have.  That would make more people aware of the mis-information.  What should be our plan of attack (David S.)?  Let’s wait and see what the WGA comes up with, which should be out in Jan.  What do you think of op-ed pieces?  Pat will work together with the communications sub-committee to draft an op-ed piece.

Let’s think about getting a private sector person on the board.  Whether we create a new position on the Board for this person.  Can we draft a paragraph or 2 around this position to send back and forth via email?

No budget changes from last EC.

David and Barry went through the proposed meeting budget.  (see attached budget sheet).  No major changes to the proposed budget, might want dual screens and dual monitors, which will add a bit to the budget.  Barry will send Allen the list of proposed FL sponsors.  Allen moved that the current meeting budget be accepted, Shelley seconded, passed by consensus.

Membership fees – right now we are relying solely on sponsorship and annual mtg. registration fees for income.  We have tossed around the idea of fee between $50 – 100.  Full members $50, post-docs $25, grad students free.  David has contacted ACSESS to see about the cost of doing this.  (modifications will be inserted and the budget re-presented)

David approached Todd about heading this up and he declined the position.  If you have been to meetings and have heard good talks that are relevant to plant breeding, please pass those names along to this committee.  Send them to Barry.  Hopefully by the next EC we will have the committee chair lined up.

Pat – can we make a special push to invite Latin American breeding organizations?  Europe is not that far from Florida either. 
We need to have an EUCARPIA presentation. approved by consensus.

AS TIME PERMITS:

approved.

Upcoming Telecon Meetings:

=========================

 

 

NAPB-PBCC Executive Committee Teleconference Meeting
Tuesday, Nov. 20th, 2012 1p-2:30p Central time. 

Attendees:
Allen Van Deynze , David Stelly,                Liz Lee,                 Shelley Jansky, Pat Byrne, Don Blackburn, Randy Johnson, Mike Havey, Keith Woeste, Ross Whetten, David Isenhour, Shelby Repinski Ellison, Jodi Scheffler, Sarah Potts, Tom Koch, Maria Salas, John Blackburn,    Donn Cummings, Peggy Lemaus (guest), Jamie Sherman

Inserted agenda item (unexpected guest on important advocacy activities):  Peggy Lemaux representing ASPB.  Comparing strategies to Astronomy (very successful) -- come up with 10 year plans and make it compelling for funding.   Jan 7-8:  ASBP will be convening a 2nd meeting --  small group (first one was ~100, in which HHMI NSF, USDA, and DOE were observers, (DOD ??)(US AID?)(Gates?)(Rockefeller?).  David Stern and Sally McKenzie of ASPB convening in January --12-15 people (already chosen, including plant breeders (who?)).   ASPB is also trying work with various groups, including breeding .... diverse overall, of course, ...  to put together one-voice message and compelling issues.  PR is very very important.  Action:  Peggy will get back to us with this info (via Allen Van Deynze and David Stelly):  [1] who was at first meeting; [2] white paper link [3] plant breeders to be at the Jan meeting. 
Liz Lee presented the proposed Fiscal Policy (documents available at DropBox or buy request).  These were discussed and a number of amendments were proposed.  Motion -  item #7 approved, ad hoc, as it involved the Officers, so Exec. Comm. consideration was requested, to demonstrate broad support, beyond the officers. --  Motioned by Allen and Keith; approved unanimously.  Action:   Liz will update and distribute for input and voting (probably electronic).
Liz Lee presented the proposed Governance Policy amendments (documents available at DropBox or buy request).  These were discussed and a number of amendments were proposed. Discussed what NAPB board of Directors need to approve How discussions will be made.   Better define "executive committee".  Better define how we respond in the form of Official Position statements (public), in consultation with the Executive Committee and input from the membership (make opportunities for awareness and input).  To establish safeguards yet maintain an ability to respond nimbly to certain kinds of inquiries, we should better define "statement", i.e., this is not to be confused with for example, responding to an inquiry.  Action:   Liz will update and distribute for input and voting (probably electronic).
Companies can’t get dropbox

Pat – Officer travel or representatives by approval by board
Shelley Jansky reviewed the summary budget status.  Time precluded detailed coverage of several documents that detailed results of her analysis of meetings that last several years.  Possible Action Item:  It was suggested that we might want to have an audit done soon, while "fresh", given that we just incorporated as a nonprofit organization. Shelley noted that the budget analysis of recent activities was greatly simplified by the detailed accounting information available since we moved to ACCESS.   Of some concern was that our current financial holdings include only about $23k, which is quite bit less than the anticipated level of about $40k; expenses from Indianapolis were higher than expected.  The differences were discussed in the context of trying to establish a good NAPB Fiscal Policy, one aspect of which was to set a goal to which is should strive to maintain as a minimum balance.  Since $40K might not be enough, as it might not be half of the annual meeting budget.  
Discuss liability insurance
Liz Lee will circulate amended fiscal policy
Allen Moved NAPB executives we agree to protect with liability insurance.  2nd Keith Woester.  Unanimously passed. 
The summary 2013 meeting budget estimates, kindly prepared by Barry Tillman (unavailable today) was briefly reviewed.  Costs estimates (provided in DropBox document) were projected based on hypothetical attendances of 200 and 250 (reflecting expectations of a slightly higher attendance level for the location - Tampa).  Several possible amendments to the budget estimates were suggested that would variously increase (decrease) the budget.  The projections suggest a slight positive balance from the meeting, however, additional factors need to be integrated into the estimates.  Action:  updated estimates will be prepared. $100,000 income.  Total expenses $81,000.
Sunday Reception.
2 Monday and Tuesday dinners.  Breakfast, lunch, am and pm breaks.  Speaker travel – this year
12,000
350 registration
250 students
$5,000 net
Jamie proposed a $50 membership annual fee with reduced meeting rate.  Tabled for further discussion. 
Discussed proposal by David Francis, and agreed education committee officers should remain the same for this year. 

It was suggested that NAPB re-consider the possibility of initiating a modest membership fee for non-student members, e.g., $50, so that NAPB operations are not wholly dependent on income from the annual meeting and its sponsors.   Action Item:  Shelby Ellison will prepare a 1-pager to begin synthesis of a document that might to be used to solicit support from the Membership.

 

 

NAPB-PBCC Executive Committee Teleconference Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, Oct 16th 1p-2:30p Central time. 

Attendees: Rita Mumm, Pat Byrne, Maria Salas-Fernandez, Mike Havey, Barry Tillman, Bill Tracy, Ann Marie Thro, Sarah Potts, David Stelly, Fred Bliss, Jamie Sherman, Don Blackburn, David Francis, Allen Van Deynze, Seth Murray, Keith Woeste

For Outcomes they are in red here (.docx file)

Agenda:

David Stelly asked the group about additions to these categories and will receive them via email and compile a final list.  Additions are in red.

Allen Van Deynze asked about funding the plant breeding education study as proposed at the 2012 NAPB Meeting.  Other grant avenues have been attempted, but have not been successful.  Fred Bliss indicated that USDA or others might fund this, but has not happened so far.  Allen indicated that the idea is to set up the infrastructure for more studies like these in the future. Don Blackburn will take to the NCCPB.  There was discussion about an industry consortium that might help fund projects like this.  David indicated that a decision from NAPB will need to be informed based on the budget that is being build and the financial guidelines under consideration.

ORGANIZATION: 

Barry brought out the need for a speaker committee chair and indicated that a group from UF has agreed to assist.  Mike was the chair for 2012 and indicated that his committee first outlined the thematic areas and then solicited speakers.  The program and themes should belong to NAPB, so David will begin by asking for a volunteer to lead the speaker committee.  Barry indicated that the several folks from UF have agreed to assist and will introduce them when a leader is identified.

COMMITTEE REPORTS AND ISSUES:

Allen- CRIS codes for plant breeding with USDA are being proposed since there is not a code entitled “Plant Breeding”.
Keith- Grand Challenges suggested reviewing previous USDA grants in plant breeding and how USDA has funded plant breeding and to what extent plant breeding was involved.  Ann Marie will work with Keith to help assess this opportunity.

Where should we (NAPB) be advertising- i.e. which meetings?  Vegetable Meeting, ASTA Corn and Sorghum, CSSA, Horticulture, are majors ones.  What about meetings/representatives in Washington DC? 
Rita mentioned the CSSA meeting and a specific meeting regarding funding plant breeding in the public sector.  Pat and David need talking points for that meeting.  Maria Salas-Fernandez will finish the brochure to allow others to take to meetings such as this.
Fred Bliss enquired about the NAPB helping to foster a plant breeding organization in the Philippines.  A breeder there, Alex Rigor, has asked.  David asked the group’s opinion.  Allen added that we could develop an outline to send to them- fundamentals of how NAPB was organized.  David Francis indicated the need for an organization in Africa- they have funding from USAID to develop a “student forum” to assist in experimental design and data analysis.  Perhaps Eucarpia would be a good resource.  Brazil also has a plant breeding association.  Only a few countries have actual breeding associations while most have seed associations.  Many of the new members to NAPB are international.  We also have inroads in Canada with Liz Lee. 
Action Item:  Need a 1-2 pager outline to inform others who are interested in developing a similar organization to NAPB.  David asked Rita if she would lead the effort to develop such a document with the help of Todd Wehner.  Rita agreed to develop the document and Allen will help edit.

Maria Salas-Fernandez

Per below, the group is in favor of doing this (as outlined below).  Pat will ask ACSESS about setting up a database of members with information specified. 
All,
I won’t be able to participate on the call today (important faculty meeting I need to attend). However, something I’d like to propose for discussion is a survey to find out more about our membership. This could be handled through Acsess, and according to their Executive Director, the cost could be included within our existing $5k agreement or there might be a small additional cost depending on how extensive the survey is. The objectives of this, as I see it, would be to identify members to help with our so-called ‘rapid response’ and ‘slow response’ papers, and to help plan the annual meeting to better meet the needs and interests of the membership.

I envision a modest effort that would include information on
-- Employer type (University/college, industry, government, consultant, …)
-- Position (faculty, student, researcher, salesperson, …)
-- Location (country, state/province)
-- Crop type (grain, oilseed, forage, fiber, sugar, forestry, fruit, vegetable, etc.)
-- Expertise (plant breeding, plant genetics, genomics, genetic resources, transgenics, education, …)
-- I have attended a NAPB/PBCC annual meeting (yes, no)
-- Topics of interest for annual meeting

All of the above are just examples that can be modified and added to. Some of these categories and choices already exist within the Acsess system so we could use what they’ve already developed. The details can be worked out through email and/or additional phone calls, but if you could discuss and decide on whether to pursue this type of survey, I can lead the follow up.

Pat

----
Patrick F. Byrne

David Francis- via email:
EduCon has met twice since NAPB in Indianapolis

Aaron Carter has agreed to join the committee, but would prefer to be in line for leadership Brian Dilkes has not responded.
We are pursuing other members to fill leadership positions.

1) I was supposed to contact Seth about the web site, but have dropped the ball (I got as far as drafting a letter, and I will follow up)
2) We are working on establishing goals for the year.  A key one supported by the students is to reinstate a poster competition.
3) Improving the web access so that committees can aggregate resources is a key step (see #1)               

Special Matters from Any Liaisons?

            Ann Marie Thro- AFRI Foundational grant RFP is out and on website.  A new CRIS code for plant breeding has been proposed.  Any comments or questions please send to Ann Marie.

Don Blackburn- graduate student awards for NCCPB are due soon and will be awarded at the ASTA meeting in Chicago.  $2500 award and participate in meeting.  There are three awards this year.

Pat asked about CSSA, C-1co-sponsoring a meeting in 2014- a joint meeting.  Pat indicated there is overlap between CSSA Div. C-1 and NAPB in membership and content.  Rita indicated the need for location to be a prime consideration and that Syngenta wants to be near one of their facilities.  This would be a joint meeting, not in conjunction with the Tri-Societies annual meeting.  David indicated that we should pursue a similar idea with the Horticultural Sciences.

Special Matters from Any Representatives?  (Eric Young, Anne Marie Thro, Roy Scott, Randy Johnson)

Items for Upcoming Meetings: (running list)

Upcoming Telecon Meetings:

 

 

NAPB-PBCC Executive Committee Teleconference Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, Sept 18th 1p-2:30p Central time. 

 Attendees:

David Stelly, Liz Lee, Fred Bliss, Allen Van Deynze, Keith Woeste, Randy Johnson, David Francis, Sarah Potts, Bill Beavis, Ann Marie Thro, Seth Murray, Wayne Smith, Shelley Jansky, Barry Tillman, Donn Cummings, Jamie Sherman, Jin Xiong, DK Lee, Don Blackburn

 Shelley Jansky reported that NAPB’s  checking account balance is $61298.04.

    1. We have paid out 6 of 12 reimbursements for speakers expenses
    2. Not sure about other meeting expenses at this time, but still have the following expenses
      1. Speaker travel
      2. Hotel rooms not occupied at meeting- short on room block
      3. Maybe other bills
    3. We would be down to $55 K once these three meeting expenses are paid
  1. We discussed how to set up a meeting logistics coordinating team.  It was suggested a running compositional formula would include host leaders from past, coming and future meetings, e.g., 2012, 2013 and 2014
    1. Program development -- Leader  (Barry Tillman lead discussion)
      1. Need to develop a committee – Exec. Comm. will handle
      2. Several names discussed, but need to get a list together
    2. Barry Tillman will assess possible layouts of posters and exhibits relative to refreshments
      1. Ask Sheraton about 60 posters and 20 exhibitor tables- want to integrate these two things.  Refreshments are a draw to get people to visit the exhibitor tables.
    3. We need to establish a Committee for 2014 Meeting?  (when, #, who, where)
      1. Location in 2014- California or Minnesota hosted by Syngenta
  2. We discussed developing a fiscal policy -- (Liz Lee et al.)
    1. Need a fiscal policy
    2. Voting officers diff. between NAPB/PBCC
    3. Liz has 9 points (for signatures on monetary matters, as discussed below: "officers" would normally include NAPB Pres., VP, Sec., Treas., Web Editor, and Past President; or, in extenuating circumstances (e.g., others above not available) might include Asst Web Editor and Archivist)
      1. All bills go to Treasurer
      2. Under $2K, 2 officers must agree to payment (neither to be the recipient of payment/re-imbursement)
      3. Over $2K all six must agree
      4. NAPB should maintain a balance of $40K
      5. NAPB should take out Liability Insurance for officers
      6. NAPB should pays for pres. to attend meetings/travel on behalf of NAPB
      7. NAPB Ex. Cm. should propose an annual budget
    4. Vote at next Ex. Cm. meeting to adopt
      1. Who should vote on policy?
      2. What is NAPB policy on governance?
      3. By-Laws need to be distributed to the whole group and evaluated in context of governance of NAPB.  Rita may have the updated By-Laws from April.  Shelly has PDF copy of official By-Laws. 
      4. Liz and David will work on how we vote on issues related to voting on things like a financial policy.
    5. We discussed developing an annual budget. Items for budget include:
      1. Annual meetings
      2. Front office support
      3. Membership fees to other groups,
      4. Publicity
      5. Travel (for NAPB officers on official NAPB business)
      6. Awards
      7. Misc --  e.g., "thank yous" (e.g., <$50 per)

 

  1. Sub-Committees
    1. David Stelly asked the sub-committee chairs to meet regularly and have a report for the Monthly Telecon meetings. 
    2. Website
      1. Discussion turned to website maintenance and potential usage. 
        1. The website could facilitate communication among committee members as well as among committees.
        2. There may be ways to reduce the burden for website management on one person. 
          1. Could we put up some money to hire an hourly position to help Seth manage the website?
          2. There are open source software tools to develop the NAPB website to be manageable by several persons who can keep certain sections up-to-date.  We need a webpage design and a method to allow sub-committees to post directly without going through Seth.  Can we 1) ID web pages that we like and could mimic and 2) can we ID a small group to work on the issue (David Francis will lead group). 
  1. Response to USDA concerning recent sustainability paper
    1.  NAPB needs to respond on the basis of USDA’s omission of plant breeding in their sustainability.  The idea is that USDA needs to fund cross-cutting disciplines like plant breeding.  The target should be 3 upper administrative leaders at NIFA.  Letter has been honed by several (Liz, Allen, Pat) and needs to be sent out soon.  Needs be sent to the blog as well.  David will finalize letter and work to get it sent out to the right list of people.
    2. PBCC is needed by NIFA for leadership around plant breeding.  Dr. Thro indicated need for PBCC to become more engaged.  Allen wanted to understand the expectations of PBCC from NIFA- how can they work with NIFA.  Ann Marie Thro will help facilitate steps toward that interaction.

 

  1. Note from Pat Byrne:
    1.  

All,
I won’t be able to participate on the call today (important faculty meeting I need to attend). However, something I’d like to propose for discussion is a survey to find out more about our membership. This could be handled through Acsess, and according to their Executive Director, the cost could be included within our existing $5k agreement or there might be a small additional cost depending on how extensive the survey is. The objectives of this, as I see it, would be to identify members to help with our so-called ‘rapid response’ and ‘slow response’ papers, and to help plan the annual meeting to better meet the needs and interests of the membership.

