In Attendance.
Officers: David F. Andersen (Vice President - Finance), Nan Lux (Vice President - Member and Chapter Activities), Ali Mashayekhi (President-Elect), Alexander L. Pugh, III (Past President), Michael J. Radzicki (Secretary), Jac Vennix (President); Policy Council: John Barton, Carmine Bianchi, David Ford, John Heinbokel, Jack Homer, Paul A. Langley, Frank Maier, Rogelio Oliva, Ginny Wiley, Graham Winch
Guests: Yaman Barlas, Jonathon Coyle, Carol Frances, Jim Hines, Saburo Kameyama, Dong-Hwan Kim, John Mackay, John Morecroft, David Packer, Habib Sedehi, Roberta L. Spencer (Executive Director), John Sterman, Toru Suetake, Carol Traner, Quifan Wang
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 12:58 PM by President Vennix.
Informational Items
Hines noted that the theme of the conference will be "show us your best stuff," that an actual paper (as opposed to an abstract) will be required for parallel and plenary sessions presentations, and that a large poster session is being planned. He also said that he was open to suggestions, especially vis-à-vis running the poster session.
John Mackay then introduced himself and briefly reviewed his short pre-proposal to host the 2004 conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Next, Habib Sedehi handed out a proposal to host the 2002 conference in Palermo, Italy. Roberta Spencer told the Council that Bob Eberlein is happy with the proposal and recommends that the Council vote to accept it.
Lastly, Roberta Spencer reminded Mike Radzicki that WPI needs to submit a short pre-proposal to Bob Eberlein so that the Council can consider it at its 2001 winter meeting.
At this point, the issue of establishing a significantly lower student price (available even to students registering on-site) to encourage student conference participation was raised. David Andersen, however, reminded the Council that the Society only receives US$10 from its per-member dues of US$90. Thus, with approximately 1000 members the Society only receives approximately US$10,000 per year from its dues. The remained of the Society's revenues come primarily from beer game sales and conference revenues. With beer game sales declining, it is important not to adopt policies that significantly decrease conference revenues.
Mike Radzicki noted that analysis of his "future of the field" system dynamics model indicates that, by far, the largest leverage point in the system is the fraction of experienced modelers who convert inexperienced modelers into experienced modelers. The higher this fraction is, the higher the quality of the system dynamics work that is produced and the faster the field grows. The key is to provide incentives so that experienced modelers are willing to spend a significant portion of their time training rookies.
Yaman Barlas argued that some priorities identified in Jack Pugh's list can be started immediately (e.g., a student award) and wondered why the Society is dragging its feet.
John Sterman responded that he would be happy to have the Jay Wright Forrester Award Committee administer a new student award.
Jonathon Coyle noted that, in the UK, a consulting firm already sponsors a student prize.
Action Items
President-Elect: Paal Davidson
Vice President - Finance: David Andersen
Vice President - Member & Chapter Activities: Nan Lux
Policy Council: Kevin O'Neill (United States), Andreas Groessler (Germany), Tae Hoon Moon (South Korea), Qing rui Xu
(China)"
The motion passed unanimously.
Jim Hines (ex officio)
Frank Maier
Carmine Bianchi
David Ford"
The motion passed unanimously.
In an attempt to clarify his motion Andersen noted that he simply wishes to have the Council reexamine the business relationship between John Wiley and the Society. For example, Wiley wants a mailing list and the Society wants a membership list. Thus, it might make sense to have one organization handle the lists. If the Society takes on this responsibility it should received a larger percentage of its per-member dues.
The motion passed unanimously.
Again, in an attempt to clarify his motion, Andersen when through the highlights of the budget for the Council. These highlights included:
- The bundling of the conference and Society's budgets into one document.
- US$25,000 allocated for web development (the details are unknown at this point, but the Administrative Committee will monitor the spending).
- Approval of a contract with SUNY Albany that has been increased by 6%.
- A projected deficit due to the forward-funding of the Society's web site development program.
At this point Ali Mashayekhi asked if the US$25,000 investment in the web site will save the Society money in the future, or whether the Society will have to spend US$25,000 on web development every year. Andersen said that he didn't know the answer to that question at this time.
The motion passed unanimously.
The motion passed unanimously.
The motion passed unanimously.
Adjournment
Jack Pugh moved and Nan Lux seconded a motion that: "the meeting be adjourned." The motion passed. The meeting was adjourned at by Jac Vennix at 2:24 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael J. Radzicki
Secretary