4 SEPTEMBER 2014 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG CHAPTER REPORTS U.S. Aquaculture Society Thank you for the opportunity to represent USAS and continued thanks to the current USAS Board members. August 2014 marks the halfway point of my term as Chapter President — I cannot believe it is already half over! Lots of work still to do. Mike Denson (USAS President-Elect) and I went to the WAS board meeting and conference in Adelaide, Australia in early June. At those meetings, USAS received support for our efforts to increase student awards, both for the number of awards available and the value of each award. We also received approval to present to the membership proposed language changes to the bylaws regarding student subunits. The proposed changes will allow student subunits to include secondary-level academic institutions (such as high schools) and not be restricted to college or universities. The membership will have the opportunity to vote on these changes later this year. I am excited to announce that USAS has been successful in getting several new corporate sponsors for student awards. Students will see a significant difference in the value of the awards that USAS offers and also additional opportunities to compete for other awards outside of USAS. Students, please remember, for many of these awards you must be a USAS member when your abstract is submitted. Confirm your membership status now! Many thanks to our student award sponsors, both old and new — including Tyson Foods, Alltech, Soy Aquaculture Alliance, American Fisheries Society-Fish Culture Section, Drs. Timmons and Ebeling, Pentair, Merck, Aqualogic, Sea Grant Association and Techniplast. All of you have made achieving one of our goals (increasing student awards) for this year possible! Thank you. The USAS Board and committees will continue to work on some of our other goals, such as improving the USAS website (www.was.org/USAS), developing board position descriptions and drafting a new five-year strategic plan. As a reminder, USAS is seeking nominations for officers and board members. We need nominations for President-Elect and Secretary/Treasurer as well as two Members-at-Large. Nominees must be USAS members in good standing. If you would like I hope to be able to come back to this issue in a later column with a critical examination of the elements of our value proposition and how we might adapt it. However, in the meantime, I would appreciate receiving feedback from members and non-members alike on the value that WAS represents for you and how we might improve that value proposition to increase the relevance of the Society for you (graham.mair@seafoodcrc.com). Nonetheless, we will not be waiting for the results of such an analysis before enacting change in the Society. Two critical decisions that will impact on key elements of our value proposition were finalized at our Board meetings in Adelaide in June. Reinvigorating JWAS First was the decision to re-invigorate the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society in an attempt to attract more high-quality papers and to enhance the international reputation of the journal, including improving its impact factor. This is in response to a clear message we received from the results of a recent survey of the membership that the journal is important to you and that it should not only be retained but adapted and improved. The Publications Committee, led by Carole Engle, is already hard at work on this task and we are currently conducting a worldwide search for an Executive Editor who will have an expanded role compared to that of the previous Editor-in-Chief (EIC). The Board extends its gratitude to Carl Webster, who has held this EIC role for the past 7+ years and will be stepping down as soon as we can put the new editor in place. A testament to Carl’s dedication to the journal is that he continues in an interim EIC role even though he has already moved on to his new job. The new Executive Editor will take on the exciting challenge of repositioning the journal and delivering a quality product for our members. An article in a future issue will cover more detail on the direction this re-invigoration is taking. Chapter Home Offices The second initiative is the formation of Chapter Home Offices for our two largest Chapters, the Latin America and Caribbean Chapter and the Asian Pacific Chapter. This will involve the establishment of physical offices in these two regions and the appointment of Chapter executive officers to support the activities of these two vibrant chapters and to enhance communication with Chapter members. These offices are currently being established and members of these two Chapters will soon be hearing from their new executive officers. I see this development as a critical step in understanding and improving our value proposition for our members in these two regions and I am excited by the growth and enhanced dynamism within these two Chapters in particular. In closing, I would like to note that the APC is currently running elections for new members of its Board including the next President-Elect. I am impressed by the quality and geographic diversity of the slate and I encourage all APC members to have their say in shaping the next APC Board, which will continue to grow the importance of this Chapter. I look forward to reporting back on some of the progress on the aforementioned issues in future columns. — Graham Mair, President President, continued from page 2 (CONTINUED ON PAGE 72)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjExNDY=