International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) Board Meeting Minutes
 
April 4, 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; John Stafford Past President; Raj Khosla, Founding President

 

Could not participate: --

 

The meeting started at 13:30 UTC-5
 
2020 ICPA preparations
Quentin went over detrails on the communication with Marriot during 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).

 

Quentin will talk with Dale to synchronize between the different options offered by Marriot. The board’s approach is to:
  -  hear what Marriot has to offer, ideally combining the full use of cancelation fees towards an event in 2022,
  -  separate between the terms for postponing the event to 2022 and the terms of minimum rooms and food and beverages in a future event,
   -  try to reduce even more the $20K penalty,
   -  make a final decision only towards the end of the grace period, i.e. May 1st 2020,

 

The liability of PAQ was not discussed.

 

The board has reconfirmed the decision to wait until the end of April to make a formal decision, when the reduced penalty deadline expires. 

 

[Terry will find what is the liability of PAQ when there is cancelation of a meeting and report to the next board meeting.] Not discussed in this meeting and forwarded to next meeting.

 

The board will notify the authors of the papers that we are following the world condition and will soon make decision (similar to wording sent out by several other conferences).  Quentin has drafted a message to authors and members of the society. The message was approved by all board members. The need to send this message out was unanimously considered as urgent. 

 

Quentin will circulate the message as soon as possible . [Actually done during the meeting]
 
Next meeting set for April 11th 13:30 CST (UCT-5)
 
Meeting adjourned 15:00 UCT-5.