AFS Fisheries Information and Technology Section

Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

                                                      March 14, 2022

Attendees: Tiffany, Paul, Patrick, Kayla

Old Business

Mail poet:

• Impact of the list cleanup actions (Chelsea)
  • Table until next meeting

 Potential section rebranding (Tiffany)

• Required steps – membership involvement to identify new name, bylaws change, membership approval to bylaws and then we would submit to management committee.
• Issues that may arise- changes to bank account. Action item: Kayla to look into changing banks to more nationally known bank – this will make more easier transitions in the future
• ExCom agrees to move forward with name change given membership approval
• Tiffany will send email to the membership with justifications of name change and ask membership to brainstorm potential names. Once a candidate list has been made, membership will vote on new name.
  • What are your thoughts on a name change? What does this section mean to you? What names would you suggest if we change?

Partnership travel award

• No entries

AFS Spokane

• Continuing Ed course
  • “Database design and application” Workshop
  • All day Sunday Aug 21^st
  • AFS is providing hotel and honorarium for instructor (Keith)
  • Idea to have a FITS Excom member present for support. Tiffany maybe able to take on that role.

• Symposia
  • FITS sponsoring two symposia at the American Fisheries Society Conference in Spokane, Washington, August 21-25, 2022.

“MacGyvering”: Innovative Problem Solving in Fisheries Science-We want to hear from all you tinkerers, inventers, and repurposers…the “MacGyvers” of fish science.  Fish scientists are often successful in “MacGyvering” innovative solutions to a question or problem.  You do this by inventing, building, or repurposing technology or analytical tools, especially when resources or existing tools are limited or nonexistent.  We want you to share successes and failures of your applications and processes, ideas for further exploration, and results of research where your innovative solution was utilized.  We hope that by sharing, you spark further development, facilitate adoption of useful tools, and inspire others to explore innovative problem solving in fisheries science.

Bringing it all together: data integration for fisheries research and management success-The symposium will showcase successful data integration approaches used by a diversity of experts who integrate fisheries and aquatic data across different types of boundaries and geographic scales. The processes undertaken to achieve integration, lessons learned, unexpected benefits of the integration process, how to maintain integrated datasets, and use cases for these data products will be discussed. The session will end with a round table discussion to explore opportunities for coordinating data integration efforts and streamlining future integration efforts.

• Tech Talks
  • Do we want to continue with tech talks? Yes
  • Good for tradeshow and vendors
  • Action Item: Tiffany to ask Rebecca for direction of tech talks and a path forward

New Business

Action item: Tiffany to recreate ExCom meetings in Microsoft teams