ISPA Account
20170717 Minutes
International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) Board Meeting Minutes
July 17, 2017
Holyrood Room (John McIntyre Conference Center, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)
Participants: Nicolas Tremblay, President; Ken Sudduth, Past-President; Ian Yule, President Elect; Terry Griffin, Treasurer (joined late); Viacheslav Adamchuk, Secretary; John Stafford, 2012‑14 President
Guest: James Taylor, Chair of 11th ECPA Conference
Could not participate: Raj Khosla, Founding President; Quentin Rund, Executive Secretary
The meeting started at 18:00 BST. Nicolas reviewed the agenda and invited James to describe his perception of the coordination of ECPA activities and ISPA and the potential to improve the process.
While reviewing the minutes, Ian commented on ACPA status, which appears to be in good order. Nicolas asked about the early bird registration, which was too far in advance. Financial commitment was the main issue. John commented that ECPA had a similar issue and that the hosting country takes responsibility for profit/loss. James mentioned that ECPA was run by the British Society of Animal Science through Scottish Rural Colleges, who took financial responsibility for this year's ECPA. This is the reason that proceedings were published through the Animal Science Journal venue. Nicolas recalled a prior discussion that ISPA was expected to be the key repository for ICPA/ECPA/ACPA proceedings, but in the case of this year’s ECPA, this idea will not work. A question remains if a repository for papers from the three main conferences would be an ultimate goal for ISPA. This year's ASPA proceedings will be hosted locally, but a link will be provided to ISPA. Slava asked if moving the proceedings could be done after a certain time span, but it looks as if the publishing rights will need to be transferred in any case. Perhaps, this could be discussed with Wageningen in terms of linking previous ECPA proceedings.
Nicolas continued reviewing the minutes. The call for ICPA abstracts has been posted. The conference announcement is a motion to have joint discussions between crop and animal production groups. The minutes were approved.
Terry joined the meeting.
Nicolas asked about the video recordings that were done through ECPA. James said that potentially, they might be available for a fee, but the key purpose was to livestream the presentations to other rooms. Online ECPA proceedings will be complimentary to the delegates for 6 months; after that, they will be fee-based, similar to that of non-delegates. The PDF version has color illustrations.
Slava asked about the membership expiration policy. It was recalled that the original idea was to assume membership until the end of the calendar year following the conference attended by a member. This should be clarified with Quentin.
Nicolas read a message from Hungary asking about the possibility of translating certain papers into Hungarian in order to make them available to farmers. This issue will be clarified with Gabor.
James mentioned the benefit of communities. Nicolas indicated that we have three active communities and will focus on expanding this number during the next ICPA. Terry mentioned that the logistics of community operation is complicated. Nicolas recalled that there was an idea to use Wiki-like activates to attract members. Slava mentioned the benefit of networking within communities. Community leadership is an important role. Perhaps if conference time could be allocated to this, it would be helpful. Nicolas summarized that ISPA provides an engine for community engagement.
A short discussion followed on the number of conference sessions versus allocated presentation time.
The next Board call will take place in early September. The meeting was adjourned at 19:15 BST.
Distributed Agenda
- Call to order / Welcome
- Agenda approval
- Review and approval of minutes 17-06-15
- ECPA - ISPA relationships for mutual benefits
- Miscellaneous
- Adjourn