IASPRR Seventh General Assembly

Assembly Hall, Friendship Hotel, Beijing, China

4:00 pm  Monday, August 23, 2004

 

Board Members Present:  President Anna Koltunow, Past President Vipen Sawhney, Vice President Scott Russell, Treasurer Christian Keijzer, Representative Wei-Cai Yang

 

Board Members Absent:  Secretary Ewa Szczuka, Representative Galina Titova

 

Members Present: numerous regular members were in attendance, in addition to the Board members listed above

 

 

1.        Call to Order

·         President Koltunow called the meeting to order at 4:10 p.m.

2.        Beijing Conference

  • President Koltunow congratulated the organizers, Yi-Qin Li, Wei-Cai Yang, and Shu-Nong Bei for the excellent job that they had done in organizing the current meeting.  The Assembly joined her in a round of applause.

3.        Approval of the Minutes

  • The minutes of the Fifth General Assembly at Lublin, Poland were distributed to the members in attendance.  There were no additions or corrections to the minutes.  Professor Harry T. Horner moved, Vice President Scott Russell seconded acceptance of the minutes.  Motion carried.

4.        Membership Update and Online Dues Payment

  • Vice President Russell noted the necessity of developing a method of collecting dues on the Internet for such an international organization.  A stand-alone website to do this, however, would cost thousands of dollars to develop and therefore an examination of alternatives was conducted to process dues payment from foreign credit cards and accounts at reasonable cost.  After looking at these requirements, Vice President Russell nominated PayPal as a reasonable option.  PayPal operates as a money brokering service using secure servers, a long track record and current service for 27 countries (presumably increasing as new EU countries adopt the Euro.)  The request is initiated at the IASPRR website and then transfers to the PayPal site to complete the secure parts of the transaction.  Payment requires joining PayPal, as they collect address and contact information required to validate the transaction, credit card information and number of years of membership desired.  A transaction fee that is comparable to normal bank charges for credit card transaction processing is charged, but this cost will be absorbed by the IASPRR. 
  • Requests for dues renewal would then be conducted by email, further saving on expenses.  There was no discussion.

5.        Treasurer's Report

  • Treasurer Keijzer distributed a summary statement of balances, receipts and expenditures for 2001, 2002, and 2003.  Most revenues and expenses are when the meetings are held.  Treasurer Keijzer noted that the interest generated by our savings yielded approximately €1500 per two years.
  • Professor Harry T. Horner moved, Professor Vipen Sawhney seconded acceptance of the treasurer's report.  Motion carried.

6.        Senior Scientist Medal

  • Past President Sawhney noted that guidelines for the Senior Scientist Medal of the IASPRR are being developed.

7.        Young Scientist Awards

  • There was one poster award given at the 18th Congress for Sexual Plant Reproduction.  The poster award went to Kohji Murase.   The award consists of a certificate and a cash award.
  • Two Linksens Awards for best presentation were given:  The Linskens Awards were presented to Taisuke Nishiyama and to Feng Qin.  The award consists of a certificate and a cash award.

8.        Future Conference update

  • Budapest 2006:  Beata Barnabus briefly discussed plans for the 2006 meeting, which will be held in Budapest.  A DVD was shown presenting images of the city.  The dates of the meeting will be advertised via the web site as soon as available.
  • Meeting 2008:  President Koltunow reported that preliminary discussions are being conducted relative to this meeting.  Some sites being discussed include Australia, New Zealand and the United States.   Further nominations and comments were encouraged.

9.        All Other Business:  Vice President Russell noted that to improve our website, we need more content.  To that end, he offered to post any talks that people might want to post on the website.  Also, conference digital images of the meeting will posted on the website as well.

10.     Adjournment. The meeting was adjourned at 4:35 p.m.