2001
Minutes of the Florida Chapter AFS Meeting
Friday
Feb. 23rd in Jacksonville, FL
Hosts
of the AFS Southern Division Mid-Year Meeting
Meeting
was called to order at 5:20pm.
Quorum
was established.
Robert’s
Rules were waived to expedite the meeting due to impending social.
Introduction
of guests:
Doug
pointed out how impressive it was that all of the following people were present
at our meeting at the same time.
Gus
Rassam, Executive Director of the American Fisheries Society was recognized for
being present at the meeting and gave a thank you speech to the chapter for
hosting the meeting. He spoke of
membership concerns in the society such as dues being too high for students and
young professionals and mentioned that these dues might be lowered. He also noted that paying charges for
journals is not required for AFS membership and emphasized the importance of
membership for a career in fisheries.
Carl
Burger, President of the parent society, was recognized and thanked the chapter
for hosting the meeting. He also
thanked the students for being there.
He introduced the national officers.
He gave an overview of the national gathering in St. Louis – 2001: A
Fisheries Odyssey – that promoted the multidisciplinary nature of our society
and how it is necessary to solve fisheries problems of today. The meeting focused on promoting AFS as a
resource and as a way to inform the public of our visibility and to promote the
relevance of the society. He mentioned
that some of the future publications of the parent society might be geared
toward the lay audience.
Mike
Meador, president of the Southern Division was recognized for being present at
our meeting.
Past
presidents Larry Connor and Bill Seaman were also recognized.
President
Doug Haymans thanked the following people for their participation in making
this Southern Division Mid-year meeting a success:
Rich
McBride – Awards Committee
Student awards and Southern Division award winners
will be posted on the website and in the newsletter.
Bob
Wattendorf – Website IT and designer of sold out t-shirts!
Tom
Maher and Ron Taylor – Raffle Committee
Tom Glancy and
Jeff Hill –
Student Volunteer/Grants Committee
●Approximately 45 students applied to work at the meeting (registration, AV equipment, raffle etc.) in order to receive a waived registration fee. We needed about 25. Student volunteers were thanked for helping and all but one showed up to their appointed shift. Follow up - We ended up using 27 students to run the meeting.
● Doug Haymans mentioned that some
students applied for aid through the Southern Division Travel Grants but were
too late, therefore, he proposed that we might reduce the registration fee for
those students who did not get to work at the meeting in order to cover minimal
costs. Minimal costs were set at $50 rather than $65. The Florida Chapter will write a check to cover the difference
($15) to any Southern Division students that
applied for aid but were unable for some reason to receive aid. The only
students that do not qualify are those that did not apply for aid in any
form. Bill Ensign had estimated that
about 30-40 students applied. At $15/each, it would be at most a $500 expense
to the chapter. We need to get
the list of student names that didn’t get to work for the waived registration
fee from Tom Glancy.
●A motion was made by Tom Maher to reduce the
registration fee to $50 for all students, not just Florida Students, who
applied to work at the meeting for a waived registration fee but didn’t get
their applications in soon enough.
Seconded by Mike Cower.
Motion passed.
Follow up - Only six students were granted the $15 reduced registration fee. The 12 students from Augusta State said not to worry about it.
Kathy
Guindon-Tisdel
– Registration Chair
Update on registration - she reported that ~366
people registered so far, about 40 of whom were for workshops only. There were 71 walk-ins from Thursday and
Friday. Approximately 19 out of 150 t-shirts were left unsold after the first
two days of the meeting.
Follow up: Normal Registration 261
Late Registration 141
Complimentary Registrations 18
(Sponsors,
Carl Burger, Gus Rassam, Carl Martin, etc.)
Workshop Only
46
Total 466
T-shirts sold out!
Mike Allen and
Deb Murie –
Program Committee
They were presented with certificates for their help
with the meeting. Bill Tate was thanked for his assistance with the abstracts.
Larry Connor – Program Chair
He reported
that all was going smoothly. He
encouraged chapter member to pitch in if they saw something was going wrong or
if someone needed help during a session.
He too was presented with a certificate for his work on the meeting.
Reports:
(an interjection by Doug that he finally found the 1999 meeting minutes
and read aloud the chapter’s stance on the selling of our membership list. See ’99 minutes for more details – they will
be posted on the web.)
