Officers:
James Hines (Vice President - Meetings), David Lane (Vice President - Publications), John D. W. Morecroft (President), Alexander L. Pugh, III (Vice President - Finance), Michael J. Radzicki (Secretary), George Richardson (President Elect)
The meeting was called to order at 4:42 PM by President John Morecroft.
Vice President - Finance Jack Pugh reported that the Society's finances are in good shape and are projected to look similar to the past two years.
Vice President - Publications David Lane reported that the System Dynamics Review is now being published four times per year and has become a "supplementary journal" that has a selection of its abstracts published in International Abstracts in Operations Research. He also publicly thanked Graham Winch, Andy Ford and Jac Vennix for the work they had done editing the Review during the past year.
President Morecroft announced the slate of candidates for Society officers and the Policy Council that had been assembled by the Nominating Committee. The candidates, who in the absence of challengers and the subsequent need for an election, will take office in 1998, are: President Elect: Alexander L. Pugh, III (USA), Vice President at Large: Roger Hall (Canada), Vice President - Meetings: Geoff Coyle (UK), Policy Council: David Ford (Norway, USA), Anjali Sastry (India, UK, USA), Frank Maier (Germany), and Carmine Bianchi (Italy).
Yaman Barlas reminded the membership that the 1997 System Dynamics Conference will be held August 19-22, 1997 in Istanbul, Turkey. He called the membership's attention to a brochure, available at the registration desk, that contains all of the essential conference information. In particular, he noted that the conference theme will be: "Systems Approach to Learning and Education into the 21st Century," and that system dynamics papers on all topics are welcome.
Vice President - Meetings Jim Hines announced that the 1998 System Dynamics Conference will be hosted by Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and the 2000 System Dynamics Conference will be hosted by the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway. The site of the 1999 Conference is still open, but it must be held in North America.
President Morecroft announced that the Society now has four active chapters: China, India, Italy, and Japan.
The Italian Chapter is the most recently approved Society chapter. Habib Sedehi was instrumental in its creation and it currently has 50 members, maintains a Web page, has 2-4 meetings per year, and hosts a monthly activity in Milan.
The Japanese Chapter currently has 89 members and 11 corporate members. To date, the Chapter has hosted 4 activities that attracted approximately 15 attendees each. The Chapter is sponsoring a national economic modeling project, has just published the second edition of its Chapter journal, and has translated the beer game into Japanese.
John Sterman reported that the virtual proceedings, which were experimental in 1996, will become the standard for the 1998 conference and beyond. 1997 will be a transitional year in which the conference proceedings will appear in both paper and virtual formats. Sterman then publicly thanked Drew Jones for doing all of the Web work for the 1996 virtual proceedings.
Mike Radzicki announced that, in the near term, he and Bob Eberlein will be establishing a Society Web site that will contain information of interest to Society members (e.g., minutes of meetings, the Society Articles of Organization, ByLaws, and Policies, an historical list of Society officers and Policy Council members, an historical list of Forrester Award winners, an historical list of conference sites, Society guidelines for conference organizers, financial and membership data, chapter reports, current conference information, a membership application, etc.).
President Morecroft announced that he had sent out an invitation for proposals to host a professionally staffed Society office to senior members of the field. A number of persons had responded to the invitation and the field had been narrowed by the Policy Council to three: David Andersen of SUNY Albany, Paal Davidsen of the University of Bergen (Norway), and Jac Vennix of the University of Nijmegen. A committee has been formed to gather more information and make a recommendation to the Policy Council by November 5, 1996.
President Morecroft answered questions from Society members.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 PM.
Respectfully submitted.
Michael J. Radzicki