In attendance: Erling Moxnes, President; Jim Lyneis, Past President; David Andersen, VP Finance; Bob Eberlein; VP Electronic Presence; Brad Morrison, Secretary; Aldo Zagonel, Policy Council; Burak Guneralp, Policy Council; Khalid Saeed, Guest; Jim Thompson, Guest; Peter Otto; Guest, Roberta Spencer, Executive Director.
President Erling Moxnes called the meeting to order and thanked Jim Lyneis for his service as President.
Status of Officer and Committee Reports
All reports uploaded except At Large, Chapter Activities, Member Activities, Organization and Bylaws, Publications Committee, Conference Program, Dues/Conference Fees, and Strategy Development.
VP at Large: No report
Reports posted for which there were no questions at the face-to-face meeting:
VP Finance, VP Publications, Report of the Publisher of the System Dynamics Review, Report of the Editor of the System Dynamics Review, Scholarship Committee Report, Australasian Chapter Report, Report on Conference Survey Athens, 2008, The Latin American Chapter Summary.
Chapter Activities: No Report
Psychology Chapter wants to be a SIG. Bob Eberlein will ask Krys Stave to make a motion to recognize the SIG by dissolving the chapter and reinstituting it as a SIG.
E-Presence: SD email discussion list was shut down and changed over to a forum. Development of a content management system is underway. We are likely to start a model repository in the near future.
Meetings:
2008: The 2008 conference lost money. The local committee report suggested that the fiscal loss was due to the lack of a local commercial organizer.
2009: Plans are in place. We expect good attendance (400 to 500 attendees) and acceptable financial performance. There will be some new threads and a bonus day on Friday after workshop day on Thursday. The organizers are working with Waters Foundation and CLE to put together program for teachers, allow registration for Wednesday only and get Thursday and Friday free.
2010: The committee personnel enlisted so far include several people who are not member of the Society. Khalid Saeed agreed to serve on the Program Committee if asked. Bob Eberlein and Roberta Spencer will suggest he be included. We will also check to see if Jack Homer will attend and if so suggest that he serve as Workshop Chair. Hotels under consideration so far are top quality, five star hotels costing about $150 per night at current exchange rates. We would like to consider more moderately priced hotels.
Jim Thompson suggested that we have a middle tier of publication, such as Annals of System Dynamics, that was peer reviewed for publication but not at the prestige level of the System Dynamics Review. We did not reach a specific agreement but did realize an emerging consensus that we should find a way to identify good work. The conference program committee will work this issue.
We discussed several possibilities for improving the quality of reviews for the conferences. Previous conference chairs and thread chairs have noted the need for better quality reviews. Brad suggested that the target number of reviews per paper be reduced from three to two and that reviewers be encouraged to read, after acceptance decisions have been made, the reviews from other reviewers in hopes of improving quality over time. No motion is needed to effect these suggestions.
Motion: David Andersen moved that starting with 2011 the Policy Council will select the program chair. Seconded by Jim Lyneis. Bob Eberlein will draft and post a motion for the electronic ballot. The Conference Program Committee will recommend a candidate. Conference host guidelines will be amended accordingly.
2011: Default location is Boston. We have had inquiries from Virginia and New York, but no serious candidate has come forth. We need to “beat the bushes” to get a conference chair to propose to host a conference.
We will be using a new budgeting procedure to break out local expenses of conferences.
Member Activities: No report.
Executive Director: The Society lost money on the conference, (386 members, 200 less than previous year). Membership declined by 45 people. Retention is about the same. Membership renewals are still following the tiered dues. We sold a record number of Beer Game boards (1086). We have new experienced order decks.
Administrative Committee: Robin has been moved to U of Albany payroll. Budget adjustment needed for increase our payment to U of Albany by $35000. Motion: Moved by Bob Eberlein E., seconded by Jim Lyneis.
Awards Committee: In some cases, the terms of membership for the members of the various awards committees are not designated. Motion: Jim Lyneis moved to make ex officio member of Community Service Awards Committee be the Past President rather than President Elect. Seconded by Bob Eberlein.
Nominating Committee: Report posted. Slate is posted and needs to be submitted for vote.
Organization and Bylaws: No report
Publications Committee: No report.
Conference Program: Roberta Spencer reported that Andy Ford’s report states that they are listening to input about how to improve quality of the conference. It was noted that this committee was formed in Athens (after the Policy Council Meeting), by then President Jim Lyneis.
Diversity: Report posted. The Policy Council noted that is was a great report.
Dues/Conference Fees: We will revisit next year.
There is renewed interest in the idea of a System Dynamics Institute. We deferred discussion of this topic to the later discussion on Society strategy.
The Conference Selection Committee has already been formed. Members are Andreas Größler, Bob Eberlein, Jim Lyneis, and Roberta Spencer.
Jim Lyneis is trying to get VPs to document their job descriptions so we can have a complete list of officers and their duties.
We discussed handling non-attendance voting at Summer Policy Council meeting: We agreed to try to get the agenda out in advance of summer meeting so those who could not attend could comment, but no consensus to change voting procedures emerged.
We discussed higher rejection rates and higher standards for proceedings earlier in the meeting.
We said that biennial international conferences might be something to consider in the future if economics warrants it. Electronic meetings might also be considered.
Strategic Thinking: We discussed the history and progress of the strategic planning initiative. Qifan appointed a committee that was subsequently dissolved. Jim Lyneis formed a new group. Kim Warren has done a considerable amount of work, despite limited input from the Society. Strategic planning is a focal point of Erling’s Presidency. Erling met with Kim Warren to discuss what has been done and potential next steps and reported on that. Kim has agreed to continue contributing to the strategy development process.
Several ideas have been suggested, such as the formation of a System Dynamics Institute and the creation of a professionally produced video about what is System Dynamics.
Jim Lyneis, Khalid Saeed and Bob Eberlein agreed to stay involved in the process.
MOTION: Bob Eberlein moved and Jim seconded motion to approve minutes of summer 2008 meeting.
End of Meeting: The face-to-face meeting was adjourned at 4:50 pm
Recorded by Secretary Brad Morrison.
Please send any corrections or comments to