September 18, 1996

Participating: John Bossler, Will Craig (chair), Jerry Dobson, George Hepner, Karen Kemp, David Mark, Harlan Onsrud, Donna Peuquet, and Richard Wright.

1) Poster

The main item of business was to decide whether to create a poster version of the brochure cover. The decision was to do so. The second issue was how many to print and what price to ask. We decided to print 1,000 and to sell at $10 each, with a (n unspecified) price closer to cost for large orders made be member institutions. The general feeling was not to market through a for-profit firm.

2) Education Program

The Education Committee feels comfortable with the schedule Onsrud has outline for Bar Harbor; i.e. it will allow us to do everything we need to do in developing our education agenda at the 1997 Summer Assembly. Wright sketched out Education Committee plans for the coming year which have us developing white papers leading into the summer meeting. Both Onsrud's announcement of the entire event and Wright's announcement about the Education Committee plans will be unveiled on the Web soon.

3) Executive Director

Dobson floated the idea of having Ron Abler as executive director. Most agreed that Ron would be good, but there was some concern about aligning ourselves too closely with the AAG and the discipline of geography. Additional comments should be sent to Jerry.

4) Federal Briefings

Craig and Mark both spoke of negative reactions from federal scientists about our developing a research agenda without their input. A reasonable response would be for us to present our agenda as a beginning point for conversation when we meet with staff/scientists in Washington, DC. Several people felt this interaction would add strength and credibility to the white papers. Hepner will revise our GIS/LIS session accordingly.

5) New Members

Craig reported a strong positive reaction to a recruiting campaign. He expects 6-12 applications for membership by the deadline, September 30.

Recorded by Will Craig.