SNMMI Membership Committee
March 6, 2015
Minutes
Members in attendance: Vasken Dilsizian ,MD Chair, Jon Baldwin, DO, David Brandon, MD, Mehdi Djekidel, MD, James Galt, PhD, Munir Ghesani, MD, FACNM, Todd Peterson, PhD, Helen Nadel, MD, Satoshi Minoshima, MD, PhD
Members non in attendance: Kathy Krisak, CNMT, FSNMMT-TS, Valeria Moncayo, MD, Aaron Scott, CNMT, NMAA, FSNMMI-TS, Debbie Wilkinson, MS, CNMT
Staff: Virginia Pappas, Joanna Spahr, Lauren Collins
Welcome and Call to Order
Vasken Dilsizian, MD (Chair) called the meeting to order at 11:02am and a quorum was established.
Approval of Minutes
Vasken Dilsizian, MD asked the committee to review and approve the minutes from the January 2015 meeting in San Antonio.
Membership Report
Joanna Spahr reported renewals have slowed. Currently Full membership is at 85% of their FY goal. It was also noted that on average 35 Full members convert to Emeritus status each year.
Currently 33 in-transition residents compared to a budget of 50, which is in line with last year.
Emeritus Members
The committee reviewed and approved 21 emeritus applications for: David Schlyer, B.L.F Van Eck-Smit, Krishna Pinnamaneni, Judith Freund, Lewis Braverman, S. Tzilazwas, John Seder, David Preston, Frederic Conte, William Shanahan, Gordon Thomas Campbell, James Slavin, Arun Sukerkar, Ralph Blumhardt, J. Patrick McBride, Norah Milne, Richard Harper, Martin Barandes, David Seldin, Gideon Strich, Karl Herholz
Discussion
The committee discussed at length the criteria for applying for emeritus status. SNMMI is now at a point where we are receiving more emeritus members each year than new residents transitioning or new members in general.
Dr. Dilsizian would like to reevaluate the emeritus criteria and suggests that SNMMI remove the automatic status if members have paid dues for 10 consecutive years especially if they are less than 65 years of age. He states that emeritus status should be for members 65 and older that are retired, not actively practicing, financial hardships, etc.
Action items:
1. Based on the committee discussion it is suggested to update emeritus criteria to eliminate the 10 consecutive years for members under age 65. Staff to review and propose language for the committee to review.
2. Staff to research the number of members over the age 65 who continue to pay Full dues vs. Emeritus status. Currently there are 1,016 Emeritus members over the age 65 and 466 Full members.
Membership Year
The committee discussed changing the SNMMI membership year from fiscal year to calendar year or even later in the year. It was stated that academic funds are limited and run on a calendar year and by the time SNMMI sends out the renewal invoices most members have already exhausted their academic funds for the year. It was also suggested moving the membership year to coincide with the abstract acceptance date to possibly extend a discounted rate if their abstract is accepted.
Bundling
The committee discussed the possibility of offering a “self-bundling” option where members would pay registration and dues or just pay for dues. This would give them the option to have their membership dues include the Annual Meeting registration fee.
A nonmember bundling option was discussed that SNMMI could offer nonmember attendees a membership for a year after they register for the meeting. Dr. Nadel suggested that we should not implement all the bundling options at once and SNMMI should consider a fee reduction for Full members greater than 3 years while increasing the nonmember registration fee.
Dr. Nadel noted that we would need to be careful with bundling because dollars for registration fees and membership dues come from separate funds—some members can’t expense dues that include meeting registration; however they can expense a registration fee that gives you a membership.
Action Items:
The Committee has tasked the staff to suggest a reasonable nonmember registration fee with one year of membership that would be competitive and attractive.
The meeting adjourned at 12:00pm.