Present:
Joel Greenhouse (President), Judy Goldberg (Past-President), Susan Ellenberg (President-Elect), Jane Pendergast (Secretary), Tim Gregoire (RAB Chair), Jonas Ellenberg, John Aleong, Estelle Russek-Cohen, Beth Gladen, Joan Chmiel, James Boyett, Barry Davis, Anne Cross, Jeff Meeker, Ji Zhang, Lynne Billard, John Koval, Peter Lachenbruch, Linda J. Young, Sylvan B. Green.

1. Welcoming. Joel Greenhouse opened the meeting at 5:30 p.m., welcoming all in attendance. The minutes of the August, 1997 meeting were distributed, along with the Treasurer's report. A special note of appreciation was given by Joel to Kathy Hoskins and her staff at Drohan for the great job they had done (and were continuing to do) at this meeting.

2. Treasurer's Report. (Attachment 1) Linda Young gave the Treasurer's report on behalf of Dale Zimmerman. An explanation was given regarding the apparent large increase in mail house services from 1996-97 to 1997-98. The costs are not projected to change substantially. Approximately half of the 1996-97 mail house services had been incorrectly classified as postage, and this error was corrected in current budget. The corresponding reduction in the postage reflects the counterbalancing correction.

3. Secretary's Report. (Attachment 2) The minutes from the August, 1997 meeting in Anaheim were approved with one correction: Van Ryzen to be changed to Van Ryzin.

4. Meetings:

   1. 1998 Spring Meeting in Pittsburgh. All indications so far point to a very successful meeting in Pittsburgh, with both the meeting registrations and short course/tutorial attendance surpassing last year's records. (The final meeting registration for Pittsburgh was 778, as compared to 754 in Memphis last year. The final Pittsburgh counts were 210 for short courses and 201 for tutorials, which compares to 182 for short courses and 167 for tutorials in Memphis.)

   2. 1999 Spring Meeting in Atlanta. Bruce Levin is the Program Chair for these meetings, and Amita Manatunga from Emory University is Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee. Suggestions for the program should be sent to Bruce Levin and those for short courses and tutorials to Susan Ellenberg.

   3. 1998 JSM in Dallas. (Attachment 3) A written report from Marie Davidian was distributed.

   4. 1999 JSM in Baltimore Susan Ellenberg has appointed Walt Piegorsch as the ENAR representative to the Program Committee.

   5. 1998 IBC in Capetown, South Africa Lynne Billard reported that this meeting will be held Dec. 13-18, 1998. She has been actively seeking funding for the meeting, and has obtained a commitment for $10,000 from NSF. The NIH may also be willing to support it. Interested members should check the IBS webpage to get further information on this meeting.

   6. Future Meeting Sites - Spring 2000, 2001(?) The preliminary work done by Kathy Hoskins and others at Drohan has identified the Palmer House in Chicago as the best available site for the 2000 meeting. The facilities are quite nice, with large and abundant meeting rooms and plenty of sleeping rooms. It could accommodate a joint meeting with WNAR, should an agreement be made with them. The meeting would have to be held the third week in March, rather than the fourth (as was done in Pittsburgh), but this was not considered to be a problem.

   The two sites being considered for the year 2001 are Tampa and Charlotte.

5. IBS Lynne Billard reported that in the latest issue of the Biometric Bulletin, there is a ballot to approve or disapprove the revised IBS Constitution. While it may appear very different at first, as a package including the Bylaws and Procedures, it is very similar to the old version. The primary difference is that the new version separates out the Constitution, Bylaws, and Procedures. Note that the members must approve changes to the Constitution, the Council can change the Bylaws, and the Procedures are just a matter of record and are not subject to formal approval. The IBS website has both the old and new versions available, to facilitate comparisons.

   A new category of IBS Fellow has been instituted. New Fellows will be announced every two years at the IBC. The first two times, up to 20 can be awarded; after that, the limit will be 10. This is intended to recognize the "backlog" of well-deserving candidates.

6. Drohan Management Review Report. Judy Goldberg reported that Joel Greenhouse, Janet Wittes, Tom Louis, and Mary Foulkes accompanied Judy to the Drohan Management Company's office in Reston, VA to talk with Mr. Drohan and others involved in ENAR business. The report was very favorable. The proposed procedure for future monitoring is that the Past-President will act as the funnel for any issues that arise (positive or negative) related to Drohan. This should be made known to all, but especially to those who are most likely to interact with the Drohan staff-the Program Chair(s), the officers, etc. After the JSM, there will be a discussion of how things are going, and if any problems have arisen, they can be addressed.