I envision a modest effort that would include information on
-- Employer type (University/college, industry, government, consultant, …)
-- Position (faculty, student, researcher, salesperson, …)
-- Location (country, state/province)
-- Crop type (grain, oilseed, forage, fiber, sugar, forestry, fruit, vegetable, etc.)
-- Expertise (plant breeding, plant genetics, genomics, genetic resources, transgenics, education, …)
-- I have attended a NAPB/PBCC annual meeting (yes, no)
-- Topics of interest for annual meeting

All of the above are just examples that can be modified and added to. Some of these categories and choices already exist within the Acsess system so we could use what they’ve already developed. The details can be worked out through email and/or additional phone calls, but if you could discuss and decide on whether to pursue this type of survey, I can lead the follow up.

Pat

----
Patrick F. Byrne

  1. Note from Barry Tillman and response from Seth Murray on membership requests
    1. A recent request to join NAPB reminded me that I wanted to discuss inserting the following language on our website under How to Join which is what I do when I get a request.  If I need to keep a list of new members, I can continue to do it by direct email.  But I wonder about getting ASA to simply send an email to me when someone joins.  It seems like we could remove the step of them contacting me if we put the instructions on the web.

Barry
Language for website:
Thank you for your interest in becoming a member of the National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB).  Membership in NAPB is free, but the impact you can have through NAPB is priceless!  The Tri-societies (ASA-CSSA-SSSA) have been contracted to manage both our membership database and our email list server.  You do not need to be a member of ASA-CSSA-SSSA to be a member of NAPB.  And membership in NAPB is still free.  However, you will need to have an account on the ASA-CSSA-SSSA website to become a member of NAPB.  To become a member of NABP, please utilize this web link: https://www.crops.org/account and these simple steps:
1)      Already a member of the Crop Science Society of America?
You can log in to the system as normal from this link and under My Account, select Contact Preferences, then select Yes for NAPB member.  This option is at the bottom of the page.
OR
2)      Not a member of the Crop Science Society of America?
You will need to create a new user contact record by selecting “Create Account” under “First Time Visitors”.  Once you have created a contact record and are logged in, under My Account, select Contact Preferences, then select
Yes for NAPB member. This option is at the bottom of the page.
If you have any difficulties or questions please contact Ian Popkewitz ipopkewitz@sciencesocieties.org.

From Seth Murray via email
I have to go to a meeting here in about 15 minutes but I saw your agenda item for the website. Not sure if this needs discussion (and let me know if people have a problem with it) but I would be happy to add those instructions rather than the secretaries e-mail for joining. 

Thanks,

Seth

  1. Science, Technology, and Informatics Subcommittee
    1. Jin Xiong will work with Ross Wheten on an agenda for regular meetings
    2. They will also be working on website ideas with Education Committee - David Francis, Chair.

 

 

napb/

NAPB-PBCC Executive Committee
Monthly phone conference
Tuesday, July 17th 1-2:30 pm Central time

In attendance:  Mike Havey, Shelley Jansky, Allen Van Deynze, Donn Cummings, David Isenhour (DOW) , Phil Simon, David Stelly, Duke Pauli (Grad. Student, Montana State Univ,), Seth Murray, Ann Marie Thro, Pat Byrne

Mike Havey moderated the discussion, filling in for Rita Mumm (ill)

 

Updated Meeting Agenda from Mike Havey (late July 17)-- next page, et seq.

Schedule for 2012 National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) and Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee (PBCC) Annual Meeting
Indianapolis, IN, August 6-8, 2012

Meeting Title:  “Sustaining Life through Plant Improvement”
Meeting Sponsor:  Dow AgroSciences

Sunday, August 5:

Monday, August 6:

Tuesday, August 7:

Wednesday, August 8:

 

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB-PBCC Executive Committee monthly phone conference
Tuesday, June 19th 1-2:30 pm Central time

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Rita Mumm, Mike Havey, Donn Cummings, Karen Moldenhauer, Duke Pauli, Seth Murray, David Stelly, Don Blackburn, Shelley Jansky, Tom Van Arsdall (NC-FAR), Morgan Klinkradt (2013 mtg. venue w/ conference direct), Wayne Smith, Barry Tilman (from Australia 4:30 in the morning), Dave Francis, Vance Whitaker (2013 mtg. venue site visits).

Regrets: Allen Van Deynze,

Notes: Rita Mumm is chairing the meeting, minutes by Liz Lee, DAS: Dow Agro Sciences.

Appendices:

Agenda items:

Poster area is now resolved; they will all be in one area.  Rooms are now set and sub-committees can be assigned to particular rooms.  The DAS event planning is well underway.  Currently working on signage.  Do we need to put PBCC in the same space as NAPB (Don)? – Yes (Rita).  You could probably use the flyer that Allen developed for sorting out signage.  Working on getting sponsor jpegs and tour logistics.  The 1st pull of registrations was 70, the 2nd pull was 81 which was 5 days later.  Don is a bit worried that registration is a bit light.  Liz sent out a list server reminder on the 14th, Liz will send another one out Wednesday.  We need to beat the bushes and get the attendance up.  We are shooting for 200 to 250. 

Everything is pretty much locked in.  Titles from all but 2 of the speakers, have not gotten a final name for the ASTA presentation, and have not figured out which professor from the African group will speak.  Herb will probably not be able to talk.  Only question is to regards to lunches on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, they will be part of the meeting.  Monday is probably a buffet style lunch, the tour days will be a box type lunch (Don).  The most recent schedule will be posted by Seth on the web and mailed out via the list server by Liz.

Six funded from the SOL-CAP program and another 7 from another funding source.  One will be recruited to give a talk on Monday afternoon’s session.

See appendix #1.  We are on a tight schedule.  We would like to honor the African visitors early in the day to help facilitate interactions.  Do we need a separate room for the grad students or have them interact with the 4 subcommittees.  The general consensus was that they should be part of the other 4 sub-committee meetings, roughly 30-40 people per room.  Mike would like some feedback from the EC about the topics that we would like the sub-committees to focus on in the next year.  If you have any additional items or ideas, please let Mike know.

See appendix #3 for the details.  Allen has done all of the footwork, and Wayne just collects the checks (Wayne).  Don B. suggests that they do it for us next year too.  TAMU has hit a glitch in the ability to move the money to the ACSESS accounts.  The TAMU Foundation wants an invoice of sorts for documentation.  The department’s book keeper is suggesting that we move all of the money at once, which is only one set of paperwork, but we may also have some bills outstanding.  ~$56,804 in the TAMU Foundation.  We have about a month’s window to move the money as a 1-time event, all outstanding sponsorships have been redirected to ACSESS, and any invoices that come to TAMU after the transfer of funds will be redirected to ACSESS.  Shelley and ACSESS need to generate an invoice for the transfer of funds.  We were steering people away from sponsoring specific events, is that still the case (Don)?  Don needs to get a list of who is sponsoring what so that the appropriate signage can be made.  How do we handle sponsored registrations, if they have already registered and paid (Donn)?  Lynne Navis at ACSESS can probably take care of that.

 

Vance – site visit w/ Sherri Nichol out of Orlando with Conference Direct, Assembled a check list with a top 5.  There were powerpoint and additional files shared with the committee.  Crowne Plaza, Doubletree, Hilton, Mainsail, Sheraton Suites.  Barry and Vance felt that the Sheraton Suites had the upper hand when it came to functionality, meeting space and the management’s willingness to work with us.  It is close to the airport with complimentary shuttle service to the airport.  Good lighting, good space for posters, very nice guest rooms.  One question, regarding the schedule, is it the case that Monday June 3rd we need to have 4 breakout sessions in the morning?  Yes, if we follow previous years (David).  Will posters stay up from Monday-Wednesday at the hotel?  Hotel size is also a consideration.  The larger hotels may have other groups in as well.  How do we proceed (Liz)?  Get some references about how they handle a meeting (Don B.).  Do we need to make a deposit with them?  No, they do not require a deposit (Morgan).  Try to adjust the food and beverage minimum downwards to $10,000, as the other offers are at $10,000.  June 3-5, 2013 at the Sheraton Suites.  Morgan needs something in writing that we are ready to move forward with the Sheraton Suites once the details are worked out so that she can draw up a contract with Sheraton Suites.

While NAPB is committed to get involved in NC-FAR, there are different membership levels and Tom will talk about them.  What is NC-FAR?  It is a customer led collation for food and agricultural research; the stakeholders area those that need and value the research outcomes; they educate with a purpose, they are an advocacy; they encourage other to work together; .  Tom has been a consultant for the past 10 years, NC-FAR has been around for 12-14 years, and he has been involved with NC-FAR for the past 7 years.  See Appendix #2 for other details on NC-FAR’s activities, membership list, and a 1-pager on NC-FAR.

Questions/comments – Do the members pay a fee (Donn)?  Yes, $1000 for national associations, affiliate membership $500 (regional groups) which we are not eligible for.  You do not need to be a member to be on our list server, or to nominate a Hill Topic.  How does your board operate (David S.)?  Two meetings a year, with telecons in between.  Nominating committee nominates board members.

Tabled until next meeting.

Tabled until next meeting.

 

 

Appendix #1

TENTATIVE Business Meeting Agenda for the National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) and Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee (PBCC)
Monday, August 6 2012
8:15 AM to 11:30 AM
PBCC/NAPB Joint Session, (Rita Mumm and Mike Havey presiding, 45 minutes, 8:15 to 9:00 AM)

NAPB General Session (Rita Mumm presiding, 25 minutes, 9:00 to 9:25 AM)

PBCC General Session (Mike Havey presiding, 25 minutes, 9:25 to 9:50 AM)

Break (20 minutes; 9:50 to 10:10 AM)

Subcommittee Breakout Sessions (30 minutes, 10:10 to 10:40 AM) 

NAPB/PBCC Joint Session (Dave Stelly and Allen Van Deynze, 30 minutes, 10:40 to 11:10 AM)

Close joint NAPB/PBCC meeting (Dave Stelly and Allen Van Deynze, 20 minutes 11:10 to 11:30 AM)

Adjourn at 11:30 AM for lunch


 

Appendix #2:

2


4


6


8


10


Appendix #3:

The following are sponsors we have received payment from:
Agrotech (AgBiotech)                   $500.00
BASF                                           $1,000.00
Midco                                           $1,000.00
United Soybean Board             $1,000.00
Cotton, Inc.                                 $2,500.00
Kbiosciences                              $2,500.00
Illumina                                       $1,000.00
Beck's Superior Hybrids           $5,000.00
Dow AgroSciences                   $5,000.00
Total                                          $19,500.00

Additional Sponsors:
Eurofin                                            $500.00
Fluidigm                                      $1,000.00
Syngenta Seeds, Inc.               $2,500.00
AgReliant Genetics, LLC         $5,000.00
Monsanto                                    $6,350.00
TCAP                                           $7,000.00
IssuesInk                           “in-kind” (video)
Total                                          $22,350.00

GRAND TOTAL                      $41,850.00

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC EC monthly phone conference
Tuesday, April 17th 1:00-2:30p central time

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Rita Mumm, Duke Pauli, David Francis, Shelley Jansky, Allen Van Deynze, Seth Murray, Phil Simon, Don Blackburn, Jen Luczak (DAS), Tom Koch, Maria, Ann Marie Thro, Donn Cummings, David Baltensperger, Barry Tillman (late joining from N.Z.)

Regrets: David Stelly (transplanting cotton), Stephen Baenziger, Mike Havey, & Jamie Sherman

Notes:  Rita Mumm is chairing the meeting, minutes taken by Liz Lee. DAS: Dow Agro Sciences

Agenda items:

There are some updates that need to be put up on the web and the word version of the meeting agenda needs to be removed from the web site.  Working off the most recent version, Don has added the student mixer from 7-9 at the hotel with a minimum 40 minutes of entertainment from a group called ComedySportz.  Don has also added some changes to the evening as DAS, with speakers finalized for 3 short talks.  Tuesday evening the tours in the afternoon have been finalized and the Annual Banquet will start at 7:30.  The Annual Banquet speaker (Jules Janick) will start at approximately 8:15.  Wednesday afternoon they have locked in 2 tours, one with Tom Koch at AgReliant’s field breeding lab and the second with Beck’s Superior Hybrids that has a seed plant as well as a breeding program.  Lunch will be at the hotel, board buses (2), one bus to each stop simultaneously.

Logistics: We need to work out some details around the poster session.  On the working schedule it is from 9:30 to 11:00.  Don needs to know how it is supposed to run.  It is not set up like last year where the posters are all together.  We cannot quite get 70 posters into one area, so we are probably going to have posters on 2 floors.  Is it going to be a problem getting enough poster boards (Seth)?  Don does not think that will be a problem.  They have not sorted out how long the posters will be up.  Allen suggested that we think about how long tine-wise the posters are up and how to coordinate the students standing by their posters.  Is it possible for the posters to be set up the posters by 10 am Monday and leave them up until Wednesday (Allen, Liz)?  Don and Jen will look into it and to see if there are any additional costs.

We have had some email exchanges with TAMU (Wayne & Kathy) about how to pay the bills.  Keeping in mind that TAMU is currently holding our checking account, but once we are incorporated it will be transferred over to ACSESS. And, the registration fees are currently going into the ACSESS held account.  So our initial bills will be paid out of the TAMU held account, and they need to get a list of vendors with W9 form information to TAMU so that bill payment can occur.  As we get closer to the event, TAMU may run out of money as the registration dollars are flowing into ACSESS (Don).  Rita’s sense is that there is more than a sufficient amount of money in the TAMU held account to cover all of our pre-meeting costs.  Most of the checks need to be written after the event, but there a few that need to be covered beforehand.  After a certain date, we will have to make the switch to the ACSESS held account, potentially at the time of the meeting; however, the change over to ACSESS cannot happen until the incorporation is done.  To help facilitate this transfer, we decided that after Aug. 4th the invoices will no longer go to TAMU and instead will go to ACSESS (Rita).  If things move along quicker regarding incorporation, than we can transfer the invoices to ACSESS earlier (Rita).

$11,000 worth of sponsorship is lined up so far.  This does not include Monsanto, DAS, T-CAP, or AgReliant.  David F. mentioned that there is a fairly large tomato processor called Red Gold in the area.  And asked if there was any interest in using them for a tour stop (They were asked, but conflict with the dates of our meeting) or if they had been approached about sponsorship (not yet)?  The Soybean Board has just been approached (Allen); perhaps popcorn (Donn)?

Julie McNabb from SeedWorld had attended last year’s meeting and had developed videos for us.  We had agreed to cover her expenses of hotel and registration fees if she would be willing to do videos again for us.  There is still quite a bit of footage from last year. (Allen)  Allen will look into this and would like to focus more on grad students this year.  Duke through the working group will get students lined up ahead of time.  Do we need to check with DAS about facilites for setting this up at the site (Donn)?

There is a problem with emails from our new listserver not getting to all of our members, including some of the EC.  We have investigated this a bit and these emails do not appear to be getting trapped in the recipients’ spam filters.  For now our strategy will be to continue to work with Ian P. at ACSESS to sort this out.  We will give Ian a heads up that an email is going to be sent out, send out a meeting reminder email via the ACSESS server, and then contact selected addresses to see if they received the email.  If the problem persists, we will set up a conference call with Ian to devise a next step for dealing with the issue.

Allen mentioned that the UC Davis list server could only send out 500 emails at a time.  Potentially this could be part of the problem with ACSESS and this will be mentioned to Ian that perhaps we should parse our listserver email list.

Things are moving along regarding incorporation; the attorney has the documentation ready to file; as soon as the filing has been recognized NAPB legally exists.  We are in the process of finalizing the by-laws.  For this purpose we need to stipulate the officers of NAPB, to distinguish ourselves from PBCC.  NAPB officers are President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Web-editor, Past-President.  After incorporation, the attorney will file our tax exempt status application with the IRS.  Once the filing occurs the attorney assures us that we can function as a tax-exempt organization.  We are hoping to have this done before the August meeting.  Donn extended congratulations for getting this done; it is a nice step forward in NAPB becoming something much greater.

We will be sitting down to sign a MOU with EUCARPIA. Rita will be giving a presentation on the future of plant breeding.  Who else is going? (Rita)  Allen cannot go, Liz has not done anything yet, & David S. we are not sure of.  There may be some US based speakers that Rita could connect with. 

The group is working with Seth to develop a web page.  They would like to change the title of the Sunday evening mixer at the Annual Meetings to The NAPB Mixer.  This reflects that everyone is invited to attend this even.  The group has been in contact with the Purdue Grad students about the informal mixer and possible venues near the hotel for the event.  Duke asked if it is possible to have a different color nametag or another means of easily picking out grad students at the meetings?  (talk to Jen L.).  The group would like to have a means to actively recruit students to the working group.  What is the best method for doing this?  The best would be to have ACSESS generate a student email list from the meeting registrants ahead of time for Duke so that they can directly communicate with the grad students that will be attending the meeting. (talk to ACSESS about this)

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC EC monthly phone conference
March 20th 2012, 1:00 pm central time

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Rita Mumm, David Stelly, Wayne Smith, Jen Luczak (DAS), Randy Johnson, Phil Simon, Shelley Jansky, Seth Murray, Duke Pauli, Jamie Sherman, Allen Van Deynze, Karen Moldenhauer, Jim Hancock, Tom Koch, Pat Byrne, Donn Cummings, & Dave Francis.

Regrets: Stephen Baenziger, Mike Havey & Ann Marie Thro

Notes:  Rita Mumm is chairing the meeting, minutes taken by Liz Lee. Rita is going to keep things moving along to get through the agenda before the phone line terminates in one and a half hours.  DAS: Dow Agro Sciences

Agenda items:

Hotel is all set; it is the University Place Hotel (IUPI campus).  Sunday evening there is a room booked for the student mixer, plus some entertainment, an improv-comedy group for a show.  Might consider making it not student exclusive (Duke). – Jen L.

Can we get the hotel address into our advertisements (Rita)?  It is already on the web site (Allen & Seth).  Pat is expecting to advertise the meetings (Wayne S.).  We will be updating the flyer that was developed and we will be free to distribute it.  Wayne is concerned about the DAS logo being on the flyer, so we can remove the logo and add the hotel info to the flyer (Allen).  DAS has blocked rooms and they need people to register under the block that DAS has reserved so that we get the credit (Seth).  The auditorium seats 238 people, with additional seats in the upper balcony(Jen L.).  There are 4 other breakout rooms with 50-80 people/room probably in theater style seating.  We are allowed to bring in projector, with a $75 support package fee.  Wireless is free throughout the hotel property.

Monday is a full meeting package.  The hotel has given us a rate for a full meeting package that boils down to a per person per day price, rather than by individual items.  Meals include breakfast, lunch, and coffee breaks.  Cocktail reception and dinner at the DAS facility, with busses to and from DAS.  Tuesday half-day meeting, busses to and from Purdue.  Lunch will probably be at the hotel on Tuesday to get people up to Purdue.  Awards dinner Tuesday evening back at the hotel, we have a buffet or a plated dinner option to decide upon.  There will be screens and a stage for the speakers.  Wednesday, is kind of the same format as Tuesday.  We have reduced our bussing needs, but can adjust them if needed.  Will there be a special sign up for the Wednesday afernoon tours?  Not yet, but we should probably think about doing so to get a better handle on bussing needs.  What about the situation of serving alcohol (Rita)?  Could TAMU people give us some guidance?  Do we need to worry about underage drinking?  David – we should probably look into what Indiana state law is?  One option, like what was done last year, would be to give out 2 tickets for drinks (Wayne) and then have licensed bartenders through the hotel.  Do we have meeting insurance that may stipulate some rules regarding this sort of thing (Liz)? – no meeting insurance.

We will have to have a special dispensation from the Dean’s office to get away with 0% overhead if we use TAMU as a pass through for the sponsorship support.  Wayne is looking into it.  At worse, it will probably be a 5% overhead but Wayne is hoping to get it down to 0%. We could probably shift the payments over to access to avoid this (Rita)? Wayne feels that he should have this sorted out within the next week.  NAPB is working towards aligning itself with the tri-societies and that this is probably just a temporary arrangement, which is probably worth reminding the Dean about (David).

We can use the status of a non-profit now via ACSESS to give out tax receipts – Rita via the advice of the ACSESS attorney.  Can we have the ability to sign on and make a donation outside of the registration (Donn)?  And, can we have the ability to donate year-round (Donn)? Seth will work with Ian P. at ACSESS to sort out this issue.

Allen sent around via email the sponsorship levels; it is at the end of the minutes. Allen is a bit cautious about asking for sponsorship for the meeting and then having to ask again for the educational survey.  We could have the executive committee draw up an asking letter to be sent out by Allen for the sponsorship ask (Jamie).  We need to get the letter out pretty soon (Karen).  Wayne will ask Kathy Ferguson for the letter that was used last year, massage it a bit and run it by Allen; then have the executive committee sign it and send it out.  We should probably give approximate costs in the letter of the various items, even though it is billed as a per person per day charge at the hotel level.

As for donating sponsors, students and speakers where the registration fees are waived we should be able to guide them through a hidden link on the web site that will reflect the no registration cost (Allen).  Seth and Ian P. at ACSESS will sort this out.  Allen also sent around an excel file with possible sponsors and contacts, please add to the excel file (Allen).

We covered the student mixer and Duke felt that including more people, regardless of age is good.  In terms of the student working group structure, they are still sorting it out.  They feel that the succession structure of the other NAPB sub-committees is probably not going to work for this particular working group.  They also suggested that it would be nice if the awards committee could recognize the top 5 posters, even though there will only be one award winner.  Meeting wise, they are hoping to get a bit of time to meet as a group.  Would it work after the banquet on Tuesday evening (Liz)?  Duke, feels that this is probably a good time slot.  Do they need a room, and if so arrange one through Jen L. from DAS?  Or, the other option is to arrange to go out to a tavern/bar nearby the hotel.  Duke is wondering whom to contact at Purdue for some help with this – Herb Ohm (Rita).  David S. suggested making up maps of the bar/tavern for the students.  Duke felt that they will probably go the bar/tavern option.

Seth – FYI we are at an average of 1000 hits per day and 159 unique IP addresses a day.

Jim – regarding organizing the content of the web site. It is basically a reorganization of the content (Jim).  It would be nice to incorporate videos into the web page. Jim and Seth have not had much of a chance to talk about this together.  Ann Marie was advocating a link for informing legislatures and policy makers of important and timely topics and success stories (Seth).  Todd originally wanted a link for jobs.  Do we post jobs on our web site (Liz)? We could post static job sites, but links that go dead are not being posted (Seth). Job postings could be handled on the FaceBook page (Seth).

Regarding being able to directly contact NAPB/PBCC officers from the web site, there are 2 contact links, one asking about plant breeding that goes anonymously to Mike Havey and then a link to Liz about joining NAPB.

As an aside, Jamie has been doing recruiting trips to minority institutions and may end up with more students than she can handle (Jamie).

Brooks was not able to make the call, but Karen filled in for him.  Karen – any issues with the name of the new award (no); distribution of the awards nomination announcement will be done using Claire Hersey’s newsletter (Karen) and the NAPB list server (Liz).  The 1-page awards announcement from the web was sent out over the list server Tuesday evening (Liz).  We may want to ask our experiment station directors with their groups (David) and encourage the companies to share it widely with their administrators.  This was put this in the text of the list server message (Liz).

Is there someone that can participate in this call and represent NAPB (Rita)?  David and Rita cannot, Liz has a PhD defense that day.  If this window does open up in anyone’s schedule, please let Rita know.  Do we have specific positions that we want to emphasize (Dave F.)?  Yes, we work off our mission statement and make sure that it is on behalf of NAPB (Rita).  Dave F. is participating in other listening sessions, but it does not limit one to only representing one entity (Rita).

There is a cost of $500 for becoming a member of C-FAR.  CAST (Council for Agriculture Science and Technology) membership is also something worth becoming involved with as an associated society $750 membership fee.  As an organization it gives us a bigger footprint to the various processes that are going on.  Dave S. made a motion that we become a member of C-FAR including authorizing the payment of the $500 membership fee.  It was seconded by Pat.  Vote will be held electronically and the outcome will be reported at the next EC.

We have been invited to join the Alliance to Feed the Future.  It includes about 80 different groups.  It is targeting educating the “soccer moms”.  There is no cost to membership and we have joined them (Rita).  Allen wants to make sure that they have a balanced agenda.  Is this group allied with USAID’s feed the future (Pat)? – no, it is probably separate (Rita).  Rita will send a link around to their web site and get input from the EC.

Newsletter will be going out the end of April (Liz), so send items that you want in the newsletter.  Nominations for sub-committees are needed (Phil).  Karen has been appointed to the National Genetic Resources Advisory council until Sept. 2013 and can represent us there.  Congratulations Karen!

Email from Brooks regarding the awards panel:

Regarding the conference call tomorrow and my time on the agenda: 

I’m going to try and make the call, but I’m scheduled to be on the road with a group to meet with growers.  I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to get away…if somebody will fill in I’d appreciate it. 

The items I would have addressed include:
1.    The name of the Outstanding Plant Breeder Award was changed to the “Plant Breeding Impact Award” and it has been published as such on the website.  Unless there is a problem, we should stay with that name since the consensus of the Awards Panel was to make the name change. 
2.    Publication/dissemination of the 2012 Awards Announcement.  The channels that we used last year were the a) website [Seth has uploaded this already.  I’d suggest making it more visible on the front page if possible…], b) newsletter [this should be good to go…Liz?], c) email distribution to AES directors, Dept. Heads, etc.  The email distribution list needs some attention, as I don’t know who maintains it or who sends it. 
3.       How should the Award Announcement email go out?  Separate from or adjunct to the meeting announcement? 
4.       I’d like to bring special attention to the Graduate Student Poster Contest when we put the word out…wherever and whenever possible.  It is a “non-traditional” award, not requiring a nomination packet, etc., and this is our 1st year to do it.  I’d like to feature it prominently to drum up interest and hopefully get many entries.   
5.       If I missed something, feel free to ad lib. 

That should do it for my part.  Karen, if you could weigh in on how we sent out the announcement last year it would be helpful. 

Thanks,
Brooks

Email attachment from Jim Hancock regarding updates to the web site:

Note that Jim has inadvertently changed the acronym to North American Blueberry Council (NABC).  I took the liberty to change this back to NAPB. – Liz

Suggestions on NAPB webpage

Instead of the current arrows on the left side of the home page, have

Activities of NAPB
What is NAPB?
Organizational structure
Activities of NAPB
Awards
Importance of plant breeders in agriculture
Examples of plant breeding programs
Plant breeding training
Plant breeding tools
Links

The rest of the home page could stay the same, except it might have a featured video on plant breeding instead of a photo gallery.

Move stuff under ‘About’ arrow to ‘Activities of NAPB’

Move from under ‘Hot topics’ to ‘Importance of plant breeders in Agriculture’
Fact sheet on the importance of plant breeding
Financial times list of plant breeding
Investing in a better future through public agricultural work
Video on agriculture is under pressure (I have a couple more we could add)
Hawaii’s King of corn
Looking for a high-tech job? Try cotton.
White papers from the NAPB and PBCC (except, rename ‘Role of plant breeding in:’ )
Plant Breeding newsletters
General publications of interest

Under  ‘Plant breeding programs’:
Slides of plant breeders in action (from above the ‘Home’ bar – ‘photo gallery’ and programs arrow)
Videos on plant breeding programs (I have selected about a dozen from U-tube)

Stuff under ‘Meetings’  move to ‘Activities of NAPB’

Move stuff under ‘Awards’ to ‘Activities of  NAPB’
Move stuff under ‘Careers’ to ‘Plant breeding training’
Move stuff under ‘Programs’ to new tab called ‘Examples of plant breeding programs’
Keep current ‘Links’ arrow
I am interested in working on ‘Plant breeding tools’, which would be a collection of videos and descriptions of the various techniques used by plant breeders.

Email from Allen about sponsorships:

Platinum $5000 and up. one conference fee and Table for Display Logo displayed at registration, lunches, event sponsored, meeting and program Logo

Gold $2500  One conference fee and Table for Display; Logo displayed at meeting and program
Silver $1000 One conference fee or Table for Display; Logo displayed at meeting and program
Bronze: Logo displayed at meeting and program

Sponsorship can be for specific items such as reception or student travel awards.

 

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC EC monthly phone conference
Feb. 21st 2012, 2:00 pm CST.

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Mike Havey, Rita Mumm, Brooks Blanche, Jamie Sherman, Donn Cummings, Phil Simon, Wayne Smith, David Stelly, Seth Murray, Allen Van Deynze, Jim Hancock, Don Blackburn, Stephen Baenziger, Duke Pauli

Regrets: Shelley Jansky, Marcelo Carena, Pat Byrne, Carol Moore

Notes:  Rita Mumm is chairing the meeting, minutes taken by Liz Lee.

Agenda items:

Mike has invites sent out, many confirmations, see tentative schedule with confirmed names at the end of the minutes; Dr. Woteki has been invited for the 1-1:30 slot on Monday, but has not been confirmed yet.  Jules Jannick has been invited as the evening banquet speaker on Tuesday, but has not been confirmed yet.  On Wednesday morning David Heyten (presently w/ Pioneer) has been invited to talk about the soybean genome, but has not confirmed yet.  For the graduate students chosen to present there has been a discussion to help them defray the costs.  Allen mentioned that there had been some discussion to interlace the grad student talks into the rest of the program, rather than having a separate session for them.  We have attempted to have people nearby speak.  Jim Brewbaker has offered to pay either his flight or his registration and hotel as we covered his costs last year as the career award recipient.  Donn C. mentioned that we might want to have someone from ASTA to come in and provide some updates, perhaps even over a lunch, perhaps the private sector seed-trade slot on Monday.  Andy LeVigne was talked about as the person to bring in with the Dow speaker serving as the backup.

Looking into to getting the ground transportation issues set, more discussions with the hotel, Carol is still having troubles getting access to the ASA website.  We have finalized and signed the contract with the hotel, we are getting the conference facility free of charge. 

Carol is hoping to have a good first draft on costs by early next week.  Last year it was $300 for early, $400 for late and $200 for students.  Will we keep it the same this year and June 1st has been set as the early registration deadline.

Marcelo had been working with ASA on the part of the website that will allow us to make payments for registration.  It has not been developed for housing, special needs.  Carol had given Marcelo pieces of things that needed to go into the web site (Don).  If Carol could get into the website to see what is there it would probably be best.  We need to make sure that people can get to our site with ASA without being an ASA member.  Mike will get in touch with Ian P. to make sure that this gets sorted out.

Rita spoke with Wes M. about accepting donations to support student travel in addition to registration fees and the accounting that needs to be done.  It sounds like this capability is easy to put in place.

Mike suggested that we might want to have ASA build a website for us and have a link from our current NAPB website to the ASA website.  Everything would just flow.  Seth thought that the potential plan (current as of the PAG mtgs.) was that Dow would have the web site, the payment site would be with ASA, and NAPB would just have a link.  Don does not think that Dow can host the site.  What Carol needs is to get her questions in and to pull data down off of the registration web site via a clear route.  Based on Carol’s questions, she will then have the info to set up the logistics.  Seth, would you be willing to speak with Carol and the ASA group and propose a solution to move forward (Rita)?  Yes.  Whatever we have that is ready to post, send it to Seth and he will get it posted on NAPB now and migrated over to ASA.

We need someone from the group to step forward to take-over and lead this effort.  It is separate from the meeting registration site and the donations on the web site.  Wayne S. led this effort last year along with his admin assistant.  Where will the money go to this time (Allen)?  Marcelo originally set up an account, but as he has resigned it should probably be moved somewhere else.  DOW is not interested in doing this.  TAMU is OK with continuing to do the accounting (David S.).  Some companies would rather sponsor an event, rather than just giving money (Allen).  Last year we let some companies bring in a small table with brochures and display items (David S.).  Will we be able to do that this year? We can offer up lunches and coffee break sponsorships (Mike).  TAMU can generate an invoice on behalf of NAPB (Wayne S.).  We need some cost estimates of events, so if Don B. could send Wayne those estimates.  We acknowledge the gifts/sponsorships in the program and with posters.  Allen with Wayne’s assistance will take over the lead with this effort.

Their goal is to increase student enrollment and involvement in NAPB, they hold their meetings about a week before the EC.  (1) Separate breakout group for the grad students, particularly during the business meeting portion of the first day.  (2) having an oral competition for the students, short 5-10 minutes presentations on their current research, (3) turning the poster session into more of a competition with the winners having their registration waived, (4) having a student mixer, understanding that there might be some liability issues associated with this.

Donn, what can you tell us about the need for the separation of the students into their own breakout group? They felt it would create an opportunity to increase communication with the EC and increase student involvement (Duke).  Is it possible to do this independent of the annual meetings (Donn)?  Rita, perhaps when we plan our business agenda we can take this into account.  Can we take another look at this once we have the business meeting planned?  Don B., the student mixer is a bit of a struggle with regards to when.  It might be easiest to do it on the travel day of Aug. 5th.  Possibly Carol could work out the logistics with the hotel and build the cost into it.  What about partnering with Purdue (Duke)?  They might not be willing to come up on Sunday evening.  Donn, would there be any interest in the group of opening it up to mixing with professionals (Donn)?  Duke will survey the grad students.  This might make it a potential sponsor event (Don B.).

Jim, Seth has done all of the work but wants to bounce a couple of thoughts by the group.  The problem that Jim has is he kind of gets lost.  He is not sure who it is directed to.  On the homepage have an “are you interested” portal of information links to the information.  Seth feels that it is a good idea and that it is not a problem to do this.  How focused or how general are we hoping to have the website reach?  Who is the website for?  Rita, the questions are quite pertinent.  Is it possible to develop a prototype for us to look at (Rita)?