Treasurer report (at the time of the meeting) – Kathy Guindon-Tisdel
Over the last year, the chapter went from ~$12,112.35 in mutual funds to about $10,814.27. Chapter funds were ~$4,666.04 at the time of the meeting. No definite numbers were given due to the current exchange of funds related to the meeting.
The
chapter made the following donations:
|
Black Bass Symposium |
$1,000.00 |
|
Raffle frames, prints, mailing etc. |
$456.72 |
|
Display Board |
$730.00 |
|
SE Federal Aid Coordinator Meeting |
$250.00 |
|
Donation AFS Dam Removal Symposium |
$241.00 |
|
AFS SD Mtg. T-shirts |
$912.40 |
Southern Division Meeting expenses:
Deposits
from sponsors totaled $7,050.00.
Registrations
received to date were $32,424.95
Accounts
receivable $2,500.00
Totaling
$41,974.95
Debts:
Mailing fees, printing fees, signs, name badges, and general meeting supplies:
$30,282.39
Final
payments: The first $1,000.00 profit will go to the chapter. After that, proceeds will be split 50:50
between the chapter and the Southern Division.
Follow up – I'm sure everyone wants to get to the bottom
line. The net income from the meeting
was $10,780.82. This means that the
Florida Chapter's share of the profit is $5,890.41 and the Southern Division's
share is $4,890.41. However, the AFS Leadership Training workshop had an A/V
expenses of $181.64 charged to the Southern Division. Note that the A/V charge is not in the final budget since the AFS
Leadership Training was strictly a Southern Division project done at no cost to
the meeting. Mike Meador, Dick Luebke,
and Larry Connor agreed that the Division would pay the charge out of their
share of the profit. So the final
figure for the Southern Division is $4,708.77. Kathy Tisdel sent a check for
that amount to Dick Luebke. A final
copy of the budget
Student Travel Awards – Chuck Cichra reported
that we had 8 applicants for complimentary rooms at the conference which was
down from years past where we have had an average of 14 apply. Of these 8 students, 6 already had free
rooms, so we paid the other two students’ room fees and opted to give a $21/day
meal stipend for all 8 students. Of the
same 8 students, 5 also had their registration fee waived by volunteering to
work at the meeting.
Follow up - $369 from the Florida Chapter went toward student meals using the state’s per diem rates.
Roger Rottman Scholarship:
Chuck Cichcra reported that we had 8 applicants - 4 Ph.D. and 4 Master students. In the past, the average has been 8-16. Announcements were sent out to 23 universities and one was posted on the web.
Masters Level:
Recipient:
Kim Tugend
University of Florida
Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Advisor: Dr. Mike Allen
Thesis: Changes in the plant and fish communities in enhanced
littoral areas of Lake Kissimmee, Florida following a major habitat enhancement
Honorable Mention:
Powell Wheeler
University of Florida
Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Advisor: Dr. Mike Allen
Thesis: Resource partitioning among largemouth bass and
shoal bass in the upper Chipola River, Florida
Doctoral Level:
Recipient:
Steve Huskey
Florida Institute of Technology
Department of Biological Sciences
Advisor: Dr. Ralph Turingan
Thesis: Ecomorphology as a management tool:
Intraspecific variation between temperate and subtropical largemouth bass
feeding mechanisms
Honorable Mention:
Juli-Anne Royes
University of Florida
Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Advisor: Dr. Ruth Francis-Floyd
Thesis: Nutritional pathology in ornamental African
cichlids
Each
recipient received a $250 check and certificate.
It
was pointed out that the Rottman family was unaware of the scholarship. The family has been notified of the award
and will be asked if they want to contribute, by Chuck Cichra.
Nominating Committee and
election:
run by the immediate past president
Bob
Wattendorf identified the members of the committee for this year. On the ballot was Kathy Guindon-Tisdel for
president-elect and Wayne Bennett and Dennis Renfro for Secretary-Treasurer. The floor was opened for nominations and
hearing none, write-ins were allowed for both positions. The election was held and ballots collected
for counting.
Display Board: Tom Maher reported on the
purchase of a display for the chapter.
It is to be used to support our chapter at other business meetings or
scientific conferences. It is meant to
be portable, non-manned, and has a back-lit title board. We need photos from chapter meetings for the
board that will help support our chapter’s mission and work.