7. RAB Tim Gregoire

   1. Proposed Bylaws Change

   2. Web Site Tim reported that we had obtained a preliminary quote via Drohan on what Potomac Digitek could offer with respect to maintaining and updating the ENAR Website. The initial estimate was $4,500 for the first year, less the following year to maintain it, not including a "What's New" page, nor posting of abstracts. We are continuing to get clarification on some of the technical points and further clarification on the charges. The submission of abstracts is the most problematic, due to the technical nature of our profession. The services they offered were:

      1. online membership directory with search and return pages (not password protected)
      2. ability for members to review their membership information online with encryption going from the user's machine to Potomac Digitek.
      3. ability to register for meetings, with information encrypted between the browser and the server. ENAR staff would receive all information via e-mail (not encrypted). Additional cost to build a meeting registration database.
      4. web address of www.enar.org; 24hrs a day, 365 days per year; ability to handle thousands of downloads per day with expansion capability; professional design and development;

      Recognition was given to Tim Gregoire for all his volunteer effort over the years creating and maintaining the ENAR website. Since Tim will soon be switching jobs, the site will have to be moved soon.

8. RECOM Joel Greenhouse reported on the RECOM meeting. It was reported that we had approximately 50 submissions for the student awards (blind reviews to both name and affilliation). There is a history of a three-tiered award system, but RECOM voted this year to go to a two-tiered award system: there will be a top award (Van Ryzin) which includes both travel and a monetary award and a second tier of travel awards only. A new name will be chosen for the travel awards by the President and President-Elect, but the award criteria will not be changed.

   The Case Studies Competition has continued to suffer from lack of participation (not quality). We said last year that we would wait one more year to see if we could get more participation, and since it didn't, RECOM voted to disband it.

   Given that the poster event was so successful, we have decided to institute a new award for the best poster. Joel will appoint a committee to set the guidelines for this award.

   Joel will also appoint a committee to review the ENAR Bylaws to see how they match with the proposed revision of the IBS constitution.

9. Generating Revenue Judy Goldberg reported that soliciting funds/sponsors for the Spring Meeting is a difficult and uncomfortable task for the President. It is not well-defined as to whom to contact, and next year Susan Ellenberg will not be able to solicit funds from pharmaceutical companies, due to her employment with the FDA. Tony Lachenbruch noted that government employees may be unable to contribute if the money goes toward a particular event, rather than into a general fund. (He offered to check on this with the Ethics Branch of the federal government.) Susan Ellenberg noted, that on the other hand, people prefer to contribute to a specific event. It was thought that sponsors would embrace the concept of a "Student Award Fund" and that will be used as a development strategy. At the RECOM meeting, it was agreed that a committee needs to be created to address the general issue of development, which Joel will do. Susan has decided to try, for the first time, at least one luncheon round table discussion in Atlanta as a fee-event. Kathy Hoskins noted that such food events increases our negotiating ability with the hotel.

10. Old Business The issue of poor attendance at the August ENAR Business Meeting (at the JSM) and whether that meeting was necessary was readdressed. The question was asked if it was required (no), and if not, would we care if we did not meet? Tony Lachenbruch expressed concern that if we did not meet, we would not get the opportunity to see the final budget figures. Since the minutes are placed on the Web, it was suggested that the budget figures could be placed there as well, perhaps in a password-protected area so that only members could see it. However, concern was expressed that such written budget information without the ability to verbally interact and discuss information underlying the figures would be problematic. The motion "For the indefinite future, the August ENAR Business Meeting will be suspended" was defeated 9 to 6.

11. New Business Tony Lachenbruch brought up a concern about a set of papers presented in Pittsburgh as a special contributed paper session, which appeared (to some) to be designed as a personal tribute to the organizer. The question arose as to whether this was appropriate and what prerogatives the Program Chair had in accepting or rejecting a set of papers submitted as a special contributed paper session. The response was that ENAR tries to be as liberal as possible in accepting papers, although we do have limits on the number of times an individual can be a presenter/discussant. The Program Chair does not have to accept a collection of papers submitted as a contributed paper session, and could instead consider them individually and place those that are accepted in different sessions.