Minutes of the General Business Meeting of the System Dynamics Society

July 28, 2009      Albuquerque, New Mexico
(Unapproved at time of publication—Please send corrections to the Society office.)

1. Call to Order and Announcements
   President Erling Moxnes called the meeting to order at 7:55 am and read the agenda. On behalf of the Society, he thanked Past President Jim Lyneis, retiring PC members Renan Jia, Ozge Pala. Warren Tignot, Khaled Wahba.  He also thanked VP at Large Joel Rahn and VP Meeting Andreas Groessler  for signing up again to continue in their roles. He welcomed  President Elect David Lane and incoming PC members Laura Black, Ignacio Martinez Moyano, Martin Schaffernicht, and Kim Warren   
2. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved. (Jim Lyneis moved, Kim W. seconded).
3. The nominations committee announced the need for people new to fill the following positions: new PC members and Assistant VPs. The Policy Council meeting took place on Sunday.  We established a standing committee for Strategy Development, comprising the four presidents and three members at large. Details of Winter Policy Council meeting can be found in the newsletter
4. Officer Reports
   a. VP of Finance (David Andersen):
          i. Who we are: We are a 501c3 corporation, registered in Massachusetts, with total membership of about 1100 members.  The home office runs on a contract with U Albany.  We have four employees.  We organize financially in terms of business units: put on conference, publish journal, provided member services, sell products, manage a strategic fund
          ii. In 2008, we lost $98,000, but we remain solvent.  We lost $142,000 in the investment market. We lost $35,000 at the conference in Athens. We netted $98,000 in sales. We lost about $15,000 on the journal. 
          iii. Our budget for 2010 expects a surplus of about $17,000.
          iv. Tiered dues structure – The new experimental structure has six tiers.  Since the beginning of the experiment, we are doing a little better on income, but we have not seen a growth in members with low income status.
          v. The financial reports are available on the website
   b. Meetings (Andreas Groessler): The 2010 Conference will be in Korea.  2011 will be in North America, but the selection process has been delayed. There will be a Planning meeting tomorrow morning at 7:20 am. We have received a strong pre-proposal from St. Gallen in Switzerland. The call for proposals for 2013 will be in the newsletter. The 2014 Conference will be in North America again.
   c. Electronic Presence (Bob Eberlien): The Web submission system is available to hosts of local conferences. We now have a strong submission system for conference submissions, a forum for discussion that has replaced the email discussion list, a wiki which has been underutilized, and a website. Jack Pugh has been our webmaster. He is now stepping down, so we are looking for a webmaster.
   d. Publications (Deborah Andersen): This is the year of negotiations for renewal of Wiley-Blackwell contract. We have reconstituted the publications committee, chaired by George Richardson.  We need a webmaster.
   e. System Dynamics Review (Brian Dangerfield): The journal is in really good shape, mainly because authors are submitting increasing quantity and quality.The impact factor more than doubled to more than 1.4.  The accepted backlog is the highest in recent history. We may need to consider increasing page count. We have plans for a special issue on transportation.
   f. Executive Director (Roberta Spencer): The Executive Director and home office reports are on the web.  We have over 1100 members from 71 countries. We have developed a new member brochure, which will be put on web. We have about 460 registrations for this conference.  Later today, Bob Eberlien and Roberta will do a session on Getting to Know the SD Society. We have sold about 1000 Beer Game boards.Things at the home office are good..
5. Open Discussion
   a. Low income tiered dues structure – David asked for ideas about how we might promote membership among low income people. Suggestions included contacting libraries in low income countries.We could take some initiative before conference in Korea. We could consider expanding scholarships for low income members to waive conference fee and provide accommodations.  We could solicit students from educational programs.We could build awareness that members get online journal access and many other benefits of membership.We could market the website better, perhaps through social networking tools. WE could consider giving free first-year membership to first-time conference attendees. Retention from year to year is about 80%. 
6. Adjournment: at 8:42 am. (Rogelio Oliva moved, Tom Forrest seconded).