Section Minutes – 2009

August 31, 2009 – Meeting Minutes

 

HABITAT SECTION first annual meeting:

 

Location:  Nashville, TN

 

Present:  Section Officers: Joe Margraf, Kyle Hartman, and Amanda Rosenberger.  37 non-officer members present

Quorum Present?  Yes

 

1) Meeting called to order by Joe Margraf

– Quorum met for meeting (31 plus 3 officers).  Based on the roster, we had 36 members present, not counting the officers.

2) Joe passes around pledges to be a member of the Habitat Section – will serve as attendance record

3) Welcoming Comments

– History of section creation

– Recognition of potential overlap with water quality section  – Water Quality section willing partners in the process.

–  August 21 is when we were officially a section

4)  Introduction of pro tem officers

Joe Margraf – President

Kyle Hartman – President – Elect

Amanda Rosenberger – Treasurer / Secretary

  • Election first item on agenda
    • Move to close nominations (Stan Moberly)
    • Seconded by Scott Bonar
  • 2 year terms (2011 – for last term as secretary)
  • Formal election again in 2010 prior to the meeting
    • Electronic voting probable to take place
  • DUES
    1. Joe proposes dues structure to membership ($5 and students free)
    2. Move to make dues $10 for regular members and students free
    3. So moved by Stan Moberly; seconded by Bill Franzin
    4. Discussion of how funds will be used
      1. Roger Rulifson (awards for people)
      2. Dirk (support for officer travel)
        1. Travel awards for students
        2. Service awards or acknowledgement awards
        3. Multiple projects
        4. Why we need the extra 5 dollars to build coffers
        5. Any need to put an expiration date on 10 dollar membership dues so that it does not become a dis-incentive.
        6. Roger Rulifson calls question
        7. Unanimous passing of dues
        8. Supplement for initial budget
  • Reminder that Nick’s remembrance occurring simultaneously.
  • Other New Business
    1. Proposes Travel Awards for Students
      1. (Roger Rulifson) Conservation award in habitat (who it might be named after)
      2. Sponsorship of a habitat symposium
  • Formation of a listserve or online forum

 

  1. Gwen White points out “automatic set of members” with fish habitat members of habitat partnerships and agencies as ripe for incorporating into the section.
  2. Stan suggests using the membership to put on continuing education workshops (dealing with habitat) that are put on for pay to generate funds for the section. Lots of opportunity for AFS and our section to gain revenue.
  3. Bill Franzin will send a proposal for the section to Joe (had to leave to attend another meeting).
  4. Joe challenges the members to email good ideas to him for us to consider. Include short-term and long-term plans for what the section will do.  He wants volunteers to be official liaison to other AFS sections…establish formal linkages.
  5. Volunteers:
    1. Roger Rulifson is willing to be liaison for Marine Fisheries.
    2. Joe Gerken student subsection of education.
  • Estuaries section volunteer – Thomas Bigford.
  1. Fish Management section – Dirk Miller. Dirk is also western native fishes liaison.
  2. Paul Pajak recommend the section contact the Fish Habitat Partnerships and request appointment of an AFS member liason from each partnership—he is also willing to serve as liason to the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture.
  3. Stan Moberly will be contact for national fish habitat board.
  • Gary Whelan volunteered to be involved with Great Lakes fish habitat initiative.
  • Roger R. will also take the lead on a Marine Fisheries symposium at Pittsburgh in 2010.
  1. Gwen White– Midwest glacial lakes partnership.
  2. Steve Chipps – education section.
  3. Mike Edwards- Kenai Penn. Fish habitat partnership.
  • Tim Birdsong SARP (SE Aquatic Resources Partnership and the Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership).
  1. Stan suggests workshops that target the partnerships in the vicinity of Pittsburgh to attempt to educate them. Other members thought this was a great idea…could also be a fee to generate funds for the section.
  2. Keith Cox asked about what the mission of the section is. Joe explained the brainstorming discussion we were engaged in.  Bill Fisher asked about any sort of goals we might have had in the proposal for a section.  Joe then read the goals from the section by-laws.
  3. Cleve Steward mentions we need to have the ability to reach out to others working on habitat like engineers, hydrologists, geoscientists, etc. Joe Margraf mentions bringing the fish perspective to those groups.  Stan Moberly thinks this section can be the interdisciplinary group to connect these groups.  Maybe we can include such folks in our list serves, websites, etc.
  4. Some proposed terminology for part of a mission statement:”….habitat for fish and aquatic organisms….with benefits for people”. Keith Cox mentions that fish habitat is the hub and all these other aspects (e.g. climate change) are the spokes.
  5. Cleve Steward suggests the section could provide reviews of funding opps for founding sources to evaluate how well proposed projects are, etc.
  6. Bruce Vonderacek – has an interdisciplinary curriculum with geosciences/biosciences linkages and communicating across disciplines already prepared. Bruce Vonderacek will email the title to Hartman.
  7. Joe mentions that the section will only be successful if everyone puts some time in to help make things happen. It will be incumbent among the exec committee to whittle the ideas down to 1-2 ideas to move forward on.  We will need to form some perfunctory committees and we will call on the membership to volunteer for these duties.  We will need to get a newsletter together some time in the next year.  Someone to handle the web site for us.  Membership committee, etc.  Eric Knutson’s chapter is using a package for their newsletter (all via email).  The send out a request for info to the listserve.  The newsletter editor receives the info from the grassroots and simply puts it into an email that has links to further info.  Eric Knudson volunteered to work with someone on getting it started.
  8. Bill Fisher mentions the instream flow committee group as another committee that should be linked with this section.
  9. Stan mentions that there is a fish habitat web site (Fishhabitat.org ) with lots of stimulus money ready to go out to the shovel-ready projects.
  10. Tim Cross mentions a good thing to have on the web site or newsletter would be to highlight potential sources of funding for habitat related projects (e.g. farm bill, etc.). Joe points out it will have to come from the members.  Joe has coerced Tim Cross into taking a stab at providing this information.

 

 

Other discussion points:

 

  • Resource policy committee is working on climate change and we may want to have a liaison with them,
  • Some mention of a discussion board for the section (Ken Anderson).