Minutes of the AGM March 8, 2017

Meeting called to order at 11:02 by Fred Hoffman

Welcome from the Dean of the College at FAU, apologies from the President who is in Tallahassee at the legislative session.  The Dean welcomes everyone, and is very happy to host the conference and the ICA.  FAU is proud of Spyros for his work, Fred for his work, and the contributions to academia.  FAU is demonstrating Academic Excellence, and proud of the work we are doing.

11:07 Stinson begins his remarks

·      Introductions and moment of silence for Peter Slater, Petr Skoda, Ann Street, Gerd Fricke, Micheal Deza.

·      Election of the Executive: 20 were elected last year, including President Stinson, Vice President Froncek, Pike, Holliday as executive.

·      Registrar change, Ernest Reut D’Atueil has stepped down and Spyros Magliveras will be taking up the role.

·      ICA office is in FAU.  Dues are invoiced monthly.  It will take one year to fully realize the updated membership.  Dues can be paid online through the FAU foundation: fauf.fau.edu/icamemberships  Tax deductible donations can be made fauf.fau.edu/ica Also, email icaoffice@fau.edu for questions.

·      Dues schedule is existing rates, with the addition of 2 and 3 year membership options.

·      Medals were awarded for the 2009-2015 period. Thanks to Charlie Colbourn, Jonathan Jedwab and Christine O’Keefe who has been reviewing nominations.  An accelerated calendar has been in place.  For the 2016 medals, nominations were due Dec 31, 2016.  A new medal for Stanton is to be awarded, starting 2016.  Medals will go back to being awarded on a routine schedule within a year.  Current backlog medals will be awarded hopefully throughout 2017.

·      Production of medals.  We are investigating a company that will produce dies, blanks, engraving, and boxes.  The bank account is built up to a place where we can make the initial outlay, and that will happen in 2017.  We will continue certificates and medal awards, as medals are slower to produce.

·      BICA.  Ernest resigned from EIC in May, a committee was formed, discussed, and the EIC are Marco Buratti, Don Kreher, Tran Van Trung, and the first issue with the new EIC is the January 2017 issue.  Copies for new and future members are available at the conference (thanks Dalibor for carrying them down here). A new cover design with new logo from Jaromir Sedlacek, the Tutte-Coxeter (Tutte 8-cage) graph was selected for the graph on the cover, Tutte was first President of the ICA and Coxeter was an Honorary Fellow of the ICA. The printing is done in Duluth MN.  The pictures of conference photos are now in color. Cost is about $13 per copy to the ICA, roughly $40/year to print and mail the BICA to members. 

·      BICA.  We published a version of the bulletin online, and emailed the password to ICA members, future work includes publication online with more structure.  There will likely be additional discussion of the options in the future.  Mailing and printing are each $6 something, so going to an online version might allow members to opt out of printed copies for a reduced fee.

·      ICA webpages.  Doug Stinson has been hosting a set of pages on his Waterloo personal pages.  Doug Stinson is accepting additional input, if anyone has any, especially if anyone has talents in web design.

·      Communications with members: ICA mailing list, website, the blog, the BICA.  You can email the BICA editors at bica@fau.edu, and the office ICAoffice@fau.edu.

·      Goals: increase, diversify the membership, more and better and strong papers and survey papers and classroom notes and conference reviews into the BICA.

·      Random thoughts: membership certificates have not been issued since 2007.  Honorary fellows program has lapsed somewhat.  There are five living, sSS Shrikhande, CR Rao, GJ Simmons, Vera Sos, Henry Gould. The most recent were elected in 2010.  Printed membership lists haven’t been issued recently – there are privacy issues associated with this.

·      Thanks to the Exec, to Spyros, the EICs, the Council, the ad-hoc Committee members, and David Allston in Winnipeg.

·      First Financial Report from Ernie: Thank you Doug for opening the meeting and important comments about the history of the ICA, that was my favorite thing to talk about.  I will present my written copy to the secretary.  Historical info. Since November 2016, membership is handled through the FAU office.  I’m happy to see an academic home, and the reason we hadn’t been previously was due to university politics in Manitoba. I think things will go more smoothly since the ICA is growing. We want to make sure things will go more smoothly and have committee and groups working to accomplish tasks and make sure things that I didn’t have a chance to do will get done, and all I could say was sorry, but now there will be more work done.  I handed an envelope to Spyros with a check for the balance of the Winnipeg account, and we’ll transfer any incoming money to FAU, and we won’t need that budget anymore. As in the past, the financial reports of Winnipeg will be published in the upcoming BICA.  The numbers are very similar to last year, and production cost didn’t change but postage increased a small amount. I’m holding nothing back. As of march 1^st, I’m stepping back as registrar emeritus, having resigned in favor of Spyros. Our success was attributable to the trust from the membership and we hope this is renewed. I have here a list of our outstanding accounts receivable, and this is unpleasant business, and it amounts to a large amount of money, but we have been very lax about pushing on people about paying dues on time, and this causes challenges when we’re trying support conferences, produce medals, produce a bulleting.  Ralph used to support shortfall by taking money out of his own pocket.  I suspect the organization will now begin swimming.  The total shortfall is a problem, and I hope that the ICA office at FAU will have better luck. All outstandings prior to November 1, 2016 are removed from the list. We allow some kind of grace period, and it’s not worth chasing after people. If people are not receiving the bulletin, perhaps the dues are not paid up.  If after a few years of not paying dues, then I would stop sending the bulletin.  The ICA is a not-for-profit organization in service to its members.  As registrar emeritus, I must stress that without membership and paying dues, it is difficult to maintain the bulletin and conferences.  The BICA was started as a newsletter, and is evolving into a proper journal. If BICA becomes a full fledged journal… we’ll see if there’s room for a second publication to serve as a newsletter

·      Spyros’ report as registrar: Thank the members, and thank Ernie. I have begun automating the invoicing process, and that process is becoming refined.  Since Nov 1, I have issued 252 invoices, and invoices are submitted by email and are costs saving in not posting invoices.  Total proceeds since Nov 1, 14,672.50, paid out $1K for SEICGTCC, fees and stuff is about 7%, and the Manitoba transfer arriving is 4106.13 $CA.  Spyros displays a brief histogram of who is making which type of purchase: MTICA/retired: $750, AFTICA: $1100, FTICA: 3750, 2yr 400, 3yr 2100, life 4000, donations 2600.  We have presently 543 members, that’s an increase of 29 from November 1, 2016, and not including those who joined during the Conference. An interim goal of 600 active members this year…

·      Dalibor: ten council nominees, for a three-year term 2017-2020. Motion: Holliday Second: El-Zanati Approved, congratulations!  Need third VP: Kiki Ariyanti Sugeng Motion: D’Auteil, Second: Carnes. Approved

·      Sarah Holliday: A of A, changes to graduate/student, updating postal to email, changing quorum to 1/3, and institutional to $500 with 4 student memberships included. Motion Mullins, Second Magliveras, Approved.

·      Dalibor presented the following letterhead based on the BICA design:

·      Question: Dinitz, is the initials trademarked by anyone else? Not in the context of the logo.

·      Adjourned at 12:07