Minutes of the Crustacean Society Winter Business Meeting Sheraton Centre, Toronto, Canada (Concurrent with the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, or SICB) 6 January 2003

President-Elect Trisha Spears (Spears) called the meeting to order at 17:20 in Garden Room 9 in the Sheraton Centre, Toronto. There were 22 Crustacean Society (TCS) members in attendance. Spears announced the new officers elected as of 15 December 2002: Mary Schug Belk (Treasurer), Angelika Brandt (European Governor), J. Emmett Duffy (North American Governor), Colin McLay (Indo-Pacific Governor), and Jeffrey Shields (Secretary). They will join incumbents Gary C. B. Poore (President), Jens T. Høeg (Past-President), Trisha Spears (President-Elect), Jack O'Brien (Program Officer), Marcos Tavares (Latin American Governor), and Akira Asakura (Asian Governor). Members were reminded that the names and e-mail addresses of officers can be found at the Society's website (http://www.vims.edu/tcs). The website is maintained by Secretary Shields, who is also webmaster of the listserv forum CRUST-L. A show of hands indicated that not everyone present subscribes to CRUST-L, and discussion ensued concerning the usefulness of CRUST-L and how it is being very effectively managed. Spears mentioned that members should subscribe because CRUST-L is occasionally used as a forum for TCS business. Someone asked if there was a current list of e-mail addresses for all TCS members, and Spears said she would look into it. L. Mantel inquired how to subscribe to CRUST-L, and Spears referred her to the Society website and/or Secretary Shields. Spears also urged members to visit the TCS website to read updated lists of meetings, to use links to other crustacean resources, and to download PDF versions of the Society's newsletter (The Ecdysiast), membership forms, and PowerPoint files for the Society's poster (available in both poster-size and page-size formats). A list of upcoming meetings was reviewed, and Spears reminded members that informational fliers for the 2004 TCS Summer Meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia, and for the 2005 Sixth International Crustacean Conference (ICC6) were available at The Crustacean Society Booth. Members were also asked to consider ideas for symposia to be held at SICB 2005, SICB 2006, and ICC6. The Society also needs a North American host for the 2006 Mid-Year Meeting. S. Tuberty is organizing a symposium on invertebrate ecophysiology to be held at the 2004 SICB Meeting in New Orleans, and he said he is awaiting word from TCS on funds requested to partially support that symposium, as over one-half of the participants use crustaceans as study organisms. Spears said that she will follow up on his request. Spears announced that Dr. Rachael King has magnanimously volunteered to serve as the new editor of The Ecdysiast, taking over from Tim Stebbins, who has served our Society in that capacity long and well. Members present concurred that it was worthwhile to continue publication of the newsletter in both print and electronic (PDF) formats despite an annual cost of ~US$1200 to the Society, because many members might not yet be in the habit of visiting the Society's website on a periodic basis to obtain the information provided in the newsletter (an aside by Spears: over one-half of the recent election ballots were paper versions made available in the last issue of The Ecdysiast). Spears urged members to contribute articles and information to future issues of the newsletter. Spears referred members to the most recent Treasurer's Report prepared by retiring Treasurer Alan Harvey (available on the Society's website). Our newly elected Treasurer, Mary Belk, has already set up two certificate-of-deposit ladders to generate two-to-three times the amount of interest income and has plans forthcoming to increase TCS investment income. Spears mentioned that the Board of Governors (The Board) is considering alternatives to the roughly US$10,000 annual payment the Society makes to Allen Marketing and Management, Inc. D. Wolcott suggested the formation of a financial committee to assist the Treasurer by investigating this, and other, financial issues. Spears replied that the Board is currently updating and revising the Society's Constitution and by-laws and that writing a financial committee into the new Constitution would be one option. Spears urged members to contribute to the newly established Denton Belk Memorial Scholarship Fund, and said that information on this fund could be found (1) in a flier at the Society's booth at SICB, (2) from the November 2002 issue of The Ecdysiast, and (3) from the Society's website. L. Mantel asked how the award would be administered, and Spears replied that an award committee will be established to prepare, solicit and review student applications once sufficient funds have accrued in this special endowment fund. Contributions may be made at any time, and they may also be made by new and renewing members using the TCS membership form available on the Society's website. Spears reported