ISPA Account
20190103 Minutes
International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) Board Meeting Minutes
January 03, 2019
Conference Call
Participants: Ian Yule, President; Jess Lowenberg DeBoer, President Elect; Ken Sudduth, Past-President; John Stafford Past President; Terry Griffin, Treasurer; Nicolas Tremblay, Immediate Past President; Victor Alchanatis, Secretary; Quentin Rund, Executive Secretary
Could not participate: Raj Khosla, Founding President;
The meeting started at 13:05 UTC-6
January 03, 2019
Conference Call
Participants: Ian Yule, President; Jess Lowenberg DeBoer, President Elect; Ken Sudduth, Past-President; John Stafford Past President; Terry Griffin, Treasurer; Nicolas Tremblay, Immediate Past President; Victor Alchanatis, Secretary; Quentin Rund, Executive Secretary
Could not participate: Raj Khosla, Founding President;
The meeting started at 13:05 UTC-6
The agenda was appraised and approved.
Previous Minutes were not circulated. Victor will produce minutes of the last two minutes and send out before next meeting.
Treasurer’s Report
Terry went through the ISPA treasures summary report for 2018
Ian moves to approve, Victor seconds.
Report Approved.
15th ICPA Location
Davis Mulla is in favor to host the meeting. Ian will get back to David and ask what can they offer. Jess asks what will be the local support. Nicolas wants to clarify if there is any sharing of benefits or will the conference be completely autonomous. The dates should be also reviewed. Quentin mentions that INPNI is being resolved and then TFI will take over. Quentin will report to the board. The decision has to be made by Feb. 2019. Ken asked about hotels in Minneapolis. Quentin says that they sent an RFP for AgInfo and there were enough hotels to host the conference. At about the same price, maybe a bit higher. Nicolas suggests to ask the local people to organize tours.
Ian will talk with David Mulla.
Quentin will talk about hotels space.
Quentin will talk with GFI
Jess has not worked out an arrangement to have a link to other journals publications. He suggests to have original material on adoption of PA in Ukraine. We need short notes, a paragraph or two.
Nicolas thinks it is important to keep links to articles from other publications.
Ken: two years ago the reps were contacted.
Ken will send the results to Ian
ECPA papers assessment
164 papers are assessed. John needs reviewers for two more papers, Ian volunteered. Bruno says that everything goes well. Offer discount to active members of ISPA, membership renewals will be collected directly.
Update on the Board audit discussion on November 19:
Terry described his discussions with potential auditors. PAQ is uncomfortable to do that since it handles the conference issues. Looking at a local auditor. Quentin can go to the Tri societies auditor.
Everybody is satisfied with Quentin’s handling, and everything is working as it should be. There are no issues that we feel there are a reason to have an audit but it is more an administrative process that the society feels that has to be carried out to demonstrate to the outside world that everything is working as it should be.
A point raised was whether to have receipts from PAQ audited as well? Or look only at the ISPA books. Ian and Nicolas suggest to keep the audit process simple: just ISPA material.
Ian and Terry will come up with a specific proposal to be voted on the next board meeting.
ISPA Communities
Previous Minutes were not circulated. Victor will produce minutes of the last two minutes and send out before next meeting.
Treasurer’s Report
Terry went through the ISPA treasures summary report for 2018
Ian moves to approve, Victor seconds.
Report Approved.
15th ICPA Location
Davis Mulla is in favor to host the meeting. Ian will get back to David and ask what can they offer. Jess asks what will be the local support. Nicolas wants to clarify if there is any sharing of benefits or will the conference be completely autonomous. The dates should be also reviewed. Quentin mentions that INPNI is being resolved and then TFI will take over. Quentin will report to the board. The decision has to be made by Feb. 2019. Ken asked about hotels in Minneapolis. Quentin says that they sent an RFP for AgInfo and there were enough hotels to host the conference. At about the same price, maybe a bit higher. Nicolas suggests to ask the local people to organize tours.
Ian will talk with David Mulla.
Quentin will talk about hotels space.