Brooks will have another early career and lifetime achievement award given this year.  This past year the panel has added 2 more awards, outstanding plant breeder award to widen the field to include the private sector.  The second award is a graduate student poster award.  This will be announced in the newsletter.  The winner at the following year’s meeting will be asked to give a talk at the following year’s meeting.  We need to workout the name of the outstanding plant breeder award so if you have any ideas please contact Brooks.  Perhaps the awards panel can have some directives to help define productivity/impact cutting across both public and private (Rita).  It might be useful to work with NCCPB about defining the award title (Stephen B.)  Plant breeding impact award, rather than outstanding plant breeder award (Stephen and Brooks).  Hits on the applied side and highlights the impact of the program.  The impact can work across the spectrum, number of grad student, number of acres, impact of technology (Wayne S. and Stephen B.).

NCCPB has decided to do away with the private breeder award and will pick up a 3rd graduate student award. 

The conference call time limit was reached and we were cut off in mid conversation regarding the web page.  The items below were not covered during the conference call.

Tentative Meeting Schedule for the NAPB/PBCC Annual Meeting

Monday, August 6:

Tuesday, August 7:

Wednesday, August 8:

 

 

NAPB-PBCC Executive Committee Telecon
Tuesday, January 24th 1p-2:30p Central time. 

Planned topics: 
1.     2012 Annual Meeting    

2.     Timing and administration of the 2013 Annual Meeting in Tampa, FL with host Univ. FL: Barry Tillman
3.     Nominations for 2012-2013 positions: Todd Wehner
4.     Affiliation with C-FAR: David Stelly
5.     Collaboration with EUCARPIA: Rita Mumm
6.     Next dates for monthly telecons: Feb 21, March 20, April 17, and May 15
Participants:

  • Rita Mumm
  • Mike Havey
  • Donn Cummings
  • Jamie Sherman
  • David Stelly
  • Seth Murray
  • Shelley Jansky
  • Phil Simon
  • Allen Van Deynze
  • Barry Tillman

2012 Annual Meeting  (Mike Havey)  

  • Meeting schedule is pretty well set.: Tues evening at hotel(IDd).  Afternoon tours.   (SEE APPENDIX for written details (communicated Feb. 09 by Mike via email)  
  • Some final decisions to be made by DOW. 
  • Had conference call with DOW & ASA about registration fee and web site; should be up and running by mid Feb. 
    • There are some issues -- worries about reserving rooms. 
    • Will be web site to make donations for Student support. 
    • Need final commitment from DOW on how much they will put into the Conference.  Don Blackburn was not on last call, just Carol. 
    • ASA is ready to go; Marcello is leading that effort.  We simply need some decisions by DOW before we can set the registration fee level (should be near what it was before).  Once DOW chimes in, we need to email out the request on $level for registration to the XC for approval.   (We have been ~$300-350; we have carryover, but want to have that again, i.e., to fund operations and reserve rooms etc. for subsequent meetings)
  • We could use more suggestions on relatively basic science talks.  Education and capacity / Monday.  Basic research and agronomic/Tues.  More hort focus on Wed. morning.  Mike will send out a request by email to XC for additional ideas.  
  • Will look through the student abstracts, and pick some for oral presentation in regular sessions. 

2013 Annual Meeting (Barry Tillman) --
Florida thoughts:

Nominations to Date (Todd Wehner):
Treasurer:                  Shelley Jansky
Web Editor                 Seth will run; but wants someone else to do it or at least run.
NAPB Sec.:                  Barry Tillman
PBCC Sec. -                                 Mitch Tuinstra, Purdue
PBCC Archivist:          --
NAPB web assistant editor (2011-2013):  Jim Hancock

National C-FAR (David Stelly):

EUCARPIA (Rita Mumm):

PLANT BREEDING AWARDS (Donn Cummings):
Donn challenged NAPB to consider private breeders as potential recipients of awards. This will be a topic for next month’s conference call.

Funding for Research on Plant Breeding Discipline (Allen Van Deynze- Jamie Sherman):
Trying to identify funding source for long-term tracking of plant breeders and breeding efforts.  Can we generate funds for this project?  Will NAPB provide backing for this project? Need at least a half-time post-doc to do this work.  Use current CAP grants for their crops and those grants will end shortly.  Long-term goals are to run the study at regular intervals. Data are necessary to provide to federal sources of funding.  Data are the number of students being trained versus the number of jobs available – supply and demand. Options:

Appendix:  Tentative Schedule for 2012 NAPB/PBCC Annual Meeting

Tentative Schedule for 2012 NAPB/PBCC Annual Meeting
(communicated Feb. 09 by Mike Havey via email)

Meeting Title:  “Sustaining Life through Plant Improvement”

Monday, August 6:

Tuesday, August 7:

Wednesday, August 8:

. Stelly noted after the Telecon that membership in C-FAR membership entails a $500 fee.  This would need NAPB approval

 

 

 

2011

 

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC EC monthly phone conference
Dec. 13th 2011, 2:00 pm CST.

 

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Mike Havey, Phil Simon, Rita Mumm, David Stelley, Allen Van Deynze, Don Blackburn, Carol Moore (DOW), Pat Byrne, Donn Cummings, Marcelo Carena, Mitch McGrath, Todd Wehner, & Jamie Sherman

Regrets: Karen Moldenhauer, Steve Baenziger, & Brooks Blanche

Notes: Mike Havey is chairing this EC.  Items in the minutes that are underlined are potential action items and/or items for future teleconferences (Liz).

Agenda items:

 

 

 

The speaker committee voted on themes and arrived at three of them (see notes at the end of the minutes).  The committee is now at the stage of identifying speakers and are ready to start contacting speakers.  They have identified 2 possible evening speakers for the banquet, Jules Jannick or Julian Cribb.  Mike would like to solicit some additional suggested speakers.  Target is to finalize this in late Jan.

Donn mentioned that we should probably identify the student speakers early.  Last year we defrayed all graduate students expenses, it was less complicated. The Monsanto Fellows has committed $6000 for graduate students and would like to challenge others to contribute as part of the registration (Donn). TCAP has about $7000 to put towards funding all students participating in NAPB.  The Monsanto Fellows money will be part of the general meeting fund, whether it is targeted towards the grad students that speak or whether it is spread across all students we can decide later.

Grad students will have a lower registration.  The speaker committee will select from the abstracts several grad student speakers that we can cover a greater percentage of their travel expenses (Mike).  Possibly a 2-step abstract scenario for grad students for competing for speaking spots (Donn).  If we want all of the abstracts in the conference book, we need to have an earlier abstract deadline (Allen).

 

DOW is ready to sign a contract with University Place Conference Centre, downtown Indianapolis; may need to make a few changes to the contract as the Monday session ends with an evening at Dow, banquet will be on Tuesday instead that will work better logistically.  Banquet will be at the hotel.

Committing to 100 single and 50 double rooms for Monday & Tuesday at $125 for single, $135 for double. Are they billing for space for meeting rooms (Rita)?  No meeting room space charge (Carol).  We need to commit to rooms at least 30 days in advance. 

There was a fair amount of discussion regarding websites with regards to registration and hotel room booking. Some concerns about making sure that the registration is linked to the hotel, so that NAPB gets credit for all hotel reservations.  Link early-bird registration to the deadline for the hotel.  Do we need a link to University Place for hotel registration (Rita)?  Can we link to Carol’s site instead?  ACSESS prefers to link to their site to capture NAPB membership info (Rita).  Carol would like some info regarding arrivals and departures.  Don B. suggested that perhaps Marcelo and someone from ACSESS come to Dow to work out the details.  David felt that this could probably be done remotely.  Mike will set up a conference call between Marcelo, Seth, Ian, Don and Carol to get this sorted out.  

 

ACSESS will be using their system for meeting registration.  They will give the link to NAPB for our web site.  Marcelo is not leading the collaboration with ACSESS; he thought that Seth would be leading it.

 

David: the group felt that we should provide more than just $100 to the winners; perhaps free registration at the 2012 meeting and some PR for the winners at the business meeting.  This motion (David S.) that the 2 students will get free registration at the NAPB 2012 annual meetings passed by consensus.

The winners were, Leanna Nice (U of MN) for the logo, Terry Felderhoff for the slogan.  Both have stated that there is no IP with their logo or slogan.  Allen suggested checking the slogan to make sure that it is not protected. 

The original slogan was, “Improving Plants to Improve Lives”.  There has been a suggested a slight modification of this to: “Improving Plants Improves Lives”.  Pat liked the modification less now than when the sub-committee originally discussed it, and is suggesting that we go with what was submitted.  The motion (Pat B.) to keep the original slogan passed by consensus. 

(Note: my apologies, I should have treated both of these votes as motions and asked for a second, Liz).

Timing to announce the winners and the logo and slogan is the Jan. 2012 Newsletter.  Information about the students will be included in the newsletter as part of the write-up.

Copyrighting the logo and slogan is a bit expensive, given what David S. found through TAMU.  Perhaps we can check with ACSESS to see if they could do this more affordably.  Pat will contact Ian P. to look into this and get in touch with Brian Anderson.  It will probably have to be subsequent to us getting incorporated.

Jaime had to leave the call before we got around to discussing this, but the students were holding their own conference call during the EC call.  More on this topic at the January EC.

Other business:

From:         mjhavey@wisc.edu
Subject: NAPB/PBCC Conference call Tuesday Dec 13th
Date: December 9, 2011 5:22:44 PM GMT-05:00

Putative schedule and speaker ideas for 2012 NAPB/PBCC Annual Meeting

Potential Meeting Title:  “Sharing (Sustaining) (Improving) Life through Plant Improvement”

The committee supported opportunities for Dow and Purdue to showcase their programs.

Tentative schedule by Dow:
Monday, August 6:

Tuesday, August 7:

Wednesday, August 8:

The committee clearly supported the following topics (with some suggested speakers/topics listed):

 

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC  EC monthly phone conference
Nov. 15th 2011, 1:00 pm CST.

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Mike Havey, Jamie Sherman, Tom Stalker, Allen Van Deynze, Seth Murray, Todd Wehner, David Stelly, Phil Simon, Donn Cummings, Shelley Jansky, Wayne Smith, and Don Blackburn

Regrets: Rita Mumm, Rale Gjuric, and Steve Baenziger

Notes: Mike Havey is chairing this EC, as Rita is representing NAPB at the ARS 301 Stakeholders’ Meeting.  Items in the minutes that are underlined are potential action items and/or items for future teleconferences (Liz).

Agenda items:

The committee has not really done anything since the last EC meeting.  They have identified the topics and the speaker committee will be making the recommendation to the EC for final input.  Do we have a theme (Don B.)?  No theme, but topics: education of plant breeders, IP, next gen sequencing (?) (Mike H.).  Would Dow have any input on themes (Dave S.)?  Don felt that it should be driven by NAPB.

Not much to report as Carol was not available last week.  They are still going out for bids for the hotel/meeting facilities.  Trying to bring the pricing down.  Then they will move forward with a contract.  Don is hoping that the venue will be set any time now, but needs to touch base with Carol.  They are continuing to work on some of the tour aspects.  Firming up whether people can do it.  One group has opted out. University Farm in Lafayette and Dow’s soybean transformation facility will be on the tour slate.  They are still planning on 2, ½-day tours (see Oct. minutes for details of the schedule).  And Don reminded us that logistics will be a challenge. Mike asked if flipping around the 2 evening options would help with the logistics.  Don liked that idea, as it might make it easier.  Marcelo and Seth will develop the web site in conjunction with ASCESS. Carol has requested that she have access to these design discussions regarding the registration web component as she has some questions to ask the registrants to help better tailor the meeting experience (Don).

Working with Ian Popkewitz from ACSESS to:

The plan is for the Nov. newsletter can go out via the new list server, but it just depends on how quickly Ian can get the membership list transferred over.

Encouragement needs to come from the entire EC, that we need everyone from the sub-committees’ leadership to become routinely involved in our monthly EC calls.  Jamie suggested that we set aside a time for sub-committee reports  And the general consensus was that this is a great idea, even if it is just a quick 1-liner.  Goal is to make sure that each committee has at least officer participate (Allen). One of the benefits of monthly participation in the EC is that the sub-committee’s “purpose in life” will be defined through participation.

Action item:  David S. will send out an email to the sub-committee chairs to try to encourage them to get re-engaged.

On a related issue, Janet Lewis’ status as chair of the Grand Challenges Committee (Donn):  Janet has resigned from chair of the committee as she is starting a new position in the private sector. There is a co-chair/vice-chair of this committee, Ram Perumal from KSU (perumal@ksu.edu).  How do we want to move forward with management of the Grand Challenges committee (David S.)?  Two options were discussed: (1) Ram will move up to chair and the EC will identify a new co-chair, or (2) the EC will identify an interim chair for the remainder of Janet’s term so that Ram can get his feet underneath him and then be prepared to assume the role of chair at the end of this term. Who are the other officers of this sub-committee (Donn)?  We appear to be fairly short on committee officers for Grand Challenges.

Action item:  Mike H., David S. and Rita will give Ram a phone call to talk about getting the Grand Challenges sub-committee moving and determine what support is needed. Mike, David and Rita will report back at the Dec. meeting regarding their conversations with Ram and what support he needs to get the Grand Challenges committee up and running effectively.

Grad students have been contacting Jamie about not being involved in the sub-committees that they have volunteered for. The grad students already have a NAPB facebook page.  But they are interested in trying to pull in more students.  They also expressed in interest in organizing some smaller events during the annual meeting, perhaps some online events throughout the year, and serving as advisors to the other sub-committees. The education committee talked about forming a graduate student subcommittee during their most recent meeting.  The discussion around the EC was that we were not sure of the proper procedure to establish another sub-committee, but recognized the need to create some sort of structure for the grad students to start working under that may eventually lead to the formation of another sub-committee.

Motion: that the EC permit the grad students to form a Graduate Student Working Group, which will give them some structure to work under (Jamie).  Donn seconded the motion.  Passed by consensus. 

Action item:  Jamie will communicate this back to the grad students and ask them to have at least one representative at the next EC.  It was noted that as the planning of the 2012 meetings has already begun, there are some serious time constraints that may impact any plans.  The EC would also like a short presentation from the Graduate Student Working Group at the Monday morning at the NAPB annual meeting.  This would facilitate discussions regarding whether the working group should become a sub-committee.

Pat was not able to be on the phone call.  David S. has not had real recent communication with Pat, but Pat is working on the pamphlet and had requested some photos from David S.  Should have something in a week or so.  Wayne confirmed that that this is the time line and that it will be a 3-panel pamphlet.  If you have photos that could be used for the pamphlet, please email them to Pat.

Rale was not able to make the phone call; however he sent an email around to the group regarding this issue.  The email from Rale can be found at the end of the minutes.  Rita, David S., and Liz have talked about attending this meeting, and assume that Rita will address the congress.  Allen will be there too.  Do we have someone from EUCARPIA speaking at our annual meeting (David S.)?  No, but we should reciprocate.

Action item: Mike H. or Rita will extend an invitation. (note – this was added by Liz to the minutes after the EC)

We have the ARS recommendations and that has helped getting the unified voice process moving (see Oct. minutes for the full list of recommendations).  The abbreviated list of topics is below (Liz).

1.  Germplasm:   Conserve, organize, evaluate and develop germplasm.
2.  Plant breeding capacities:  Conserve and enhance US capacities for field-based breeding of all plant species important to the US in agri-regionally relevant manners.
3.  Innovations:  Identify, research and exploit new approaches and new targets for plant breeding that enhance our economy, environment, health, sustainability and food security.
4.  Science & Technologies: Research, use and create new technologies that augment the range and speed of field-based breeding of plants of importance.
5.  Education:  Foster state-based efforts and investments to retain and strengthen plant breeding education in agri-regionally relevant manners. 
6.  Outreach:  Communicate and exemplify why society [1] needs plants, [2] needs plant breeding, plant breeders, and plant breeding programs.  

These recommendations probably just need to be refined for our unified voice (Allen).  In the next couple of weeks try to refine these topics before the CSS ASTA meetings where Rita and Liz can meet with ASTA there.  If we had to pick one topic, point 3 of these recommendations really captures what are probably NAPB’s priorities (Allen). 

Action item: Allen, Donn, David S., Don B., Liz, and Rita will work on refining these priorities prior to the ASTA meetings in Chicago in Dec.

Action item: Allen will also try to see if we can get these topics into the pamphlet too.

Dec 13th and Jan 24th, Mike H. has already secured the phone line for those dates and times.  Feb. 21st, March 20th, April 17th, May 15th are the tentative dates for our meetings.

From: rgjuric@ucdavis.edu
Subject:  RE: NAPB-PBCC Monthly EC Telecon: Nov 15th at 1p-2:30p Central time
Date: November 9, 2011 11:43:35 AM GMT-05:00

Dear all,
I will not be able to join due to travel. Re item - (Invitation to present at EUCARPIA General Congress: Rale Gjuric). Eucarpia secretary general Laszlo Lang asked if it would be possible that an NAPB representative address the Eucarpia General Congress, Budapest, May 2012.  

Action required: that NAPB executive committee identify or at least confirm that one EC member will attend the Eucarpia General Congress and address (probably) the general assembly.

Best regards,
Rale
*********************************
Dr. Rale Gjuric
Director, UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy
204-688-5116
www.pba.ucdavis.edu

 

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC EC monthly phone conference
Oct. 25th 2011, 1:00 pm CDT.

