Association of Biology Laboratory Education
31st Annual General Meeting
June 4, 2008
The ABLE annual General Business Meeting was held at University of Toronto Mississauga in the Kaneff Centre room 137.
The meeting was called to order by President Mike O’Donnell at noon.
- Call to order and approval of agenda
The agenda was approved as presented.
- Announcements and welcome from 2008 host (Anne Cordon)
Anne gave some details of the week’s events.
- Reports from Officers and Committee Chairs
- President (Mike O’Donnell)
Reports are available at the ABLE website and the Conference website and can be checked there for details. Board members and the conference host were thanked for all their hard work.
- Treasurer (Alec Motten)
We have a positive balance and made money this year due mostly to the UK conference positive balance. Membership dues are not covering all cost of Proceedings, workshop honoraria, Lab Initiative grants, and Waivers of Registration. More members are needed. The Board is looking into ways of encouraging more donations without adversely affecting our tax exempt status.
- Membership (Maggie Haag)
Membership is down from 239 last year to 170 this year. Everyone was encouraged to bring in one new member. All printed copies of past Proceedings volumes are now gone. CD’s for volumes 27 and 28 are available for purchase (see ABLE website).
- Nominations – including election results (Kathy Nolan)
There are two new Members-at-Large. Dan Johnson fills the position vacated by Kelly Bohrer, and Marielle Hoefnagels is newly elected. Ruth Beattie is the new President-Elect, and Judy Guinan is the new Secretary for a 2-year term. There will be one Member-at-Large position to fill next year. Thanks for service went to Bob Hodson as Secretary (8 years) and Chris Beck as Member-at-Large (4 years).
- Major Workshops (Donna Bozzone)
A spirited call for workshops was presented, including a challenge that attendees prove they teach labs by proposing one. Charlotte Omoto suggested members request a workshop in a particular area to stimulate proposals. Workshop evaluations are by paper-only for the short form that every participant is given, and by paper or electronic for the long form that selected participant volunteers use.
- Mini workshops (Ralph Preszler)
The thirty or so presenters this year were encouraged to think about expanding into a major workshop next year. A new submission form was used this year, and users of the form were invited to submit suggestions for changes next year. A new deadline of March 1 is in effect.
- Posters (Marsha Fanning for Tom Fogle)
This is the 6th year for posters. Mark Walvoord was thanked for making poster submission easy. This continues to be a valuable method for communicating laboratory teaching issues and content. The submission deadline remains at March 17.
- Proceedings (Mike O’Donnell for Kari Clase)
More editorial board members are needed. Presenters this year will be contacted with guidelines; see website for current version. Mini workshop presenters are encouraged to submit an article. Poster presenters could submit the Powerpoint document and/or text for the CD.
- Labstracts (Barbara Stegenga)
Two issues were published, one in the fall (October) and one in the winter. Expect to see some changes as new ideas are developed.
- Grants-in-Aid (Chris Beck)
Six requests for registration waivers were granted. Only one proposal for teaching initiatives was received but not funded.
- ABLE Web Site (Mark Walvoord)
The website was moved to a commercial server which offers many new possibilities for features. Membership and Board listservs will be created. Some site use statistics were presented.
- Regional Workshops (Ruth Beattie)
The Regional ABLE (RABLE) meeting format was described, and offering one was encouraged.
- BEN Collaboration (Karin Readel and Chris Beck)
BEN (NSDL – National Science Digital Library) has no funds for us to catalog our entries. We will use a new database and are investigating how it will interact with BEN. The website address is: www.biosciednet.org
- New Business
- A new position (part of Publicity Committee) is created for a “Marketing” person to establish contacts with sponsors and help conferences obtain sponsors.
- ABLE Web Site and CWIS database (Chris Beck & Mark Walvoord)
A new database with more features was described.
- Future Meetings:
2010: Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia (Jennifer Van Dommelen, Mindy McCarville).
- 2009 Conference (Bob Hodson)
Together with co-host Linda Dion a 10-minute invitation via Flash video was extended to attend the conference at the University of Delaware June 9-13. The video is available from the conference website: www.udel.edu/conf/able. A paper form was issued to obtain a measure of interest in proposed Tuesday and Saturday excursions.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at about 1pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
Robert C. Hodson
Secretary
13 October 2008
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