Website: Bob Wattendorf
There
was talk of changing our website to a different service (other than the NE Data
Center), but the .COM we were considering is going through some restructuring
so Bob was hesitant to make the switch.
He is also waiting to hear from national AFS and/or the Southern
Division about the possibility of having our website hosted on their servers
for a reasonable cost, without giving up independent management of the site.
End
old business.
Doug’s
farewell speech! He will miss
Brooksville and bon-fires. He has been
with the Florida chapter since 1991 and served as sec.-treas., Pres. Elect,
president, and raffle chair. He is
proud to have been here at the Southern Division Meeting and part of the 1995
National AFS meeting in Tampa. As an
outgoing president, he would normally serve on next year’s EXCOM as past
president. Because of his new residence
in Georgia, he proposed that Bob Wattendorf serve in his place, since Bob would
have been the past president before him.
All agreed.
Election
results:
Kathy
Guindon-Tisdel – president elect
Wayne
Bennett – Secretary-Treasurer
Peter
Hood new president
New Business:
●Peter
Hood presented Doug Haymans with a past president of the Florida chapter plaque
and a certificate. The certificate
contained a Georgia Bulldog buster and was to a Traitor scum!
●A
membership letter came from the AFS Membership Committee – chapter membership
numbers are down from over 353 members.
They suggest putting together a membership campaign – action from within
the chapter to bolster people into joining AFS. A free membership to the parent
society paid by the chapter a raffle prize at next year’s meeting was suggested
as an incentive. They would like a
2-year effort. Tom Maher volunteered to
chair this new membership campaign.
Note we lost several members as a direct result of the salary survey
that was published in Fisheries. The
parent society appointed a committee and promised to follow-up on the survey,
but no progress has been made to date.
●Virginia
Tech Silent Auction
Fund
raising for Tim Copeland, a past president of the Virginia Tech chapter who has
Leukemia. This chapter is raising money
to help cover medical expenses. Doug Haymans made a motion that the FL Chapter
donates $250 to the VA Tech student sub-unit for his medical expenses. Larry Connor seconded the motion. Motion passed.
Their
goal was to raise $55K and so far they have raised $28K.
Follow-up
- The donation was sent to the National Foundation for Transplants, c/o Tim
Copeland and Amanda Rosenberger, from the VA Tech Chapter, thanked our chapter
for the donation and reported that they raised approximately $2,000.00 in
Jacksonville between the silent auction, t-shirt sales, and chapter donations.
●Meeting
venue: we may not be able to go to Brooksville next year.
The
Withlacoochee Training Center is making a transition toward becoming a full
time training center. They will not
know their schedule until June 1st.
Chances are good that we will not get in as they are trying to phase out
all outside meetings. The following locations were mentioned as potential
alternate meeting sites:
Corbit
Youth Camps –West Palm Beach ~10 cabins
Ocala
National Forest – may not be big enough
Extension
Service Camps or the 4H Camp in Ocala National Forest – Chuck Cichra looking
into this one
Keystone
Heights – Jean Lockwood looking in to this one and the next one.
Camp
Krystal
Live
Oak
Meeting
Student Poster Awards:
The winner for best student poster is Bonnie Whitlock,
of the University of West Florida, for the poster:
The relationship between size differences and
bioenergetics of largemouth bass populations from brackish adn freshwater
habitats in the Escambia River and marsh, co-authored by B.P. Whitlock, R.A.
Krause, and W.A. Bennett
There were two honorable mentions, also for students
from the University of West Florida:
The role of temperature on behavior and movement of Atlantic
stingray, Dasyatis sabina from St.
Joseph's Bay, Florida, by N.A. Fangue and W.A. Bennett,
and Reproductive behavior and resource parttioning
between gulf toadfish, Opsanus beta and
Florida blenny, Chasmodes saburrae,
by K.J. Fitchett and W. A. Bennett.
Our
raffle (door prize) was held. Each person received a ticket when coming into
the room. The grand prize was a framed, signed, and numbered Diane Peebles
print. Second prize was a weekend trip to a Miami resort.
Motion
to adjourn was made by Jean Lockwood, was seconded, and approved.
Meeting
ended at 6:23pm.
Respectfully
submitted,
Kathy
Guindon-Tisdel
Secretary-Treasurer
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