In attendance: Liz Lee, Rita Mumm, David Francis, Donn Cummings, Shelley Jansky, Pat Byrne, Mitch McGrath, Seth Murray, Ann Marie Thro (from the Dubai International Airport), Phil Simon, Allen Van Deynze, Jamie Sherman, David Baltensperger, Todd Wehner, David Stelly, and Mike Havey.

Regrets: Steve Baenziger, Tom Stalker and Marcelo Carena

Note: items in the minutes that are underlined are potential action items and/or items for future teleconferences (Liz).

Agenda items:
• Updates on actions since last EC call
Pat B. gave us an update on the logo and slogan contest. They have received several logo and slogan entries. They will have a survey monkey up shortly after Nov. 1st for the exec to vote on them.

• NIFA:

a. Opportunity to serve as Representative to NIFA: 6 month to 1 year in Washington DC as per Ann Marie Thro.
Ann Marie is staying an additional year in Afghanistan and has suggested to her agency that a representative to NIFA be installed in DC starting in 2012. It will be a paid position. The person would be backfilling Ann Marie's position for 6 months to a year. Attending internal NIFA meetings and external meetings. Day to day activities are: 150-200 hatch projects to read each year; special grants that need to be processed through the funding system; the potato special grant is the main thing that is important to the agency; input with regards to plant breeding into the Farm Bill and AFRI. Ann Marie is looking for help in recruiting for this position and would like a name or two to bring to her higher ups in the agency. Not sure that there is a legal requirement to advertise this position (Ann Marie). Note: Ann Marie sent Rita an email with more on this discussion point. It has been added to the end of the minutes (Liz).

b. NAPB and PBCC liaisons to USDA NIFA in Ann Marie's absence.
NAPB liaison should be a different person than the PBCC liaison. The PBCC liaison should be someone from within the USDA. Rita: are there any volunteers? Allen suggested that we try to find someone that is already living in the DC area. There are several people at companies in the area that might fit the bill. Allen will send those names to Rita and Rita will contact them. We need to see if it is OK for a registered lobbyist to talk to NIFA. How much direction would this person need, plant breeder vs. lobbyist? NIFA needs someone who is current on plant breeding science. We should probably talk to Liang Shiou Lin, Ed Kaleikau and Shing Kwok about what they need. We need to figure out what the job is first (Jamie). No matter who we have as our liaisons, as a group we will need to give them talking points (David F.). Would this be best handled by one of our sub-committees (Liz)? We should really try to have someone in place before the next farm bill (Jan-Feb). - tabled until the next meeting.

• Secretary nomination for the Science, Technology, and Informatics Subcommittee (Mitch McGrath)
At the annual meetings at TAMU, the secretary nominated was a grad student who had not even been through his comprehensive exams. There was a discussion among the sub-committee officers that this might be unfair to the student and the student's professor. In addition, this potentially creates a problem as we probably do not have a proper order of succession for this committee. As the newly elected secretary, then becomes vice-chair the following year and chair of the committee in the 3rd year. Mitch approached a colleague to inquire if they would be willing to serve as secretary to this sub-committee. Mitch made a motion to nominate Shahryar Kianian NDSU as our new secretary for the Science, Technology and Informatics Sub-committee. Pat B. seconded the motion. Passed by consensus.

• Facilitation through ACSESS for administrative functions

a. Financial (Shelley Jansky)
Working with Wes M. from the ACSESS side. Rita and Shelley have talked to ASCESS about setting up to 2 separate funds, one an operations fund and the other a donations fund.

b. Member database (Liz Lee)
Working with Ian P. from the ACSESS side. Liz has several questions that she will sort out with Ian: who takes care of the list server for us, both updating it and hosting it? Rita felt that ASCESS will not be taking on any communications on our behalf.

c. Web page for annual meeting registration (Seth Murray & Mike Havey)
Ian P. from ASCESS will work with Seth on the technical side of creating a meeting web site.

d. Funding student travel for the annual meeting (Jamie Sherman & Donn Cummings)
Donn updated the group, ~$4200 from the Monsanto Fellows group has been raised, with some additional matching to come in it might go to $5-6000. Donn was wondering if we can create a volunteer donation option on the website for the annual meeting so that we can potentially match it again by our NAPB members. With this pool of money, we should be able to fund the students that we ask to speak at the annual meetings.

e. Incorporation (David Stelly)
Working with the lawyers provided by ACSESS.

• Unified voice: preparing message for upcoming meetings with USDA (Stakeholder's Meeting) and ASTA (Allen Van Deynze)
ASTA was asked to provide input to the USDA/ARS Germplasm Improvement NP301 goals for the next 5 years. ASTA forwarded this request to NAPB via Allen. Allen working with David S. and Rita worked on NAPB's input, circulated the draft to the EC for comment, and on Oct. 21st, sent the finalized input to USDA/ARS (see Allen's email at the end of the minutes).

In addition to this, Rita will be attending the USDA Stakeholder's meeting in person on Nov. 15, 2011. And, there will be a webinar prior to this, which is a pre-meeting on Nov. 9th both Allen and Rita will be participating in the webinar.

• 2012 Annual Meeting plans (2 pm):

a. Speaker Committee (Mike Havey)
The speaker committee is proposing to have grad students speak in session with the invited speakers with an overarching theme (Mike). Mike asked for feedback on the grad students being in the same sessions with the invited speakers, and the general consensus was yes. The committee has also kicked around several ideas about an over all theme and have not really hit upon one. Mike also mention that he is reluctant to solicit speaker ideas from the entire NAPB membership, and was wondering if it should be kept within the EC? David S. suggested that we keep it within the EC. Liz mentioned that last year the speaker committee worked in isolation from the EC and did not consult them with regards to meeting themes, topics or speakers. Mike will be soliciting the EC for specific suggestions for speakers on topics.

b. Logistics (Don Blackburn & Carol Moore)
Mike H. and Don B. met at the ASA meetings and talked about the logistics. Don was not able to make the EC, so Mike Havey shared their tentative schedule. Sunday Aug. 5th is the travel day. Don B. is finalizing the venue.

Tentative schedule by Dow:
Monday:
• 8 AM to noon: NAPB/PBCC business meeting
• 1 to 5 PM: Speakers/Posters
• Evening banquet with invited speaker (intro by Dow person followed by dinner speaker)
Tuesday:
• AM Speakers/Posters
• PM Tour to Purdue and nearby facilities
• Evening banquet at Dow Ag Sciences
Wednesday:
• AM Speakers/Posters
• PM Tour of Dow and maybe other commercial sites (Ag-Reliant-confirmed)
• 5 PM meeting concludes

Questions/comments: Can we do the business meetings from 8-12 (Allen)? Mike felt that last year's dragged on too long. Perhaps we can shift the awards into Monday evening banquet (Rita). The nominations will be done prior to the sub-committee meetings (Liz). It should be doable to fit the business meeting activities into Monday morning.

Phil S. mentioned that there is a commercial flower breeding station near Indy, which might be another tour stop.

Seth has put up a meeting inquiry on the web page with Liz and Marcelo as contacts for international visitors that might need a letter.

• Dates for upcoming EC telecons: Nov 15th, Dec? Jan?
• Nov. 15th, Mike Havey will chair the Nov. EC as Rita will be at the USDA stakeholder's meeting.
• Dec. 13th, Rita will be late for this meeting, so Mike Havey will chair the Dec. EC too.
• Jan. 24th, Rita will chair this meeting

• Other Business
(1) Motion to amend the bylaws regarding qualifications for being nominated for officer positions. Since there is a built in succession with all of the officer positions the nominees need to be able to make a 3-year commitment, which is problematic when the nominee is a grad student. – tabled for the Nov. EC meeting.

(2) Should NAPB have any presence at PAG (Allen)? Pamphlets (Pat is working on this) or perhaps someone to speak in the joint workshop on genomics and plant breeding, or perhaps a reception? Who is going? Rita, David S., Allen. Perhaps the communications committee can take this on. If we want to do a poster for the PAG meetings we need to do it soon as abstracts are due in early Nov (David S.). While we are on the topic of presence at meetings, the Corn and Sorghum ASTA meetings in Chicago in early Dec. is another meeting where we need to have a presence (Liz), perhaps at the FUSE booth at ASTA (Donn C.). – tabled for the Nov. EC meeting.

From ALLEN VAN DEYNZE
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011
Re: ARS Customer/Stakeholder Workshop - Input Requested

The NAPB recommendations prioritized in order of highest to lowest.
Allen

NAPB Response
1. Germplasm: Conserve, organize, evaluate and develop germplasm.
• Conserve and curate existing germplasm resources and expand collections
• Objectively characterize germplasm resources genotypically and phenotypically (for biotic and abiotic stress, and quality). Note that some evaluations are only relevant with breeding into adapted backgrounds.
• Preserve biodiversity in both agricultural and natural environments
• Utilize genetic diversity for improved productivity, yield stability, nutrition and genetic discovery
• Facilitate germplasm exchange internationally

2. Plant breeding capacities: Conserve and enhance US capacities for field-based breeding of all plant species important to the US in agri-regionally relevant manners.
• The long-term sustainability of plant breeding programs requires sufficient funding to ensure that both personnel and infrastructure can meet the long-term challenges to develop and adapt emerging technologies required to sustain the increasing demand for food, feed, fiber and fuel in the US.
• These resources further provide the necessary basis for germplasm characterization, education, translation of technologies, innovation and outreach

3. Innovations: Identify, research and exploit new approaches and new targets for plant breeding that enhance our economy, environment, health, sustainability and food security.
• The evolving biotic and abiotic stresses with changes in environment, and demand for higher productivity and quality of food, feed and fiber require constant innovation in plant breeding.

4. Science & Technologies: Research, use and create new technologies that augment the range and speed of field-based breeding of plants of importance.
• The translation and integration of technologies into plant breeding is essential to develop new strategies for crop improvement to be competitive globally.

5. Education: Foster state-based efforts and investments to retain and strengthen plant breeding education in agri-regionally relevant manners.
• Participate in integrated training opportunities for students and scientists with government, academic and industry programs

6. Outreach: Communicate and exemplify why society [1] needs plants, [2] needs plant breeding, plant breeders, and plant breeding programs.
• Sustaining and building a workforce focused on crop improvement and agriculture are essential to remain competitive and meet societal demands of an increasing population with decreasing resources.

Email from Ann Marie Thro to Rita

From: ritamumm@illinois.edu
Subject: A message from Ann Marie Thro in follow-up to the Oct 25th NAPB/PBCC EC telecon
Date: October 27, 2011 1:49:53 PM GMT-04:00

Greetings, PBCC/NAPB colleagues.

Thanks to all of you on the call this Tuesday, for putting up with the phone card confusion and airport background. It was great to hear your voices.

As Rita mentioned, I have been discussing with NIFA whether or not the agency could use my temporary absence as a unique opportunity to bring in an infusion of cutting-edge plant breeding science expertise, via a 6 to 12 month temporary person (such as someone on sabbatical). This person could support liaison to PBCC (SCC 80) and help NIFA engage in upcoming national discussions about ag research and research funding, while carrying out grants management tasks. I've offered to help with terms of reference.

IMPORTANT caveat: NIFA has not yet responded to this suggestion, nor decided. It is too soon to know if NIFA can agree to the idea.

A top-quality plant breeder as a short-term Acting NPL would create long-term benefit by propelling the NIFA Plant Breeding NPL position forward. On my return I'd find new, up–to-the-minute knowledge and ideas in place. Both would draw out my renewed best for the agency and stakeholders.

Benefits from a short-term assignment with NIFA would be the opportunities a) to get to know the agency from the inside out (a benefit they can share with their home organization when they return); and b) to influence national thinking about plant breeding research and its funding. These are similar to the insights gained and given by NRI chief scientists (those were 1 or 2 yr appointments in years past). Those positions were instrumental in inspiring and designing the concept of CAP grants that have become an important award type in NRI and now in AFRI. So a person with an idea that meets a timely need can have a real impact.

If anyone has questions (or good ideas), I would be glad to try to answer them (or learn about them, respectively)! Thank you for your attention and best wishes for your work-- AMT

 

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC  EC monthly phone conference
Sept. 20th 2011, 1:00 pm CDT.

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Rita Mumm, Don Backburn, David Stelly, Allen Van Deynze, Seth Murray, Jamie Sherman, David Baltensperger, Ellen Bergfeld (ASA/CSSA/SSSA CEO), Ian Popkewitz (ASA/CSSA/SSSA), Maria Salas-Fernandez, Marcelo Carena, Tom Koch, Andrea Cardinal, Janet Lewis, Mike Havey.
Regrets: Donn Cummings, Phil Simon, Tom Stalker, Pat Byrne, Shelley Jansky

Note:  items in the minutes that are underlined are potential action items and/or items for future teleconferences (Liz).

Agenda items:

None.

Rita circulated a document from the last EC meeting.  If there are any changes, please get those back to Phil so that we can finalize this document.  See attachment at the end of the minutes.  Rita will get the table table explaining the relationship between NAPB and PBCC to Seth for posting on the web.  In the text document should we put a brief description of the differences between NAPB and PBCC (David S.).

The finalized mission statements will be embedded into the table of officers (see above).  We are revisiting the finalized mission statements from the August meeting.  This will be the final attempt, after which they stand as written and pending approval of the general membership.  In general, mission statements should convey a greater purpose (David S.).  A mission statement should be something that we can actually achieve (Rita).

From Allen Van Deynze via email Sept. 20, 2011:
PBCC’s mission (Allen)
To provide a forum for leadership on issues and opportunities of strategic importance to national core competency in crop improvement, plant breeding research and education.

Allen moved to approve as read, Mike Havey seconded the motion, and motion passed by consensus.

Janet and David S. after the fact questioned the semantics of “crop” perhaps being a bit too restrictive or limiting, but then “plant” is a bit too general and redundant.  We have decided to move on.

NAPB’s mission (David S.)  We have 2 options below and we need to pick one.
1) To enhance the (U.S.) scientific and educational capacities in plant breeding by increasing knowledge, awareness and resources. (3 votes supporting)
2) To assure (strengthen) that capacities for domestic (U.S.) plant breeding research, technology, education, and public awareness are sufficient to meet domestic and international needs for plants on which our nation and world rely -- for food, feed, fiber, fuels, environmental maintenance (stewardship), aesthetics, recreation, and (human health) innumerable substances for pharmaceutical and industrial purposes. (8 votes supporting)

David B. moved to accept statement #2 as edited, David S. seconded the motion, and motion passed by consensus.

NAPB’s finalized mission statement:
To strengthen capacities for U.S. plant breeding research, technology, education, and public awareness to meet needs for plants on which our nation and world rely -- for food, feed, fiber, fuels, environmental stewardship, aesthetics, recreation, and human health.

Seth talked with Jim Hancock, resulting in some suggested structural changes to consider for the web site.  Seth is working up a mock-up of the changes for us to look at.  Jim’s question to Seth and the larger NAPB/PBCC exec is what is the audience that we are trying to target and what are the goals that we are trying to meet with the web site?

The web site is getting about 1000 hits and 134 unique visitors each day.  How much do we have to worry about media using this as a source for plant breeding?  We should have a “for media page” as well as some links to good sites for information.  And we need to try to avoid dead links.

Some purposes:  communication and information tool within our group and outside of our group, retaining historic knowledge, attracting students to the profession, helping us to define ourselves, portal for getting information out about the meeting, executive committee meets every month but website is a way others can see what the group is doing, conduit for educational information. Also noted that the meeting website will be taken over from ASA “front-office” and will not be a purpose for the website

None given.

We will take this up via email, as we have run out of time.  We are working toward a common message to be delivered with ASTA to the seed industry and to the Hill.  In addition, we have been invited to the USDA/ARS stakeholders meeting, which gives us an opportunity to provide input to research and education priorities.  We need a person to lead the effort to develop a tailored USDA/ARS message.  Andrea volunteered to participate in developing a unified voice for the USDA/ARS along with David S. and Allen.  Rita will be attending the meeting.  This would be big picture stuff rather than detailed directives.

Don updated us and we can discuss it further at the next telecon meeting.  He is still working on a venue, possibly even at the Purdue Centre.  He met with Dow AgroSciences (DAS) logistics people and looked at how the historical timelines of the NAPB meetings fit: Day 1 (Monday) business meeting and banquet, Day 2 (Tuesday) scientific talks, Day 3 (Wednesday) tours.  DAS think that they can simplify this a bit, which will make the logistics a bit easier for everyone, and break-up the sitting in rooms for 2 straight days.  They are proposing to have tours (8-5) on Day 2, with dinner at DAS’s facility; Day 3 being presentations and poster sessions. 

There were 2 alternative options put forward during the telecon.  Rita proposed that perhaps we mix presentations and tours as half days on each of Day 2 and Day 3.  Mike picked up on this suggesting that we limit the business to only Monday morning.  Have a thematic series of scientific speakers in the afternoon and dinner with awards on Monday evening; tours on Tuesday morning, speakers on in the afternoon with dinner at DAS; Wednesday morning speakers and afternoon tours for the people who can stay.  Rita felt that we probably need more like ¾ of a day for the business meeting (8-2 on the Monday, Day 1).

The speaker committee/logistics committee will kick these ideas around some more and bring back some options to the next teleconference for how to best sort this out.

