AFS Fisheries Information and Technology Section

Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

                     April 21, 2022

Attendees: Kayla, Tiffany, Patrick, Paul

Old Business

Mail poet:

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

 Potential section rebranding (Tiffany)

• Changes to bank account. (Kayla)
  • Narrowed down to 4 banking options. Action Item: Kayla will continue to investigate best option.
• Membership dues 2021 not been received by AFS. Action item: Kayla will work with Tiffany to investigate why and resolve any issues.
  • Kelly Kotche -> membership coordinator
• Membership survey- Action Item: Tiffany to draft 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 for current application period

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” symposium update
    • 16 abstracts submitted for the “MacGyvering” symposium
    • Blocks will include 5 talks, three blocks in a day = 15 talks per day
    • We can have 16 talks, but our session will run later than the others
    • Full day session – either Tuesday or Thursday
    • 200 capacity room

“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
  • Action Item: Tiffany to ask Rebecca for direction of tech talks and a path forward
  • We would like to see more demo and teaching information about products, less sales pitches. More hands-on interaction, less PowerPoint presentations
  • Tradeshow area is best location for tech talks.
  • Ask presenters to promote their time slot

New Business

• Governing Board Meeting Update
  • RAWA update
    • Headed to House and Senate floor
  • Future-casting exercise: Increased collaboration with other sections
    • Cross sectional collaboration ideas: Co-sponsored symposium, workshops, mixers at conferences, webinars on topics of joint interests, Joint committees on various specialty topics.
  • AFS section procedural manuals
    • AFS is building a repository of section procedural manuals
    • Every section to have a manual on the repository
    • Topics to include
      • Excom Roles & Meetings
      • Tech talks
      • Symposium
      • Section meeting
      • Workshops
      • Awards
      • Website
      • Membership updates & dues
      • Taxes
      • Software sales
      • Financial reports

Next Meeting May 12^th