Minutes, CINF Executive Committee Meeting

Washington Convention Center, Room 207B

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Svetlana Korolev called the meeting to order at 1:05PM.

Members of the Executive Committee present were:

Svetlana Korolev, Chair

David Martinsen, Past Chair

Meghan Lafferty, Treasurer, Finance Committee Chair

Judith Currano, Secretary

Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Councilor

Bonnie Lawlor, Councilor, Archivist

Chuck Huber, Alternate Councilor

Pamela Scott, Alternate Councilor

Committee Chairs and Functionaries Present Were

Greg Banik, Fundraising Committee Chair

Jan Carver, Membership Committee Chair

Graham Douglas, Member, Publications and Fundraising Committees

Jeremy Garritano, Education Committee Chair

Rajarshi Guha, Program Committee Chair

Phil McHale, Awards Committee Chair

Susanne Redalje, Bylaws Committee Chair

Leah Sola, Member, Program Committee

Bill Town, Publications Committee Chair

Rick Williams, Web Master

  1. Approval of Spring 2009 Executive Committee Minutes (Judith Currano)

Andrea Twiss-Brooks moved to approve the minutes as written. Susanne Redalje seconded the motion, and the motion carried. The minutes were approved as written.

  1. Announcement of Election Results (Judith Currano)

Judith Currano announced the results of the 2009 election.

Chair-Elect: Greg Banik

Secretary: Leah Solla

Councilor: Bonnie Lawlor

Alternate Councilor: Guenter Grethe

  1. Report on Electronic Balloting (Judith Currano)

The 2009 election was a hybrid print and electronic election. Prior to the election, a postcard was sent to all members of the division, informing them that the election was to be electronic and asking them to request a print ballot of the Secretary if they wished to vote in this way. The same message was posted twice to the CHMINF-L list. Only one individual requested a printed ballot, and about 75 were sent to individuals lacking e-mail addresses in the ACS directory. The electronic ballot was constructed on SurveyMonkey. The committee in charge of establishing procedures for electronic balloting decided to pay for an annual subscription to SurveyMonkey. The Secretary and the Teller had the password to the account to monitor the election.

It was noted that, should CINF decide to use the SurveyMonkey account for any other surveys, the builders of those surveys would have access to the election materials. It was also stated that CINF can stop paying the month-to-month fees now that the election is over, reinstating full access before the next election.

Action Item: Obtain the number of votes that were cast and determine how this compares to previous, exclusively paper-based elections. Determine the exact number of paper ballots received?

Action Item: The group in charge of the implementation of future elections should consist of the Teller and Secretary.

Action Item: The election results need to be downloaded and certified.

Action Item: The CINF membership should be informed that an election is upcoming several months before it occurs and that they need to update their information in the ACS Network.

  1. Innovative Project Proposals (Bill Town, Svetlana Korolev)

CINF is planning to submit an Innovative Projects proposal in July 2010, once we gain some experience with the electronic bulletin, to gain some funds for design and development.

In 2009, CINF submitted an Innovative Projects proposal for leadership development, specifically for the purpose of supporting functionaries’ travel to meetings. This year, instead of offering the ACS Leadership Summit to non-Chairs Elect, ACS is offering the leadership classes at the National Meetings. We submitted a proposal for $5000, and we should soon learn whether or not it was accepted.

  1. CIC/CINF Collaboration (Andrea Twiss-Brooks)

The CIC/CINF collaboration group is working to establish a repository for chemical information teaching resources, currently called XCITR (eXplore Chemical Informatics Teaching Resources). The prototype of the repository was shown. The underlying management system is D-Space, with a Druple layer on top of it. Currently, four individuals have administrative passwords, although soon individuals will be able to establish accounts and deposit materials.

The interface has a “Browse By Category” feature, which relies on metadata schema created on the back end. There are also some community-based features; one of several content tabs will include an interactive forum, and a forthcoming poll, allowing users to vote on the repository’s logo, is an example of the type of interactive environment supported by the repository. The repository group tried to make the deposit process as easy as possible, while still collecting all of the information that is needed.

The working group will be meeting at the National Meeting on Wednesday and are very excited that they have something concrete with which to work. The repository project was Innovative Projects grant-funded.

  1. Committee Reports
  1. Awards Committee (Phil McHale)

The 2010 Herman Skolnik Award will go to Tony Hopfinger. Kristin Whitman received the 2009 Luceille Wert Scholarship. The Meritorious Service Award will be given to Eileen Shanbrom at the CINF Luncheon on Tuesday. FIZ CHEMIE offered three scholarships, for which we got two applications. The jury decided which of the two applicants will get the award, and it will be announced on Tuesday. Symyx will be making two $1000 scholarships available for the spring meeting.