From last meeting (Aug.) the EC gave Rita the mandate to pursue using ASCESS services for front office support. For a fee of $4,000 annually, ASCESS will provide accounting services, member database management, web site, and registration support for the annual meeting.  This includes importing of NAPB members into a database, setting up a web page for the meeting, processing meeting registration online including credit card payments, managing of cash receipts, and processing invoices and issuing checks after approval of NAPB treasurer.

In addition to the packaged services, ASCESS will at cost to NAPB for services:

Questions for Ellen: 

Given what we have heard, are there any objections/concerns to moving forward with ACSESS for front office support (Rita)?  None were voiced. David S. moved to use ACSESS as our front office support, seconded by Allen, motion passed by consensus.

Our goal is to be incorporated within a year, before the next set of leaders come into NAPB (Rita).  We do have bylaws established, not sure what articles of incorporation look like (Rita); Ellen will send us theirs’ as a guide.

Next step: finalize a service agreement (Rita). Both Rita and Shelley will the signatory on the contract.

Ran out of time during the telecon, but the newsletter will be out in about a week.  Pat Byrne and I are working on it jointly in consultation with the communications committee.

October 25th and November 15th are the dates of the next scheduled telecons.

Connecting with FAO, Helen Hambly-Odame mentioned this in passing to me (Liz) yesterday that FAO is very interested in connecting with us.  Helen is going to debrief me (Liz) as soon as her college P&T duties are over with.  And, Elsevier has approached her about putting a book together on Plant Breeding Education, any interest from the group?  More info at the next teleconference on both of these items.

From Phil Simon Aug. 24, 2011
DRAFT
NAPB and PBCC Scope, Organization, and Duties of Officers, Liaisons and Subcommittee Officers

NAPB
Organizational scope and focus:
NAPB represents all aspects of national plant breeding community; focuses on the state of the plant breeding community in its fullest definition including public sector plant breeders, private industry breeders, and plant breeders with non-government organizations. NAPB takes the lead in organizing an annual meeting of plant breeders, recognizing outstanding plant breeders with awards, and advocating for issues relating to plant breeding in the political arena.

The NAPB is an independent initiative of the PBCC intended to serve as a forum for leadership, regarding issues, problems, and opportunities of long-term strategic importance to the contribution of plant breeding to national goals.

Executive Committee Members and their duties
Positions 1, 2, and 3 below serve as the NAPB Officers; all positions listed below serve as the joint NAPB/PBCC Executive Committee

1.  NAPB President - serves 1-year term; organizes periodic teleconference calls of the Executive Committees, at least quarterly; helps develop the by-laws; coordinates with membership to evaluate future needs; organizes annual meeting (NAPB lead) including a PBCC business meeting (PBCC lead); serves as liaison with subcommittee chairs

2. NAPB Vice-President  - serves 1-year term; works with president/chair to help in all areas; becomes president after serving term

3. NAPB Secretary - serves 1-year term; maintains mailing list; keeps minutes of meetings; helps provide continuity with newly-elected officers; becomes vice chair after serving term

4. NAPB Treasurer-serves 2-year term; maintains financial records and facilitates distribution of funds; can be re-elected

5. NAPB / PBCC Web Editor - serves 2-year term; maintains website, web server and domain name for NAPB and PBCC; helps with the mailing list; posts minutes of meetings; can be re-elected

6. NAPB/PBCC Web Assistant - serves 2 year term; works with web editor; helps gather information and photographs for the web site; can be re-elected (could be a hired position later)

7. NAPB Archivist - serves 2 year term; maintains history and records of NAPB; photographer for meeting; adds biographies to website on famous plant breeders; works with web editor to post documents and photographs of interest to the association; can be re-elected.

8.  Past NAPB President – serves 1 - year term; organizes an elections committee to nominate and elect new leadership for all positions of the Executive Committee, except those of subcommittees which select their own leadership; leads fund-raising efforts

9. NAPB/PBCC Liaison- serves 2-year term; acts as spokesperson for the group represented; serves as ambassador from the NAPB/PBCC to the group represented

10. Subcommittee Chair - serves 1-year term; works with NAPB President and PBCC Chair to accomplish the work plan; organizes the agenda for a meeting of the subcommittee at the annual meeting (except for the Awards Panel that carries out their business before the meeting); identifies nominees to fill the Subcommittee Secretary position which becomes vacant after each annual meeting; submits an annual report for the subcommittee to be posted at our web sites; convenes conference calls of the subcommittee at least quarterly.

11. Subcommittee Vice Chair - serves 1-year term; works with subcommittee Chair to
accomplish the work plan; becomes subcommittee chair after 1-year

12. Subcommittee Secretary - serves 1-year term as secretary, followed by 1-year as Vice
Chair and 1 year as chair; coordinates communication within the subcommittee; keeps
minutes of meetings; helps the subcommittee chair

Subcommittees serve both NAPB and PBCC, but several have a predominant focus in one of these organizations

◦Science, Technology and Informatics (NAPB focus)

◦Communications and Outreach (joint NAPB and PBCC)

◦Awards Panel (NAPB focus)

 

PBCC
Organizational scope and focus: PBCC represents the national plant breeding community with a focus on training and education of plant breeders in the broader sense, including providing information to the public and administrators, and encouraging the development of formal educational opportunities, continuing education, and lifelong learning. PBCC takes the lead in fostering effective plant breeding participation and communication in the federal/state partnership, with particular reference to 1) core competency in plant breeding research, extension, and education;  and 2) the role and importance of plant breeding for the national strategic goals for agriculture and food security.

PBCC is a national coordinating committee of U.S. plant breeders established as a multistate research coordinating committee administered by the Southern Association of Agricultural Experiment Stations Directors (SCC-080) to provide plant breeders with an opportunity to work cooperatively and coordinate activities to solve problems of common interest and concern to them. 

Executive Committee Members and their duties
Positions 1, 2, and 3 below serve as the PBCC Officers; all positions listed below serve as the joint NAPB/ PBCC Executive Committee

1. PBCC Chair- serves 1-year term; organizes periodic teleconference calls of the Executive Committees, at least quarterly; helps develop the by-laws; coordinates with membership to evaluate future needs; organizes annual meeting (NAPB lead) including a PBCC business meeting (PBCC lead); serves as liaison with subcommittee chairs

2. PBCC Vice-Chair - serves 1-year term; works with president/chair to help in all areas; becomes president/chair after serving term

3. PBCC Secretary- serves 1-year term; maintains mailing list; keeps minutes of meetings; helps provide continuity with newly-elected officers; becomes vice chair after serving term

4. NAPB / PBCC Web Editor - serves 2-year term; maintains website, web server and domain name for NAPB and PBCC; helps with the mailing list; posts minutes of meetings; can be re-elected

5. NAPB Web Assistant - serves 2 year term; works with web editor; helps gather information and photographs for the web site; can be re-elected (could be a hired position later)

6. Past PBCC Chair – serves 1 - year term; organizes an elections committee to nominate and elect new leadership for all positions of the Executive Committee, except those of subcommittees which select their own leadership

7. NAPB/ PBCC Liaison - serves 2-year terms; acts as spokesperson for the group represented; serves as ambassador from the NAPB/PBCC to the group represented

8. Subcommittee Chair - serves 1-year term; works with NAPB President and PBCC Chair to accomplish the work plan; organizes the agenda for a meeting of the subcommittee at the annual meeting (except for the Awards and Nominations Subcommittee that carries out their business before the meeting); identifies nominees to fill the Subcommittee Secretary position which becomes vacant after each annual meeting; submits an annual report for the subcommittee to be posted at our web sites; convenes conference calls of the subcommittee at least quarterly.

9. Subcommittee Vice Chair - serves 1-year term; works with subcommittee Chair to
accomplish the work plan; becomes subcommittee chair after 1-year

12. Subcommittee Secretary - serves 1-year term as secretary, followed by 1-year as Vice
Chair and 1 year as chair; coordinates communication within the subcommittee; keeps
minutes of meetings; helps the subcommittee chair

Subcommittees serve both NAPB and PBCC, but several have a predominant focus in one of these organizations

◦Grand Challenges (PBCC focus)
■Interests: climate change, food security, bioenergy, global trade

◦Communications and Outreach (joint NAPB and PBCC)

◦Education and Training of Plant Breeders (PBCC focus)
■Interests: distance education, training of students in plant breeding          

           

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC  EC monthly phone conference
Aug. 16th 2011, 1:00 pm CDT.

 

In attendance:  Liz Lee, Rita Mumm, Allen Van Deynze, Wayne Smith, Mike Havey, Randy Johnson, Donn Cummings, Phil Simon, David Stelly, Todd Wehner, Stephen Baenziger, Alexander Martin (ASF), David Baltensperger, Jamie Sherman.   Regets: Shelley Jansky, Karen Moldenhauer, Roy Scott, Mitch McGrath, Marcelo Carena, Seth Murray.

Agenda items:

Summer newsletter was sent to the membership, no additional updates.

After much discussion, which I have attempted to summarize below, Phil is making some additional changes to the document that he had circulated prior to the Aug. telecon.  The final copy is attached at the end of the minutes.  We will review this document and discuss it further at the Sept. telecon. 

Separate the NAPB officer from the PBCC officers.  Remove NAPB from the title. Listing the subcommittee roles and missions as well.  This may have been a major topic of discussion from the 2011 meetings.  The question of liaisons and their roles came up again.  Rita thinks that the intent of the liaisons is to actually serve both groups.  The liaisons need to help define their roles and purposes.  The diagram shows this as well (Todd).  Ad-hoc committees, e.g. meetings, awards panel, sub-committees become working groups. 

Mission statements from Allen for discussion (note I have only included the finalized ones): 

“The mission of the National Association of Plant Breeders is to advance the science, awareness and practice of plant breeding, and to enhance plant breeding capacities and educational capabilities.”

“The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee’s mission is to provide a forum for leadership regarding issues and opportunities of strategic importance to national core competency in plant breeding research and education.”

The mission statements will be in the Sept. newsletter for comments from the membership.  The exec committee voted to approve the mission statements, which will then be ratified by the membership at the annual meetings.  Stephen B. moved to accept the mission statements (both).  Jamie seconded the motion.  Motion passed. 

The group (ASTA w/ NAPB representation) is going to Washington, D.C. in late Jan.  Specific dates for this trip are not known at this time.  Mike and Allen will be participating in a conference call later this month (Aug.) to plan for this meeting. We should know more by the Sept. joint teleconference.

How are you formulating the statements (Rita)?  Once we have an idea, Mike will bring it to the exec and then the membership to get documents to support the statements (Mike).  The issue of defining who is in the lobbying group should be done early so that the people can start planning well in advance (Rita).  Allen will definitely be going along with several ASTA members (Mike).  Allen is a PBCC officer, which may be a bit tricky, although he is not a federal employee (Mike).  If someone would like to join, they can certainly join the lobbying efforts (Mike).  Rita voiced concerns that a NAPB officer really needs to be going as part of the lobby efforts.

The structure was finalized at last meeting.  From last month’s minutes you will find Brook Blanche’s amendments to the bylaws.  There were no comments on the proposed changes, although David S. and Todd have made a few editorial changes to Brook’s amendments.  The process to change the bylaws involves publishing them in the NAPB newsletter and posting them in red on the web for comments from the membership.

The discussions under this agenda item actually covered three items: front office support, becoming a legally recognized entity (most likely a non-profit), and how to deal with donations from the Monsanto Fellows program.  I have tried to separate the three items in the minutes, but as all were discussed simultaneously I may have lost some of the content (note added by Liz in writing up the minutes).

Before we can fully engage front office support, it has come to our attention that we need to establish the organization (NAPB) identity for legal reasons.  Alexander Martin from the Agronomic Science Foundation (ASF) was invited to join the August telecon to aid in our discussion of this concept/process.  Alexander has worked with the Golden Opportunity Scholars program through ASF (Donn).  The Monsanto Fellows program has decided to fund students to attend the NAPB meetings via a charitable donation from their organization, but we will need a 5013C organizational structure (non-profit) for this to be possible.  Two options for dealing with charitable donations:  piggy back on to the Golden Opportunity Scholars Program that is already in place, the other option is to set one up for ourselves

We need to be incorporated before we can get front office support.  Need to probably find a good council for advice.  We need to probably be incorporated in a particular state and this should be the state where our front office support is located.

Rita did some investigating of the ASTA suite of services:  they outsource the web site work, they do not have a membership list that would benefit us, and in Rita’s opinion ASA is a better fit for what we need.  Rita recommended that we go with ASA (Madison, WI) for front office support and contact them to get some legal help regarding getting incorporated as a 5013C in Wisconsin.  David B. suggested that we should perhaps be incorporated as part of ASA.  Rita will follow up with ASA about getting incorporated with ASA.  The ACSESS umbrella group currently has four 5013C entities under it (Alexander).  If NAPB becomes another 5013C under it, it would perhaps work quite well.  Wayne moved that we give Rita the mandate to pursue this course of action, Donn seconded the motion, and the motion passed.

Donn reported that there has been no additional activity since the July telecon.  Do we want a theme (Donn)?  Do we want some guidance for the speaker committee (Donn)?  A leader needs to be identified (Donn).  Are there any volunteers (Donn)?  We tabled any further discussion until the next telecon.  Mike will touch base with Don Blackburn to identify the internal point person and we also need to finalize the hotel.  It was suggested that the committee include the ASTA rep, someone from the IP working group, and that perhaps we survey the membership to see if there are some topics of interest. (Note added after the telecon, the Summer Newsletter did include a solicitation for speaker topics/ideas – Liz)  Donn C. will contact Herb Ohm about serving on the speaker committee.

I am working with the communications committee on putting together a newsletter format and regular content.  The next Newsletter is slated for the end of September.  We will have a draft version of that newsletter available for comment at the Sept. telecon. (detail added after the telecon)

Does PBCC stuff belong on the NABP web site (Todd)?  This will be tabled until the Sept. meeting when Seth is able to attend.  It is probably good to have a bit of separation between NAPB and PBCC (Rita).

None given.

Next call is Sept. 20th, Oct. 25th and Nov. 15th.

DRAFT:  NAPB and PBCC Scope, Organization, and  Duties of Officers, Liaisons and Subcommittee Officers

NAPB organizational scope and focus: NAPB represents all aspects of national plant breeding community; focuses on the state of the plant breeding community in its fullest definition including public sector plant breeders, private industry breeders, and plant breeders with non-government organizations. NAPB takes the lead in organizing an annual meeting of plant breeders, recognizing outstanding plant breeders with awards, and advocating for issues relating to plant breeding in the political arena.

The NAPB is an independent initiative of the PBCC intended to serve as a forum for leadership, regarding issues, problems, and opportunities of long-term strategic importance to the contribution of plant breeding to national goals.

PBCC organizational scope and focus: PBCC represents the national plant breeding community with a focus on training and education of plant breeders in the broader sense, including providing information to the public and administrators, and encouraging the development of formal educational opportunities, continuing education, and lifelong learning. PBCC takes the lead in fostering effective plant breeding participation and communication in the federal/state partnership, with particular reference to 1) core competency in plant breeding research, extension, and education;  and 2) the role and importance of plant breeding for the national strategic goals for agriculture and food security.

PBCC is a national coordinating committee of U.S. plant breeders established as a multistate research coordinating committee administered by the Southern Association of Agricultural Experiment Stations Directors (SCC-080) to provide plant breeders with an opportunity to work cooperatively and coordinate activities to solve problems of common interest and concern to them. 

Executive Committee Members of NAPB and PBCC, and their duties
Positions 2, 3, and 4 below serve as the NAPB and PBCC Officers; all positions listed below serve as the NAPB and PBCC Executive Committees

1. Past NAPB President and Past PBCC Chair – serves 1 - year term; organizes an elections committee to nominate and elect new leadership for all positions of the Executive Committee, except those of subcommittees which select their own leadership; NAPB past-president leads fund-raising efforts

2. NAPB President and PBCC Chair- serves 1-year term; organizes periodic teleconference calls of the Executive Committees, at least quarterly; helps develop the by-laws; coordinates with membership to evaluate future needs; organizes annual meeting (NAPB lead) including a PBCC business meeting (PBCC lead); serves as liaison with subcommittee chairs

3. NAPB Vice-President /PBCC Vice-Chair - serves 1-year term; works with president/chair to help in all areas; becomes president/chair after serving term

4. NAPB Secretary / PBCC Secretary- serves 1-year term; maintains mailing list; keeps minutes of meetings; helps provide continuity with newly-elected officers; becomes vice chair after serving term

5. NAPB Treasurer-serves 2-year term; maintains financial records and facilitates distribution of funds; can be re-elected

6. NAPB / PBCC Web editor - serves 2-year term; maintains website, web server and domain name for NAPB and PBCC; helps with the mailing list; posts minutes of meetings; can be re-elected

7. NAPB and PBCC Liaisons - serve 2-year terms; acts as spokesperson for the group represented; serves as ambassador from the NAPB/PBCC to the group represented

8. NAPB archivist - serves 2 year term; maintains history and records of NAPB; photographer for meeting; adds biographies to website on famous plant breeders; works with web editor to post documents and photographs of interest to the association; can be re-elected.

