October 2001
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Inquiries/Information
info@aic.ca
Greetings!
It certainly is an honour to serve as president of an organization as well respected as the CSAS, and with such a great membership. It's a good feeling indeed to take the helm of an organization that has been steered in the right direction by our past executive.
Firstly, I would like to welcome back Erasmus Okine, who is moving over to Vice President from his position as Western Director, and I look forward to working with Julie Small who has joined us as Western Director and Leslie McLaren, our new Eastern Director. I am confident that we have a team of people together that is capable of addressing societal issues as they arise.
Many of the most recent changes that have been implemented by the executive have dramatically improved the operation of the society. Introduction of the web page has reduced print costs and accelerated our ability to communicate with our membership. A good example of this is the excellent information that has already been posted on the upcoming CSAS / ASAS / ADSA meeting which will be held in Quebec City in July, 2002. This promises to be one of the best and most certainly the largest meeting ever hosted by the Canadian Society of Animal Science.Hosting this meeting is a monumental undertaking, and our members in Quebec are doing an excellent job of ensuring that this meeting will truly be of world class quality. Because accommodations during the meeting will be scarce, we have already booked a block of rooms at the hotel Chateau Laurier, which will serve as CSAS headquarters. Single and double rooms will be available for $139.00 and $149.00 per night, respectively. These rooms can be booked by phoning the Chateau Laurier at (418)-522-3848 and asking for Mr. Bruno Samson at Ext. 630 - just indicate that you are interested in booking into the block of rooms held by CSAS. I would encourage you to continue to check www.csas.net as updates on the meeting will be posted on a regular basis. Suggestions for additions or modifications to the website are always welcome.
Our reliance on email and the internet as a communication pipeline to our membership continues to increase. This facility allowed the society to put forward a couple of excellent proposals to the International Twinning Partnership Program administered by AIC under extremely tight time constraints. I will inform the membership of the outcome of these proposals as soon as I hear the results from AIC. Obviously, as we rely more and more on email for communicating, it is critical that we have the correct email address of each member. If you have not been getting notices from CSAS, please email your correct email address to our membership chair, Shannon Scott at sscott@em.agr.ca. We are trying to update our email membership list as regularly as possible.
With the introduction of the editor of the Canadian Journal of Animal Science (Mick Price) onto the executive of CSAS, communication between the society and the journal has never been better. This has enabled us to streamline journal issues which highlight CSAS matters, such as the awards winners and abstracts from our annual meeting, which are published annually in the journal. We have also started a societal recognition page within the journal, in which individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Canadian livestock production will be recognized. First to be honored in this way will be Dr. Milt Bell from the University of Saskatchewan. Also underway are steps to encourage publication of peer-reviewed papers from the CSAS symposium held in conjunction with annual meetings.
As a result of a slight fee increase, the society is also on sound footing financially. Enabling payment of membership dues by VISA or Mastercard has reduced delays in membership renewal as well as the number of reminders that need to be sent out to forgetful members. The society also has a significant symposium reserve which will become increasingly important as the membership assumes an even larger role in organizing the annual meeting.
Although many of our past challenges have been laid to rest, new challenges
continue to arise. Maintaining our present membership is a continuous
battle; although our past membership chairs have put considerable effort
into expanding our membership, our numbers have stayed relatively constant.
Perhaps this result is not surprising, considering the declining support
for agriculture and the drop in enrollment in Canadian university animal
science programs. Maintenance and expansion of our membership clearly
is critical to the long term survival of CSAS. For this reason it is extremely
important that as new individuals enter our disciplines, we encourage
them to become members of CSAS.
The annual meeting is a key component of CSAS and one of the main reasons
for membership in the society. I am confident that the meeting in Quebec
will make us all proud to be CSAS members. However, hosting a high quality
meeting on an annual basis requires a major commitment on the part of
each local organizing committee. Although most of our past meetings have
been affiliated with AIC, it seems uncertain that this arrangement will
occur as frequently in the future. In 1994, Phil Thacker had the vision
to implement a major change in the format of our meeting. He campaigned
for industrial support, raising a considerable sum of money to support
the invitation of national and international speakers, and this model
was emulated by a number of CSAS meeting committees in subsequent years.
Hosting a meeting of that quality requires an enormous commitment by local organizers, however, and many locations simply do not have the critical mass of individuals necessary to pull it off. In recognition of this, your executive has taken the initiative to appoint additional eastern and western directors for the following year, whose primary responsibility will be to assist in organizing the society's annual meeting. These directors should also be able to assist in putting together a turnkey set of instructions outlining the steps necessary to organize an annual meeting. In the meantime, Phil Thacker and John McKinnon have stepped up to the plate and volunteered to put together our annual meeting in Saskatoon for 2003. As of yet, no plans are in place for the meeting in 2004 - we would welcome input from the membership with regard to the direction that we should take with this meeting.
I look forward to addressing issues as they arise in the coming year, and to maintaining the vitality of the CSAS. I'm sure that we will all have a great time in Quebec City. As always, your suggestions and input to the executive are most welcome. With our new partnership with email, I am just a few keystrokes away, at mcallister@em.agr.ca
Until next quarter,
Tim McAllister