Lifetime Award was discussed at length; the sense of the Awards Committee was that the recipient of the award should be an individual who had been very involved but is drawing back from active contribution. When this decision is approved, these guidelines will be included in the procedures manual.

ACS has announced a new ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research. This is a $5000 monitory award, which also includes travel funds. We do not believe that we can raise this much money for an award, so, we are passing it off to the COMP Division.

We will not be giving the cheque for the CINF Best Presentation at the luncheon, although we will have a blank envelope to present to the winner at that time. The speakers were informed that their symposium had been selected as an award symposium a few days ago. Rajarshi announced that, at this meeting, the award symposium consists of two sessions, and all of the speakers will be considered. At the next meeting, only one session will be the award symposium, which will allow them to announce the status of the symposium much earlier. The identity of the jury will remain secret.

The Awards Committee budget was also discussed at the meeting

  1. Careers Committee (Patricia Meindl)

The Careers Committee did not get the report of the expenses for the Career Vignettes project yet. They had nothing else to report.

  1. Council (Bonnie Lawlor)

The ACS elected committees have slates up for election by Council. The list of the candidates is in the Council report.

One of the jobs of the Committee on Committees is whether or not committees are necessary. This year, the following committees are up for review: Chemical Safety, Minority Affairs, Committee on CAS, Technicians Affairs, and ?????

Two bylaws issues will be discussed at the meeting, regarding the way in which petition candidates are handled, especially for President Elect. The official slate of officers is vetted by the Committee on Nominations and Elections, four candidates are presented to Council, and Council selects two of them. Currently, a petition candidate who succeeds in getting the correct number of signatures is placed on the ballot after this process and without further vetting. There are two general opinions on this; one group thinks that petition candidates should not have to be vetted because their candidacy was already approved by the petition signatories, but the other group says that the candidates selected by Nominations and Elections is required to jump through hoops before being added to the ballot, and the petition candidates who do not have to do this therefore have an unfair advantage.

The first issue on which Council will vote is a petition for immediate action, stating that petition candidates for National office not need to undergo Council vetting. The second issue to be voted upon changes the timeline for petition candidates.

Also for Council action at this meeting is a request by the Division of Chemical Technicians that they be allowed to be dissolved and the Committee on Technicians Affairs take over their work. The final voting matter will be a measure to change the templates for bylaws for probationary divisions, new local sections, and international chapters.

There is one item for consideration only, which will be voted at the Spring 2010 National Meeting in San Francisco. The Admissions Committee will be moved to the Committee on Council Affairs. If there are any contentions, this measure allows the Council Policy Committee to resolve them. Some nomenclature changes will be necessary.

All items for Council action have no financial impact to the Society. The Councilors were directed to vote as they deemed appropriate.

  1. Education Committee (Jeremy Garritano)

The Education Committee will be organizing a symposium for the Spring 2010 National Meeting in San Francisco. The theme is “Building Sustainable Chemical Information Education Through Faculty/Librarian Partnerships.”

Grace Baysinger reported to the Education Committee on the CIC/CINF collaboration.

The Education Committee is having problems finding someone to organize a symposium at the August BCCE meeting in Denton, TX. Proposals for symposia are due Nov. 6. Jeremy is trying to get in touch with Beth Thomsett-Scott to see if she wants to participate.

The Education Committee discussed how it could use the electronic Chemical Information Bulletin. Some ideas include:

  • Posting the top ten resources in a given topic
  • Summarizing on hot threads on CHMINF-L
  • Highlighting innovative educational activities that CINF members are doing at their institutions
  • Promoting meetings of interest to people in chemical information education
  • Promoting other divisions’ education-related programs
  • Posting vendor education updates
  • Making Education Committee reports available to the CINF membership
  1. Finance Committee/Treasurer’s Report/Budget (Meghan Lafferty and Carmen Nitsche)

The budget report was distributed. We are waiting to hear the totals for August dues, which should become available soon. The income highlights for 2010 are as follows. The advertizing and subscription revenue lines will be removed since no ads or subscriptions will be sold for the electronic CIB. On the Innovative Projects Proposals grant line, we are hoping to get $2500 for next year and $2500 to be carried over to 2011. If we do not get the grant, obviously, we will not spend this money.

The expenses highlights for 2010 are as follows. The Publications Committee had the greatest number of changes. They will get a budget of $4000, and additional money will be added to pay a consultant to help redesign the electronic CIB if the Innovative Projects Proposal is funded.

The Survey Monkey subscription is to be used for several different CINF purposes, but we do not want to have the elections and other surveys in the same place. We are currently in the process of deciding how to deal with the subscription. Possibilities include multiple accounts and a month-to-month subscription, and we are currently budgeting for two separate accounts.