9. NAPB web assistant - serves 2 year term; works with web editor; helps gather information and photographs for the web site; can be re-elected (could be a hired position later)

10. Subcommittee Chair - serves 1-year term; works with NAPB President and PBCC Chair to accomplish the work plan; organizes the agenda for a meeting of the subcommittee at the annual meeting (except for the Awards and Nominations Subcommittee that carries out their business before the meeting); identifies nominees to fill the Subcommittee Secretary position which becomes vacant after each annual meeting; submits an annual report for the subcommittee to be posted at our web sites; convenes conference calls of the subcommittee at least quarterly.

11. Subcommittee Vice Chair - serves 1-year term; works with subcommittee Chair to
accomplish the work plan; becomes subcommittee chair after 1-year

12. Subcommittee Secretary - serves 1-year term as secretary, followed by 1-year as Vice
Chair and 1 year as chair; coordinates communication within the subcommittee; keeps
minutes of meetings; helps the subcommittee chair

Subcommittees
◦Grand Challenges (PBCC focus)
■Interests: climate change, food security, bioenergy, global trade

◦Science, Technology and Informatics (NAPB focus)

◦Communications and Outreach (joint NAPB and PBCC)

◦Awards and Nominations (NAPB focus)

◦Education and Training of Plant Breeders (PBCC focus)
■Interests: distance education, training of students in plant breeding                      pws 8/4/11

 

 

Minutes of the joint NAPB - PBCC  EC monthly phone conference
July 19, 2011
1:00-2:30 pm CDT

In attendance: Donn Cummings, Mike Havey, Phil Simon, Elizabeth Lee, Seth Murray, Rita Mumm, Pat Byrne, Dave Stelly, Brooks Blanche, Karen Ann-Kuenzel Moldenhauer, Don Blackburn, Mitch McGrath

Agenda items:

How do we pass along knowledge from past to current exec members?  Can we think of some ways to do this?  Spreadsheet to keep track of on-going endeavors (Dave S.).  Database, filling out info on our membership.  We will table this for further discussion until the Aug. conference call (Rita M.).  It might be helpful to have a 1-paragraph job description and perhaps a welcome packet including expectations (Donn C.) for liaisons, officers, sub-committee/panel chairs.  Phil S. will pull together a draft of the expectations for the next conference call.  In particular we should sort out the roles of the two secretaries (NAPB and PBCC), as this is the first year with two of them and things may fall through the cracks otherwise (Liz).

Tabled for next meeting.

Regrets, tabled for next meeting.

Tabled for next meeting.

Update: we have ASA information; have made contact with ASTA, but no information yet from ASTA; another option is the botanical society (Donn C.).  The ASA options (Rita) spoke to Wes Meixelsperger, Chief Financial Officer for ASA, regarding checking account, developing our membership list, support for registration for the annual meetings, as well as potential needs for the future. 

ASA option: Checking account, with less than 20 checks written/year $200/yr, more than 20 checks $400/yr.  Populating the database and database management would be $500/yr.  Annual meeting support, $2000 for setting up the web site, $2000 for registration and credit card payments.  Bundled everything would be $4000/yr, which includes an annual audit.  Talked about potential needs for the future with them: dues collection, more involvement in the annual meetings, and web site maintenance.  They felt that they could handle all of these things.  Rita will follow up with ASTA to get their pricing information with the intent of making a final decision with regards to front office support for NAPB at the August teleconference.

Regrets, tabled for next meeting.

Meeting/speaker committee needs to get set up:  Dave S., Donn C., Seth, Mike H., Don B. will try to find someone from Dow to serve as the chair.  Possibly someone from Purdue (Herb Ohm?) and possibly a grad student from Purdue should also be on the meeting/speaker committee. Pat B. has a list that he will send to Don B. with grad students that want to be involved in the meeting. [Sara Potts, University of Illinois grad student, has indicated interest in serving as grad liaison on the speakers committee. – added after the call via Donn C.]  Jules Janick, winner of Career Award 2011, agreed to be a speaker in 2012. [Jules sent Liz an email in response to the announcement in the newsletter indicating that he would like to speak at the 2012 meeting.]   As recipient of the same award in 2010, Jim Brewbaker, who has not yet given an invited talk to NAPB, should also be a speaker.  It was further suggested that Janick's talk about ag products in historic art might even fit the occasion as an after dinner talk.

Update from Don B.:  The dates are Aug. 5-8th (Mon-Wed) 2012 and it will be on the north side of Indianapolis.  Don is still working on the hotel options, but it is down to three of them.  Dow has set up a small committee to proceed.  Don would like to get a set of guidelines for key milestones from the group.  Speaker list needs to be nailed down soon, possibly an over arching theme for the conference, possibly some half-day themes (Donn C.).  Try to get a bigger picture view perhaps.

Next month the teleconference will be on Aug. 16th at 1 pm CT.  Sept. 20th and Oct. 25th are the dates to set aside for the Sept. and Oct. meetings.  Note that the Oct. date has been moved to the 4th Tuesday to avoid conflicting with the ASA meetings.

Logo and slogan contest (Pat B.): The contest was announced at the annual meeting but Pat would like to get it out to a wider audience.  It will be sent out to the membership via the listserver.  Pat will get together with Brooks to work on the announcement and then send it to Liz.  Dave S. and Liz will get it out via the listserver.

Bi-Monthly or monthly email to the membership contents: potential speakers NAPB 2012 meeting, logo contest link to the web page, meeting reminder with greater detail to come in the future, link to the monthly minutes, reminder for sub-committee reports need to be posted on the web.  Generally should go out about a week after the teleconference.

Email from Brooks Blanche on the Awards Panel, slight edits from Liz:
The current members of the Awards Panel:
Jodi Scheffler, Past-Past-Chair?
Karen Moldenhauer, Past-Chair
Brooks Blanche, Chair
Steve Baenziger, Appointed Member (2011-2014)
Jim Brewbaker, Appointed Member (2011-2014)
Shen Ma, Appointed Member, Grad Student (2011-2014)
Phil Simon, Appointed Member, (2011-2014)

The 2 major issues that require separation from the “sub-committees” are:  a) we requested that members be appointed by the current NAPB chair, and b) we will no longer have sub-committee breakout sessions at the annual meeting.    I (Brooks) propose that we operate with this panel for the coming year.  Next year, there will be 3 new appointees and Jodi will cycle off of the Awards Panel leaving active 9 members.  Each member will vote on the award nominees for all categories.  We, the Panel members, will elect a Vice-Chair and Secretary for 2011-2012.  Karen and I (Brooks) will continue to serve on the committee until 2013, so there should be continuity while we incorporate the changes. 

Attached (Below) is a copy of the current by-laws (note that they cover both NAPB and PBCC, so that may need to be addressed in the future).

Rough proposal for the By-law Change (to separate this Panel from the Subcommittee By-laws in Section 2.7, 2.8, and 2.9):
2.10  The Awards Panel works to recognize outstanding plant breeding accomplishments made by graduate students and practicing or retired plant breeders in the public and private sector.  This Panel will consist of:  a Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary, and 6 additional voting members.  Each year, the current NAPB chair will appoint 3 new members to the Panel for 3-year terms.  From the pool of new members, an incoming Secretary will be elected.  The Panel Chair works with NAPB/PBCC leadership and provides feedback to the NAPB Executive Committee and is responsible for compiling the nomination packets and distribution to the voting members.   The Vice-Chair assists with accomplishing the work plan, serves as the 2nd point of contact for nomination packets, and becomes Chair after 1 year.  The Secretary records meeting minutes and other significant discussions and becomes Vice-Chair the following year.  The Annual Meeting will be held adjunct to the NAPB Annual Conference.

 

 

 

Minutes from the NABP-PBCC June Joint Teleconference
June 21, 2011
2-3:30 PM EDT, 866-773-4970, participant pass code is 8604812.

In attendance: David Stelly, Elizabeth Lee, Rita Mumm, Todd Wehner, Mike Harvey, Phil Simon, Janet Lewis, Shelley Jansky, David Baltensperger, Dave Francis, Brooks Blanche, Karen Moldenhauer, Wayne Smith, Jamie Sherman.

Agenda items:

Very good, positive comments about the meeting (Rita). Is there anything that we should do differently next year?  Dave F. - the most enjoyable aspect was the student involvement, but perhaps we need to figure out how to ratchet-up the professionalism of the student presentations.  Perhaps we should have the student speakers earlier in the program, rather than after the invited speakers.  Brooks mentioned that the awards committee was thinking about giving the student with the top poster the opportunity to speak at the conference the following year.

Awards committee members wanted to not have a subcommittee meeting at the meeting, but have their work done ahead of time (Todd).  Discussion of new awards committee structure (Brooks) dropping a secretary from the committee.  They are requesting that people be appointed to the committee for 3-yr terms to keep new blood coming through the committee, with a goal of 9 members in total, 3 appoint per year for 3-year terms.  They will go over applications for awards and aid in developing additional awards.  Brooks is chair, Karen is past chair, need to find a vice-chair.  Hoping to have either Stephen. B. or Jim Brewbaker as vice-chair.  Current chair of NAPB appoints the 3 members.  This new structure needs to be entered into the by-laws.  First we need to vote on it and Seth will then enter it on the web.  Brooks will draft the outline and circulate it to the exec.  We will finalize this and vote on it at the July meeting.

Shelley has been in touch with Kathy Ferguson (TAMU conference coordinator) for an update of the meeting dollars.  Right now our account is essentially sitting with TAMU.  While there are still some bills to be paid it looks like the balance as of yesterday (June 20th) was around $40,000, but it needs to be finalized.  We also need to make sure that we have a finalized official accounting from TAMU that will hold up to an audit considering the dollars involved. 

Much of this surplus is the result of efforts by several NAPB members and our meeting sponsors. We (NAPB/PBCC) will be writing a letter of thanks to our sponsors for all of their efforts.  David S. and Wayne S. will pull together a list of names and addresses for thank-yous and will have them put on joint NAPB/PBCC official letterhead.  Liz will coordinate the letters and circulate a draft of the text to the exec. 

Membership is up around 1100 members.  David S. is emailing Liz a database with the membership.  We need to solicit contact info for about 800 of our members, as we only have names and emails.  It was suggested that this can be added to the database once we have front office support.

Rita emailed to the exec a structure document with all of the sub-committees and liaisons for both NAPB and PBCC along with a general over-view of their roles (at the end of the minutes).  Rita asked that the subcommittees finalize their objectives, circulate them in advance of the next joint telecon meeting, and bring them to the next telecom.  We will then have a set of objectives to work on for the year and possibly develop strategies for meeting these objectives. 

Rita also asked that each liaison formulate either a mission statement if not a specific objective that they would like to accomplish this year.  In general we are finding a lot of commonality among the sister organizations.  David B. has agreed to serve as our liaison to the National Plant Germplasm Coordinating Committee.  The NPGCC requested that the NAPB put forth a nomination for the National Genetic Resources Advisory Council.  Dave F. nominated David B., Karen M. seconded it, and the nomination was acclaimed. Dave F. will write a letter of support and David S. will submit the nomination on behalf of NAPB.  Mike H. will write an additional letter of support and perhaps Bill Tracy should be approached about a letter of support.  The deadline for submission of the package is June 30th for the nomination.

NAPB and PBCC need to identify goals for this year.  Mike H. will contact the sub-committee chairs to see if they can work on individual topics and will bring those forward to the exec.  e.g., getting the you-tube videos out this year, developing a rapid response team to address issues, development of an IP fact sheet of the considerations that are important when making “your” IP decisions.

Janet was wondering how to open up the Grand Challenges sub-committee meeting to the greater membership.  Could she use a list-serve to advertise the subcommittee meeting?  Mike H. suggested formulating particular topics for the subcommittee meeting.  Rita was wondering if Grand Challenges would be interested in taking on organizing a Rapid Response group.  Mike H. thought that it could also come from the communications/outreach committee.

ASTA, ASA (official offer letter), and ASHS all offer “front office” services for organizations.  Todd had looked into having ASA keep our bank account which would costs us between $200-500/yr for accounting, for example. Rita would like to figure out what our needs are before we commit to a group.  We had dealt with this at the telecom prior to the annual mtg. (May 19th) regarding the checking account and had voted on having ASA do this activity.  However, as we have not acted on this yet, we decided to take a closer look at what our needs might be (short and long-term) and what it costs for those organizations to run a “front office” operation for us.  The list might include, a list-server, more complete membership information, membership list, website maintenance, checking account, meeting support (?), collection of dues (?).  We decided to do some price comparing.  Rita will ask each for a breakdown of costs for various services for next mtg.

We discussed the concept of a unified voice, what it is and how to works towards one. Unified voice for lobbying with ASTA, liaisons with other organizations form a committee working with the vice-pres (David S.) to work towards developing a unified voice.  Mike H. would be happy to work with the subcommittees to bring up issues and necessary information this year and then the NAPB liaisons will build a unified voice with our sister organizations.  What is meant by a unified voice (Dave F.)?  Advocacy is probably what we are mostly after (Rita).  Along the lines of what Roger Beachy spoke about.  Targeting mostly law and policy makers, but there may be instances when we want to reach the general public, too.

See section above under structure of NAPB and PBCC for detail.

Regrets, as Allen is representing us at the ASTA meetings in CA.  This topic was tabled this until the July meeting.

Don was not able to make this month’s meeting.  Rita gave us a bit of an update.  It will be held at a hotel near the airport, rather than at Purdue.  Need to strike a speaker’s committee with the meeting hosts closely involved.  This will be dealt with at an upcoming telecon.  The meeting will be Aug. 5-8, 2012 in Indianapolis, IN.

Seth sends his regrets.  This topic was tabled until the next meeting.  Hopefully Seth can address how he might envision his web assistant (Jim Hancock) working with him and possibly Tom Stalker, the archivist.

The next joint telecons will be July 19th, Aug. 16th, and Sept. 20th.  Please allow for an hour and a half.  2 pm Eastern time.

Other business:
Sub-committee officers: The suggestion was made by Liz that a slate of nominees for the sub-committees be developed prior to the sub-committee breakout meetings at our annual meetings.  Also, we have one or two subcommittees where a grad student is now the secretary.  It was suggested that they serve this year as a recording secretary for the subcommittee this year and that either an additional secretary for succession purposes will be appointed this year, or that secretary and vice-chair will be elected in 2012.

Along the same lines, we started a discussion regarding grad student liaisons on the sub-committees.  Rita suggested that the subcommittee chairs needs to touch base with the grad student liaisons as to their role and how they are not part of the succession change.  Are the students allowed to vote – yes was the consensus.  Do we have defined roles for the grad student liaisons – partially defined. For example, they would be involved in subcommittee meetings, but not the exec meetings.  As it was getting towards the end of the allotted time we decided to table this topic for more discussion at the July meeting.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Elizabeth Lee, NAPB secretary
June 21, 2011

 

 

NAPB Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Apr. 21, 2011

=======================================------------------
Attending (On call)
=======================================------------------

Future Calls and Meetings

XC should make note of ad hoc meetings:

Minutes of Previous Meeting:

Data on Annual Meeting

We need guest accounts.  Campus has guest account system; Kathy wiil look into this.  The meeting sites may be different:  Anneberg (federal?) versus campus (TAMU-Link (Wi-Fi) for ILSB and Heep Ctr.  (Kathy)

ABSTRACTS:  51 Abstracts; 7 competing for speaking.

COMPETITION FOR INVITED TALKS:  Shelley -- will need help in selecting among the 7 for the talks.  Jamie volunteered.  It was suggested the 7 and a uniform scoring system be distribubted to the XC ... and the tallied responses would constitute a selection system.  (Shelley)

DOW-Ag is host for 2012.  Kathy is willing to serve as a reference for them in the planning process. (Rita will communicate her contact into to Dow Ag.)

$3250 - 2000 = $1200:  Co-host $2000 from AgriLife ceremonial, our function, NAPB cover $500? (Kathy will inform An. Sci. host)

Awards  --  shousupport for new awardees??:
Lifetime Achievement Awardee -- will we pay their way here:  free registration this year, and plans to invite for talk the following year.  This should be done for both awards. (David and Seth will inquire with Kathy about finances to see if we can afford the return of registration costs for this year, or not, to our early career winner (already registered).  Jodi will offer registration for this year and indicate offer to speak next year (with benefits).

Seed World Interviews:  Julie McNabb (~20 minutes per interview)

Nominations: Steve Baenziger

     (David Hole:     PBCC Secretary 2012)

Possible Nominee Changes (questions?):

Future Meetings:  develop and vote on 2013 at annual meeting (May 23rd)

 

NAPB executive committee meeting
Mar. 17th, 2011

=======================================------------------
Attending (On call)
=======================================------------------

  1. David Stelly
  2. Jamie Sherman
  3. Shelley Jansky
  4. Shelby Repinski
  5. Donn Cummings
  6. Todd Wehner
  7. Allen Van Deynze
  8. Phil Simon

CONTRACT FOR FRONT OFFICE ACTIVITIES?

As part of the follow-up to our previous meeting, we further discussed the possibility of having NAPB "front office" activities hosted by the ASA/CSSA/SSSA Tri-Societies -- Todd solicited input.

