International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) Board Meeting Minutes
 
April 11, 2020
 
Conference Call
 
Participants: Ian Yule, President; Ken Sudduth, Past-President; Nicolas Tremblay, Immediate Past President; Terry Griffin, Treasurer; Victor Alchanatis,  Secretary; Quentin Rund, Executive Secretary, Jess Lowenberg DeBoer, President Elect; Raj Khosla, Founding President

 

Could not participate: John Stafford Past President;

 

The meeting started at 13:30 UTC-5
 
2020 ICPA preparations
Quentin described the recent communication with Marriot, which was essentially similar to that of last week:

 

Marriot (Heather) has offered the possibility to allow the collected cancelation fee to be applied towards future booking and actualized before Feb. 28th, 2021. 
In parallel, Marriot (Dale) has also offered to remove F&B cancelatiaion $18K, leaving a $$48,950 which will be brought down to $40K with half of that going as a credit toward the 2022 program (meaning a actual penalty of $20K).

 

It was suggested that the board addresses a letter to Marriot pointing out the high probability that the impossibility clause will be in effect at the date of the conference.

 

Draft a letter to Marriot including information needed to negotiate with them the cancellation of the penalty. (Ian, Raj and Jess) 

 

Thoughts when contacting with Marriot: 

 

Go along the line of Raj’s suggestion: Stress the board’s feeling that it would be impossible to hold the conference in June 2020. The board is aware that will have to pay the penalty of 20K but we suggest that instead of arguing over the court about the 20K penalty, we’d rather have Marriot’s consent that if the terms of impossibility clause are in effect at the time of the conference, then Marriot reimburses the society. The board tries to do its best to save the members money.

 

Ian and Raj will lead drafting a letter to Marriot.

 

Board members will circulate information on the status in their regions or any other information they have.

 

Communicate with local health department of Minnesota to receive information and guidelines on holding a 500 delegates event in a Hotel in Minneapolis. Use this information when contacting Marriot - Quentin

 

Send out the newsletter of ISPA and have a message on the ICPA meeting, similar to the message that was on the newslwtter of ICPA

 

The board has reconfirmed the decision to wait until the end of April to make a formal decision, when the reduced penalty deadline expires. Negotiation with Marriot must start earlier, to let enough time to work out a mutually aggreed solution. 

 

[Terry will find what is the liability of PAQ when there is cancelation of a meeting and report to the next board meeting.] Action item left from last meeting. Not discussed in this meeting as well. Forwarded to next meeting.
 
Nicolas has proposed to review alternative methods of contacting society members and forms of communication. The board agreed that this is an important topic and will discuss it in one of the next meetings.

 

Topic for the agenda of a next meeting: review alternative methods of contacting society members and forms of communication

Next meeting set for April 18th 13:30 CST (UCT-5)
 
Meeting adjourned 15:00 UCT-5.