Minutes of the General Business Meeting of the System Dynamics Society

July 22, 2008       Athens, Greece
(Unapproved—Please send corrections to the Society office.)

 

  1. Call to Order and Announcements
    1. President Jim Lyneis called the meeting to order at 8:20 am.  He reported that the Policy Council meeting had taken place on Sunday.  On behalf of the Society, he thanked David Packer and Deb Campbell for their service as officers and retiring council members.
  2. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.
  3. Officer Reports
    1. Standing in for the VP of Finance, Bob Eberlein reported that to comply with Massachusetts law, we have changed to the accrual method of accounting.  We have moved employees to the U of Albany payroll.   The budget shows a slight surplus for 2009.
    2. Electronic Presence: (Bob Eberlein).  We have added a wiki. 
    3. Members: (Agata Sawicka)   Agata reported the change in dues structure has had minimal effect on the number of members and the revenues.
    4. Publications (Brian Dangerfield).  The accepted backlog to SDR is healthy.  The will be a special issue on Information System Dynamics.  Manuscript central is a strong help.  We now have Andreas Groessler as a Notes and Insights Editor.  We expect in many cases that models should be uploaded with papers and now have a platform to accommodate this.  2008 could see that largest number of submissions to date.
    5. Meetings (Andreas Groessler).  Andreas acknowledged great work of the regional conferences.  Next year’s conference will be in New Mexico.  The 2010 conference will be in Korea.  The 2011 conference will be in North America, and submissions will still be accepted.  We have three interested parties for 2012.
    6. Chapter Activities (Tim Haslett).   Tim has been attempting to make contact with chapters and to identify activities.
    7. At-Large/Strategy (Joel Rahn, injured).
    8. Executive Director (Roberta Spencer).   Roberta reported on activities in the five cost centers of conference, core, web, sales and publications.  Volunteer work is making it possible to put up all conference proceedings on line.  Jen Rowe is leaving for law school and is training her replacement.
    9. Nominating Committee (Jim Lyneis).  Starting in 2010, the Nominating Committee will be looking for nominees for President, VP Meetings, VP At-Large, and 4 Policy Council members.

                                                               i.      At the Winter meeting, we established an umbrella Awards Committee to oversee other awards committees.  We established a new awards subcommittee for Community Service awards.

                                                             ii.      Organization and Bylaws – Plans to edit by-laws to bring them up to date with changes that have been made through motions to date.

  1. Open Discussion
  2. Adjournment:  at 9:56 pm.