International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) Board Meeting Minutes
 
May 6th, 2020
 
Conference Call
 
Participants: Ian Yule, President; Nicolas Tremblay, Immediate Past President; Victor Alchanatis,  Secretary; Quentin Rund, Executive Secretary, Jess Lowenberg DeBoer, President Elect; Ken Sudduth, Past-President; Terry Griffin, Treasurer; John Stafford Past President;Raj Khosla, Founding President

 

Could not participate: -

 

The meeting started at 13:30 UTC-5
 
Agenda item 1. Review minutes from 2020 discussions
Dec 19, 2019
Mar 2, 2020
Mar 12, 2020 PRAG discussion
Mar 26, 2020
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 11, 2020
Apr 18
Apr 29
 
Board members will review the minutes and send their comments to Victor. Amended minutes will be sent to all board members to be approved in the next board meeting.

 

Send to Victor comments on minutes.
 
Agenda item 2. PRAG report 2019
PRAG report sent by John on January 26th was brought up and briefly discussed. Raj asked about the number of papers that are reviewed per year. John rejects about half of the papers before they are sent for review, making the regection rate of reviewed papers about 45 %.

 

ISPA report of 2019 was accepted unanimously.
 
Agenda item 3. Election Nominations
Nominee received till today:
John Fulton, Ohio State
Steve Young, Utah State
Yiannis Ampatzidis, Florida
Athyna Cambouris, AAFC – secretary office
Ruth Kerry, Utah State
Yafit Cohen, Volcani Institute – secretary officc
 
Discussion about whether the nominations are enough in terms of geographical issue, gender and commitment. The nominations of George Vellidis and Jose Molin  and Bruno Tisseyre are still not certain. Raj and other board members are encouraged to contact them.

 

Raj will contact Jose Molin and George Vellidis
 
Nicolas brought up the issue that board members nominate people. Ken indicated that this has been done all the years so do not see any problem. John proposed to have a seconder to the nominations. All board members accepted John’s idea, but this chang cannot be in effect this year.

 

Nominations made from board members must have a seconder. In effect from the next round of elections
 
All nominees are members of ISPA. Steve Young was not a member and has registered just to be self-nominated. All board members believe that his lack of involvement in the society makes him inappropriate to be a candidate in the elections. Nicolas will get in touch with Steve Young and tell him that he has not been involved with the society in the past and his nomination cannot be accepted.

 

Self nomination of Steve Young was not approved.
 
Each nominee has to express its interest for a specific office. If there are more than 2 nominees for a position, there is an option to have all candidates or the board can select 2 for running for the election. No desison was taken.

 

To decide upon the policy for the number of candidate to run for each position.
 
The treasurer being an American and geographically close to PAQ was brought up by Jess and Terry. Quentin and John claim that there is no problem today to manage electronically the account and let PAQ manage the things that need physical presence. Nicolas had also problems signing checks. 

 

Quentin will check with the bank whether it is a problem to have a non American.
 
Agenda item 4. Award Nominations
1. none for senior scientist
2. Louis Longchamps - suggested, but not yet nominated
Louis received award last time so he is not eligible. Board members are not eligible to nominate. Board members will try to locate nominees and find people to nominate.

 

Quentin will send out request for nominations stressing out the prestige of the award. 

 

Nicolas will send to Quentin some ideas for the message.
 
Agenda item 5. Society’s relationship with Springer
Ian described the relationship of the society and Springer. The question of what should be the society’s engagement with Springer was raised.

 

John said that in the past the relationship between the society and Springer has been better. Springer sponsored conferences in the past and was active during the conferences. Today it is less active; the current directing editor has never attended a PA conference. Jess asked that Ian communicates with a superior of the directing editor, or herself or escalate to a higher level. They give free access to ISPA members.

 

What do we want from them: Sponsorship of conferences, recognize reviewers with awards for reviewers. Ian will communicate with her. Nicolas will share with Ian the previous communications with Melania.
 
Agenda item 6. Video Conferencing and Web presentation methods (virtual ICPA)
1. Communication with membership about materials for 2020 ICPA - how to present these materials
2. Victor’s 4/11/20 email

 

Nicolas still works on different options of engaging with members.  

 

ICPA – how to add virtual options to the conference. As an alternative to the conventional meeting using virtual means. Concurrent sessions: are they possible or efficient.
 
Regarding the papers accepted for the current conference: What to do with the papers of ICPA 2015. Ian proposes several options:

 

Posters in the web site
Present paper and webinar
Keynotes of the conference
Election of officers with a keynote
Give the communities the chance to handle the abstracts and the papers.
Free of charge to members.

 

Ian will circulate with Jess and Quentin a draft for the newsletter.
 
Agenda item 7. ISPA & NCERA discussion
Not discussed
For the next meeting
 
Agenda item 8.ISPA Foundation
Not discussed
For the next meeting
 
Next meeting set for May 20th 13:30 CST (UCT-5)
 
Meeting adjourned 15:00 UCT-5.