that many of the Society's financial matters were tied to matters related to the Society's journal, and she provided a brief summary of David Camp's most recent Editor's report printed in the November 2002 issue of The Ecdysiast. In response to discussion concerning the financial burden the Society bears to publish JCB, members voted to recommend that page charges be mandatory for non-TCS members, with the hope that contributors to the journal who cannot afford full page charges might join TCS as a less costly alternative. Spears mentioned that the Board is reviewing options of electronic manuscript submission and review, and that a final decision will be forthcoming. Members present were generally in favor of electronic submission. Spears mentioned that Editor Camp has yet to find a means of making JCB available on-line to subscribers that isn't prohibitive in cost, but that TCS will likely pursue the option of allowing authors of papers published in JCB to receive PDF versions of their articles to post on their websites and to use in response to requests for reprints. Allen Press charges US$1.50/page and US$50/issue to process the PDF file conversion, and one option is for the Society to incur the cost of providing PDF files to subscribing authors. Spears also reported on the recent agreement between TCS and the BioOne/Infotrieve Consortium that generates income for the Society for every electronic “hit” for our journal. This comes at no cost to TCS so long as we remain with Allen Press. Spears mentioned, however, that there has been some discussion among Board members of pursuing a less costly publisher without sacrificing journal quality. All present expressed deep gratitude for David Camp's editorial leadership and the services of JCB's 12 associate editors. The possibility of paying the Editor of JCB an honorarium was raised. L. Mantel suggested that an editor's home institution might provide assistance, but this is not an option in our present Editor's situation. Further, H. Laufer reminded members that home-institution support could be withdrawn at any time and was therefore not a reliable source of support. Spears said that she would bring this matter to the Board for discussion. Spears reported that the Board is taking the Review Commission's recommended changes to the Society's Constitution under consideration and preparing a response that will result in an updated and amended Constitution that will be voted upon by the general membership. Someone requested that changes made to the Constitution be presented alongside original wording that has been struck through. The final item of business was a discussion of the association between TCS and SICB. Spears reviewed the Board's response to the letter of concern drafted by TCS members attending the 2002 SICB Meeting in Anaheim, both of which were published in the November 2002 issue of The Ecdysiast. Members reiterated their genuine dismay with TCS for its waning involvement at SICB meetings over the past several years. Spears attributed part of this waning support to the Society having become more international in its membership and the popularity of the Mid-Year Meetings, the latter being well attended and frequently held concurrently with other carcinological meetings. Nonetheless, Spears said that the Board acknowledges their concern and the Board's failure to provide the necessary oversight, and that the Board has voted to maintain an official association with SICB in the future. The latter comes at a relatively small annual monetary cost to the Society (US$250), but the return is potentially noteworthy in terms of membership recruitment (e.g., by maintaining a high profile and by offering student awards) and the opportunity to have symposium proceedings that are published in the SICB journal. Spears added that revisions to the Society's Constitution might be made that clarify and facilitate the continued association between TCS and SICB, and she will bring these issues back to the Board. Members present also expressed their desire for TCS to sponsor a TCS Social at the SICB Annual Meeting (perhaps to be held jointly with the Division of Invertebrate Zoology). Opinions were mixed regarding whether special TCS paper sessions should be held as in the past, but all agreed that TCS should become more involved with planning the SICB Meeting Program. With no further business, the meeting adjourned at 18:50. Additional Society business during the course of the SICB Annual Meeting consisted of a Best Student Paper and Poster Competition organized by President-Elect Spears, with the help of several members who served as judges. One Best Student Paper Award, one Best Student Poster Award, and one Honorable Mention for Best Paper will be presented. The awards consist of a certificate, a US$50 cash award, and a one-year subscription to Journal of Crustacean Biology. The Honorable Mention receives a certificate and a $25.00 cash award and all awardees will be announced in the Society's newsletter and journal.

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