International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) Board Meeting Minutes
 
May 3, 2018
 
Conference Call
 
Participants: Nicolas Tremblay, President; Ken Sudduth, Past-President; 
Ian Yule, President Elect; John Stafford, 2012‑14 President;
Raj Khosla, Founding President; Terry Griffin, Treasurer; Viacheslav Adamchuk, Secretary; Quentin Rund, Executive Secretary
 
The meeting started at 15:00 EDT. The distributed agenda was approved. Slava asked for Board elections to be included in the agenda. Slava reviewed the minutes from April 9, 2018 meeting. June 8 will be the deadline for nominations. Raj asked if any steps had been taken to contact possible new Board members. The Board discussed several names of individuals active within the society who might be strong candidates, some of which are: Victor Alchanatis, Terry Griffin, John Fulton, Jose Molin, Mark Trotter, and Alex Escola. Quentin will look through the previous nominees and draft a letter for Raj to send them to check if they are interested in nomination. These messages will be copied to Nicolas, Ian and Quentin for follow-up. The transfer of ECPA membership fees is still in process. Ian will communicate with James Taylor to facilitate the process. The April 9, 2018 minutes were approved.
 
Quentin provided details on the current status of sponsorship and exhibitors for ICPA. Nicolas and Slava provided details on several additional on-going discussions. Raj suggested several additional names. Quentin has communicated with InfoAg exhibitors.
 
In terms of ICPA proceedings, from 293 abstracts, 164 papers were submitted and 62 out of 120 posters were submitted. Questions about the proceedings have been more intensive than in the past. The consensus was that ICPA proceeding papers should be different from the past or from the upcoming journal manuscripts and can be a shortened version of a refereed journal paper. 
 
Quentin is still waiting for information for the newsletter. During the ICPA, several additional meetings have been planned, including USDA challenge grant on curriculum development (tentatively Tuesday evening) and USDA-ARS precision agriculture roundtable (tentatively Thursday). The Board should meet on Sunday afternoon and one more time (tentatively Tuesday afternoon) to integrate new Board members. 
 
The number of award nominations is still limited and the deadline for nominations will be extended to June 1.
 
Quentin suggested that ISPA should be able to offer support to the next ACPA and ECPA conferences (such as proceeding papers, registration, etc.). Ian supported this idea. The current practice results in proceedings that are not consistent between conferences. Slava suggested that the chair of the next sister conference should be invited to the Board as a non-voting member. The chairs of the next ACPA/ECPA/CLAP (American Congress of Precision Agriculture) should be invited to ICPA. Slava asked about chairing of future ICPA to be discussed at the Board meeting in June.
 
The next Board call will take place in about two weeks (May 21-25). Nicolas reminded the Board to participate in the Precision Agriculture definition survey. The meeting was adjourned at 17:10 EDT.

 

Distributed Agenda 
 

1. Call to order / Welcome

2. Agenda approval

3. Review and approval of minutes 18-04-09 (V. Adamchuk)

4. 14th ICPA update (Q. Rund)

5. Sponsorships / Exhibitors

6. Proceedings

7. Next communications with members/participants

8. Anticipated meetings at 14th ICPA for Board members

9. Awards (I. Yule)

10. ISPA service offer to AACPA (India, 2019)

11. Adjourn