Minutes of August Board Meeting

CIIT
August 29, 2006
by Gloria Jahnke, Secretary

1. The meeting was called to order at 3:00 PM. The following board members were present: Les Recio, Greg Stuart, Gloria Jahnke, Cindy Innes, Jayne Boyer, Errol Zeiger, Julie Ginsler, RoseAnne McGee, Janice Allen. Alan Townsend participated by speaker phone. An assortment of cookies and soft drinks were made available to the participants by the host, Rebecca Clewell (for Susan Ross) and CIIT. Minutes from the July 26, 2006 board meeting were approved.
   
   
2. Greg Stuart reviewed the financial summary that Susan Ross had provided prior to the meeting. The balance in the checking account, the money market account, and the total (including interest) for both accounts were reported.
   
   
3. Corporate Representative Report Julie Ginsler has sent out emails to potential corporate sponsors for the GEMS fall meeting. So far, twelve companies have agreed to be sponsors. September 30 will be the closing date for obtaining sponsors. Julie will send to Gloria the sponsor information and a synopsis of the products the company offers (50 words or less) for the fall program. Julie will provide a slide listing the corporate sponsors for the fall meeting. This information will be projected during the meeting. In order to have more people visit the sponsor tables, meeting attendees who visit at least 6 vendors will be eligible for a drawing to take place during lunchtime. Prizes such as gift certificates will be awarded.
   
   
4. Fall Meeting – The GEMS Fall meeting will be at the Friday Center, October 26, 2006.
   
   

   • NIEHS Funding Greg applied for a grant from NIEHS discretionary funds on January 29. As a result of his efforts, NIEHS is contributing a grant towards the fall meeting. Dr. Schwartz will be personally invited to the meeting to accept our thanks for this support. Funding is becoming tighter and costs for a meeting at the Friday Center are high. Greg reviewed the costs for a meeting, poster boards, and food at the Friday Center. The cost comes to $8,266.20 for approximately 120 attendees and 30 people at the reception. Dr. Cidlowski (NIEHS) recommended that Sigma Xi meeting facilities be used, since they are free. Food could be catered. Another possibility is using EPA facilities, which are also free.

     Other Funding Operon Biotechnologies is providing financial support for scientific meetings as a part of their 20^th anniversary fund. Greg has requested $3830 for meeting support from them.

     Deadlines Early fall meeting registration and GEMS abstracts are due on Tuesday, September 26. Greg will send out a notice to presenting/poster authors by Friday, October 6. Diane Spencer and Gloria will assemble the meeting programs and mail the electronic program by October 12 to Les/ILS for printing, as approximately 2 weeks are required for printing. An advertisement in the program is $50.

     Meeting Announcement and Awards All invited speakers have accepted. Dr. Swenberg has been on travel and has not as yet submitted the title of his presentation. Meeting photographer, Steve McCaw, has been contacted about the meeting. An award will be given for the best talk and Greg, Janice, and Les will be the judges. Jayne, Jeff, and Errol will judge the posters. Awards and poster judges will be discussed at the next meeting.

5. GEMS Elections – Greg has contacted some of the potential candidates for GEMS office. So far, RoseAnne McGee has agreed to run for President-Elect and Dan Shaughnessy, Steve Little, Kristine Witt, and Minnie Holmes-McNary have agreed to run for councilor positions.

6. GEMS Website – GEMS has been using NC Neighbors and a GEMS blog to convey organizational information. A web page dedicated to GEMS would be in order. Errol presented information of an offer from Google for a free web site. Frank Stack provided a list of available possible domain names. A web name of gems-nc.org was approved by the board. Errol will send this information to Frank so that he can register the domain name.

7. Other Business – Errol and Les will contact Dr. Levy (FDA-CFSAN) of GETA/GTA at the EMS meeting in mid-September to discuss strategies for increasing interest in genetox.

8. The next board meeting date will be the first week in October [held on 10/03].