Quentin will talk with GFI
Jess has not worked out an arrangement to have a link to other journals publications. He suggests to have original material on adoption of PA in Ukraine. We need short notes, a paragraph or two.
Nicolas thinks it is important to keep links to articles from other publications.
Ken: two years ago the reps were contacted.
Ken will send the results to Ian
ECPA papers assessment
164 papers are assessed. John needs reviewers for two more papers, Ian volunteered. Bruno says that everything goes well. Offer discount to active members of ISPA, membership renewals will be collected directly.
Update on the Board audit discussion on November 19:
Terry described his discussions with potential auditors. PAQ is uncomfortable to do that since it handles the conference issues. Looking at a local auditor. Quentin can go to the Tri societies auditor.
Everybody is satisfied with Quentin’s handling, and everything is working as it should be. There are no issues that we feel there are a reason to have an audit but it is more an administrative process that the society feels that has to be carried out to demonstrate to the outside world that everything is working as it should be.
A point raised was whether to have receipts from PAQ audited as well? Or look only at the ISPA books. Ian and Nicolas suggest to keep the audit process simple: just ISPA material.
Ian and Terry will come up with a specific proposal to be voted on the next board meeting.
ISPA Communities
Update Economics leader info
Update OFE info
Needs: Wiki, listserv
Terry updated about the Economics leader info. Nicolas described the background of ISPA communities. There are some guidelines for ISPA communities. The guidance appears on the ISPA website. There are 4 communities (on the communities’ link of the website).Update OFE info
Needs: Wiki, listserv
Terry suggested that the communities should be a formal role of the immediate past president. He also mentioned that the communication with the reps a formal role of the president elect.
It was suggested to have the communities involved in the sessions’ organization in the conferences. Regarding the listserv, Quentin mentioned that an email based system is there and working, but a listserv approach is more challenging because of the way the list of members is kept.
Decisions:
Communities is a formal role of the immediate past president.
Communication with the country representatives is a formal role of the president elect.
Involved the communities in the organization of sessions in the conferences.
Ian suggests a community around AI.
Ken suggests to re-energize a proximal soil sensing community.
Jess notes that in addition to forming new communities, it is important to make sure that that the existing communities provide useful outputs and benefits to members.
Precision Agriculture report including discussion of ISPA role in encouraging members to review manuscripts - this was suggested at the end of the Nov. 29 meeting.
John suggests to have the authors of the accepted papers to commit to reviewing papers for the journal as well. Jess agrees to emphasize the link between the society ISPA and the journal PRAG. This can happen at ECPA and ICPA and regional meetings.
Ken notes that ASABE has recognition for outstanding reviewers. Outstanding reviewer award.
Nicolas suggested to get a sponsorship from Springer for outstanding reviewer award.
John will put something on writing and circulate.
Streamlining requests from potential partner organization - example of the PRECISION AGRICULTURE FORUM, Romania, Bucharest, 27 February 2019
Jess presented the topic, emphasizing the lack of a streamline to support those requests and making the response slow. A fast response is needed within a short time. Nicolas suggests to make a template of the type of information that is expected from the organizers. Quentin should be a pivot of this process.
Jess will make a draft template and circulate it.
Nicolas recalls that has been done a while ago, Ken remembers it too.
Nicolas and Ken will try to find the material from the past.
Update on PA Definition
Nicolas described the process, based on the Codigital platform. The process is based on proposing, editing and voting on the proposed definitions. He presented the top three definitions available at the moment of the meeting. 36 participants and 17 definitions and 271 edits and 2500 voting. Jess commented on the process and suggested changes. Nicolas noted that the process cannot be changed since it has a proprietary algorithm. The process is lead by Alex Escola and is still in the last stages of the process.
PRAG report
John will give the report on February’s meeting.
Newsletter
The policy of posting jobs was discussed. Quentin posts all the requests that come from members. It was agreed that posts that are of interest to society members should also be posted, even if the request does not come from a society member.
Job openings that are of interest to society members should be posted, even if the request does not come from a society member.
Next board meeting February 7th 13:30 UCT-6.
Meeting adjourned 14:15 UCT-6.