Rick Williams indicated that it is good to have a Web site software tool budgeted, although that line might not always be used.

There was a great deal of discussion surrounding the topic of speaker registrations for National Meetings. Symposium organizers are allotted one registration per half-day session. Any symposium needing additional support must solicit funds by fundraising ahead of time, and no promises of speaker support should be made until fundraising is secured. Symposium organizers have a choice of two different types of registration for their speakers: regular registration and one-day, non-chemist, non-member registration. Both kinds are paid on the speaker registration line of the budget. The non-member registration needs to be done specially by the Program Chair. Some sessions are topically given to this kind of registrant, individuals who do not qualify for ACS Membership. In addition to these two, there is a third kind of registration, which encourages session organizers to bring in speakers. There were thirteen speakers who received aid this time, so, we are budgeting for twenty.

We have an agreement with CSA Trust, in which each party will provide up to $400 for the joint session, but, so far, we have never paid. It will remain a line item in the budget.

The food in Salt Lake City was very cheap, but the AV was quite expensive.

The budget had a social events category, in which things appeared because they were paid by sponsors. We need to investigate the figures for the Thieme reception. In general, receptions for Salt Lake City were extremely cheap.

Twenty tickets to the CINF Luncheon were absorbed by CINF and distributed to sponsors and awardees. Some of them were paid out of the Best Presentation Award Innovative Projects grant.

Action Items: Meghan Lafferty will verify and correct charges from the previous meeting, including the cheque for the best paper award, the AV costs from Salt Lake City, the reception cost (to be verified with Thieme), tickets for the CINF Luncheon, and the Career Vignettes costs.

Since the TriSociety Symposium will be held at the Fall 2010 ACS National Meeting, there is a line item for the symposium in the budget. There are no expenses for the CSA lunch, although it appears as a line in the budget so that we can get the room. We used to pay for the lunch and then get reimbursed later, but it has been converted to a brown bag.

The Fundraising Committee licensed the Salesforce customer relation management (CRM) application. Greg has edited the data and entered it into salesforce.com, making it much easier to hand off to the next Fundraising Chair. Biorad has agreed to pay for the application for one year, but CINF will need to begin budgeting for this.

The elections budget will only need to cover the cost of paper materials and postage (this year, under $100) and the Survey Monkey account.

Action Item: Judith Currano will put Meghan Lafferty in contact with McArdle Printing to settle the bill for the postcards.

So far, we have about $700 more in income than in expenses. However, this figure is not final since there are still some adjustments to be made.

There will be some Innovative Projects grant funds left from the Best Presentation Award for two award sessions in 2010 and one session in 2011. There are $4000 in Innovative Projects grant funds for podcasting, which can be used for anything relating to the podcasting. If we are approved for $5000 in Innovative Projects grant funds for the leadership development project, we will receive it in 2009 but spend it in 2010.

Action Item: Carmen Nitsche will balance the budget and send it for electronic approval to the Executive Committee.

  1. Fundraising Committee (Greg Banik)

Greg Banik passed around the Fundraising Committee report and noted some corrections and ambiguities. Overall, CINF had a very successful fundraising year, despite the recession. The FIZ Chemie Scholarships for Scientific Excellence are listed as $3000 but should actually be $1000. This is an in-kind sponsorship. There was some confusion about the CCDC sponsorship for the Molecular Visualization symposium, which is for 2010. This year, for the first time, we have vinyl banners for sponsored events, including the name of the session and the name of the sponsor. There are banners for Herman Skolnik Award Symposium and Reception, the Welcoming Reception, Harry’s Party, the CINF Luncheon, and the sponsors. This year, this was an in-kind donation by BioRad, but CINF will budget for it next year. We are also having signs at the sponsors’ booths and the ribbons to hang on sponsors’ badges. It is important to recognize and thank our sponsors. This is positive reinforcement, and it is having an impact.

The newly-licensed CRM software will allow members of the Fundraising Committee to check on the status of fundraising. Its dashboard shows amounts promised vs. amounts posted. It allows a user to see the status of anything, including cheque numbers.

The Fundraising Committee is actively pursuing new sponsors for the Spring 2010 National Meeting and giving them a fundraising brochure, which lists the missions of both ACS and CINF and gives reasons for sponsoring CINF. It includes the benefits of sponsoring and shows how people can go about doing it. Despite the down economy, the Committee has been very successful and is targeting new opportunities. Graham Douglas has offered to be the interface between Publications and Fundraising for the banner ads in the CIB. Svetlana recognized Greg, and Greg recognized Mark Luchetti of Bio-Rad for work designing the graphics for the banners, signs, and ribbons.