Hosting options:  Hosting could involve any of a number of various options (reviewed last meeting by Ellen Bergfeld).  Host coverage could be incremented according to NAPB membership (#) and amount of money.  Key goals would be to carry out "front office" activities and handle money more easily across time.  Currently, we resort to moving monies to different accounts, depending on who the officers are in a given year and their institutional affiliation. 

Fees:  There will likely be a fee for hosting.  For ease of budgeting, NAPB was interested in a flat fee, i.e., requiring a easily identified amount.  NAPB might be able pay costs for hosting fees from meeting registrations.  The possibility of initiating a membership dues system was considered.  It would conceivably provide a more stable source of income, and give NAPB a bit of money in the bank, which could help with other operations, e.g., initial aspects of arranging meetings.  However, it might jeopardize some membership (now over 900). 
The possibility of conducting a survey at the upcoming meeting about fees was considered.  It was deemed to be "loaded sampling" however, and perhaps not representative of NAPB overall.  On the other hand, the meeting is among the most important deliverables from NAPB --  to members and potential sponsors, so it might be suitable for a vote. 

Would the support from various entities be more inclined to support an organization or meeting? 

LIAISONS NEED TO STEP UP THE CALL FOR REGISTRATIONS ET CETERA.

Send out Newsletter. 
Send our reminder to register (early registration ends tomorrow). (Early Registration was Extended to March 31.  Notice was emailed out, again.))

Upcoming Positions and Nominees:

      FROM BAENZIGER SPREADSHEET

    1. NAPB Secretary:           Liz Lee
    2. NAPB Web Assistant     Jim Hancock
    3. NAPB Liaisons         
      1. Andrea Cardinal (2nd to CSSA)
      2. Ross Whetten (Forestry Tree Breeders)
    4. NAPB Archivist             Tom Stalker
    5. PBCC Vice Chair           Allen Van Deynze
    6. PBCC Secretary      
      1. Marcelo Carena
      2. Bob Zemetra

Liaison to USDA for plant breeding?
We discussed if a new position was needed as Liaison to USDA for plant breeding in USDA?
(Post meeting comment:  Do we need a new position to -- as Liaison to Eucarpia?)

Web-site Material Wanted: 
Please send information for posting on our Web site to Seth.  Jim Hancock will be joining as assistant webmaster.

MEETING-RELATED ITEMS:

Communications (Allen):  The Committee would like input on what might be the best ways to take advantage of Seed World's coverage of our upcoming meeting? 
[1] Interview each speaker.
[2] Interview graduate students about posters. 
[3] Have some plant breeding stories
- perhaps with Tour elements, and
- perhaps day after the meeting.
[4] Interview award winners.  
[5] Mark Hussey 

Secretary (Stelly) should send out email notices to NAPB on the following:

    1. Tomorrow is last day for early registration for NAPB meeting
    2. Newsletter for NAPB (last version sent by Allen)

Tours:
Are there Borlaug memorials at TAMU (possibly of relevance to the meeting)?  Have presentation about Beachell-Borlaug Assistantship Program? (E.g., Have Runge and/or Monsanto speak at Lunch about the Beachell-Borlaug Assistantship Program?  Poster?)

It was suggested more detail be provided regarding Tour elements and Tour schedule items, and how they will dovetail with travel options, i.e., flights and shuttles departing College Station.  (Now, difficult to assess travel options relative to the Tour, and thus ability to participate in Tour elements.)

XC Meeting (tentative) Sunday night May 22 7pm: 
Plan a Tentative pre-meeting gathering of the NAPB / PBCC XCs, Sunday night added for XC  7-9 pm  near Residence Inn:   We have traditionally planned this sort of pre-annual meeting XC meeting/gathering with option to cancel, if not needed.  Suggested venue should allow for a supper, for those who have not eaten already:    -  e.g. pub/food:  Bennigans (Kathy).

Continuing Issues with National Academy of Sciences: 
National Academy members agree that getting plant breeders inducted is relatively difficult. 

One idea is to establish an Academy of Agricultural Sciences, independent of NAS

COMMITTEE TYPES, ROLES, DESIGNATIONS AND IDENTIFYING THEIR LEADERS:
Do we need to distinguish between two kinds of Committees (permanent vs. temporary)?  Names should indicate type of committee?  What names would be appropriate (semantics could be important)

    1. Permanent (e.g. Standing Committee on Awards) and
    2. Ad Hoc (temporary) (e.g., Ad Hoc Committee on Topic-A, or Targeted Committee on Topic-A)     

Do we need to come up with a different system for identifying leaders of the committees?   (If what we have now has worked well (within committee consensus), leave it alone?  Maybe as a failsafe?)   Discuss this matter at our Business meeting in May?

NEXT NAPB CONF. CALL:    April 21 2pm EST

Todd Wehner:  asked for other business, then adjourned the meeting
===========================================================
Date: March 15, 2011 8:09:09 AM CDT
To: Todd Wehner <tcwehner@gmail.com>
Subject: NAPB conference call for March

March 15, 2011

MEMORANDUM
TO:      NAPB/PBCC executive committee meeting (SCC-080)
From:    Todd Wehner, NAPB President
Subject: NAPB conference call for March

Our conference call this month will be March 17 at 2 pm Eastern: 866-773-4970, code # 8604812.  Issues to discuss include:

- ASA hosting of NAPB
- Plans for 2011 NAPB/PBCC meeting: Dave Stelly, Seth Murray

- Minutes and roll call: Dave Stelly
- Treasurer: Shelley Jansky
- Website: Seth Murray
- Nominations: Steve Baenziger

- Public relations/newsletter: Allen VanDeynze

- Permanent committees vs. working groups
- Databases for plant breeding traits

- Wiki on crop breeding methods: Dave Stelly
- NAS for plant breeders
- Next conference calls: April 21, May 19

 

 

NAPB executive committee meeting Feb. 17th, 2011

=======================================------------------
Attending (On call)
=======================================------------------

  1. David Stelly
  2. Ellen Bergfeld (ASA-CSSA-SSSA "Tri-Societies")
  3. Phil Simon
  4. Mike Havey
  5. Tom Koch
  6. Todd Wehner
  7. Shelly Jansky
  8. Rita Mumm
  9. Fikret Isik
  10. Karen Moldenhauer
  11. Seth Murray
  12. Ross Whetten

Todd Wehner: called the meeting to order:

Mike Havey -- Progress on "one-pager" about the value of Investments in Plant Breeding:  Mike received lots of feedback on the one-pager that aims to explain and illustrate how long-term investment in plant breeding offers viable solutions to agricultural challenges  and opportunities.  He will send out a revised version M or T next week.  We need more PR.  For more information, please contact Mike.  We will post the one-page prominently on the NAPB website.  We may also want to develop a video.  Requests for ad hoc responses could go to Mike Havey.  For more general inquiries, the NAPB secretary could field and forward to appropriate individuals.  Mike will dovetail with Seth to get the one-pager onto the web.

Ellen Bergfeld  --  services potentially available through the Societies:  We would become one of a number of groups within the Alliance …., How much would we want to have the Society do for us and how much might it cost?  The item I distributed was more of meeting focus.  It did NOT include "FRONT OFFICE" or "BACK OFFICE" activities. Of the ~900 on our email list now, we suppose that maybe 200-300 would convert to being paying members.  List of possible support areas.

  1. Membership
  2. Create and maintain DB, contact info, tie into back office
  3. Accounting, dues, dates, accounting payable receivable, tracking dues, renewals, notifications,
  4. Lists for notifications -- category specific, if desired (state, topic keyword, crop…)
  5. Elections and election preach
  6. Award
  7. Committees
  8. Meeting support, e.g., for annual meeting (see contract provided): 
  9. Abstracts
  10. Talks
  11. Speakers
  12. Posters
  13. Exhibits
  14. Hotels
  15. Meeting site identification
  16. A/V
  17. Space assignments
  18. Web site management

 

Difficult to say what the costs might be without clear definition of what is needed.  Might be able to set an amount and then have some real-time feed back from the Societies.

Membership: 

  1. How many would we have enlist if we charged $50?  (This is not know.  "Guestimate" = 200-300?) 
  2. What would be membership benefits? 
  3. There was some concern NAPB would lose e-mail contact with the full list of 900, if it adopted a policy of emailing only members.
  4. If we were to use the minimum services (define those), then work with Ellen to get estimated costs, then we could determine if it might be affordable from meeting funds, without imposing fees on general membership, some of which would likely exit, if pressured for dollars.  

Meeting Related: 

  1. Put the dinner for Tuesday night on hold (find out last time to cancel without fee)? 
  2. If we cancel dinner -- change hour for student presentations from 4 x 15min, to 2 x 15 min, with 30 min for Early Career speaker.
  3. Get info from Kathy on last day to drop 2nd dinner.  (If we do -- options might include many going to eating mall near Hilton, where there are many choices in that mall, and nearby, from elegant, to sports bar to fast-food,, and many cuisines)
  4. Factor in coverage for "Front Office" aspects of meeting organization into fees.
  5. Include IP as part of the meeting (May 25 morning): 
  6. Projected waves of departures: 
    1. late afternoon the 24th, (530p shuttle, fly or drive)
    2. early afternoon 25th (after IP),   (1130p, 230 shuttle, fly or drive)
    3. mid-late afternoon the 25th, i.e., after tours (230 or 430p shuttle, fly or drive)

Getting to/from College Station:

  1. Houston IAH:  car 2 hr, commercial shuttle (see below), or fly (CO)
  2. Austin:  car 2hr
  3. Dallas DFW:  car 3-3.5 hr, or fly (AA)

Airport Shuttles between Houston (Hobby and Bush Intl (IAH) airports) and College Station:  ~$26 each way
http://www.groundshuttle.com/cs-schedule.php
The consensus was to let the commercial shuttle company worry about the logistics here. 

We (Sec.) needs to send out an ANNOUNCEMENT:    Send general notice for NAPB/PBCC to XC for approval :

  1. MEETING reminder -- 
  2. Notice about IP; tours info to be announced soon
  3. Cut off date for early registrations.  NAPB/PBCC
  4. Awards - need nominations,
  5. Officers -- we need nominations !!!! 
  6. OTHER??

 

NEXT NAPB CONF. CALL:    Mar 17 2pm EST

Todd Wehner:  asked for other business, then adjourned the meeting
===========================================================
MEMORANDUM
TO:      NAPB/PBCC executive committee meeting (SCC-080)
CC:      Ellen Bergfeld, CEO of ASA (ebergfeld@sciencesocieties.org)
From:    Todd Wehner, NAPB President
Subject: NAPB conference call for February


Our conference call this month will be February 17 at 2 pm Eastern: 866-773-4970, code # 8604812.  Issues to discuss include:

- Minutes and roll call: Dave Stelly
- ASA hosting of NAPB: Ellen Bergfeld (see ACSESS attachment)
- 2011 meeting announcement: Liaisons
- Plans for 2011 NAPB/PBCC meeting: Dave Stelly, Seth Murray

- Nominations: Steve Baenziger (liaisons, archivist, web assistant, PBCC VP, PBCC sec)
- Public relations/newsletter (capacity, careers, events): Allen VanDeynze

- Permanent committees vs. working groups
- Website: Seth Murray
- Treasurer: Shelley Jansky
- Databases for plant breeding traits
- Wiki on crop breeding methods: Dave Stelly
- NAS for plant breeders
- Next conference calls: March 17, April 21, May 19

Thank you.

 

 

NAPB CONFERENCE CALL 2011 JAN. 27

Minutes (revised)

Attending:  (guests)

  • Karen Moldenhauer
  • Rita Mumm
  • Jamie Sherman
  • Kathy Ferguson (TAMU)
  • Phil Simon
  • Ross Whetten
  • Stevan Madjarac (Monsanto)
  • Eloy Corona (Monsanto)
  • Seth Murray
  • Mike Havey
  • Steve Baenziger
  • Todd Wehner
  • Shelly Jansky
  • Donn Cummings
  • Allen Van Deynze
  • Ellen Bergfeld (ASA)

Karen Moldenhauer:  NEW NAPB AWARD FOR 2012 -- Outstanding Plant Breeder Award:  New award for 2012, in addition to others.  Prospective draft was sent out to SC.  Steve B. and others recommend limiting to 3 letters, at least one from outside institution.

Suggested Communications with NAPB Membership:

  • One-paragraph description is available on the web. 
  • Do another mailing:
  • Request nominations on Awards for 2011
  • Remind everyone that meeting registrations will be opening in mid-February.  (Kathy confirmed this date is on-target.)

Awards for 2011 --  Possible Nominees --  Seth:  De Leon?.   Due date for Nominations = March 15.  Everyone was encouraged to make nominations.

Eloy Corona, Stevan Madjarac from Monsanto – topic for discussion and possibly develop a position paper:  in Europe (Netherlands), over the past 1.5-2 yrs, a movement (Plantum ) has been developing on germplasm access and IP):
[a] proposing to breed with any germplasm, of any type, and
[b] unrestricted ability to commercialize without paying.  Essentially this revokes the idea of any plant patents. 

Plantum is an association of ~400 members, most very small, only a few have breeding components.

Allen:   Plantum (Dutch) is big in business and vegetable breeding is huge worldwide.  Business is trying to recognize plant breeder rights, not plant patents.  EU Stopped process patents (e.g., when a trait is captured from germplasm via breeding … and granted IP)

ASTA (www.amseed.org) has developed a position paper.  Seed Association of America (http://www.saaseed.org) also has developed a position paper.  International Seed Federation (www.worldseed.com) is re-developing their position on IP, too; their existing position (2009) is posted at http://www.worldseed.org/isf/on_intellectual_property.html. 

Mike suggests that we develop a forum for discussion.  (Need pro/con presentations and discussion.)  Bob Jondle (independent), maybe as moderator.  Such a discussion would be good as a learning tool for students.  Steve Baenziger suggested that perhaps we should invite a Plantum rep to discuss; maybe also Eur. PBA, Intl Seed Assn.?  David Stelly, Kathy Ferguson, Seth Murray and other discussed logistics of the add-on session:  the meeting agenda for the first two days is already full.  (Stevan will send link to Intl Seed Federation paper.)

AD HOC POST MEETING SESSION?  Wed. continental breakfast, 8-10am (at ILSB auditorium with table up front?).    Form an ad hoc committee.  Donn Cummings & Allen Van Deynze should spearhead development of a panel/committee.  (Table mic. And roving mic.)  Heep Ctr Rm 103 might suffice, as the crowd will be smaller, and hosting will easier there.  To encourage involvement, the session should be mon-competing time with tour elements. 

Allen Van Denzye inquired about NAPB support (registration and lodging (2)) for two professional video specialists to attend NAPB to develop useful footages.   The SC agreed.  The support will not include travel.  Allen will see them tomorrow and is to provide their contact info to Kathy Ferguson at TAMU for follow-through. 

Stelly:  Video Recordings / Slide&Audio Recordings:  A question has been raised if we want to make and provide video recordings of presentations:  Develop a committee to examine this

Ellen Bergfeld, joined late and asks if she can visit (about ASA hosting of NAPB) at the next NAPB Conference Call --  Feb 17 (1pm CST)

Jamie Sherman:  Triticeae CAP (“T-CAP”) Support --  Will support NAPB for next five years, esp. students and environmental speakers; approximately $8k per year.  Kathy will follow up for this year.  Grant is supporting 30 PhDs.  This could be a nice precedence for other CAP grants.   Ed Kaleiku might be able to help move this forward. 

Next NAPB Conference Call --  Feb 17 (1pm CST)

Rita:  next meeting --  bring up a topic Beachy brought up – develop a unified voice?  

TODD’S PREMEETING MEMO

January 26, 2011

MEMORANDUM

TO:      NAPB/PBCC executive committee meeting (SCC-080)
CC:      Ellen Bergfeld, CEO of ASA (ebergfeld@sciencesocieties.org )
CC:      Eloy Corona, Stevan Madjarac from Monsanto (eloy.r.corona@monsanto.com , stevan.madjarac@monsanto.com )
From:    Todd Wehner, NAPB President
Subject: NAPB conference call for January

Our conference call this month will be January 27 at 2 pm Eastern: 866-773-4970, code # 8604812.  I had to change my schedule due to adverse weather; Rita Mumm will lead the call if I cannot get on while traveling.  Issues to discuss include:

- Minutes and roll call: Dave Stelly
- ASA hosting of NAPB: Ellen Bergfeld (see ACSESS attachment)
- NAPB position on intellectual property: Eloy Corona, Stevan Madjarac (see ASTA attachment)
- 2011 meeting announcement: Liaisons
- Plans for 2011 NAPB/PBCC meeting: Dave Stelly, Seth Murray

- Nominations: Steve Baenziger (liaisons, archivist, web assistant, PBCC VP, PBCC sec)
- Public relations/newsletter (capacity, careers, events): Allen VanDeynze
- New NAPB award, outstanding plant breeder: Karen Moldenhauer (see attached)

- Permanent committees vs. working groups
- Website: Seth Murray
- Treasurer: Shelley Jansky
- Databases for plant breeding traits
- Wiki on crop breeding methods: Dave Stelly
- NAS for plant breeders
- Next conference calls: Feb 17, March 17, April 21, May 19

Thank you.