September 2000
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Inquiries/Information
info@aic.ca
Greetings from Lethbridge, As I begin my
term as president of the Canadian Society of Animal Science, I must say
that it is truly an honour to represent the Society. I look forward to
the challenges this year brings.
Firstly, I want to welcome Shannon Scott, Mike Dugan, and Janice Bailey
who will join the executive this year. I also want to extend the Society's
thanks for the dedication and hard work of the 1999/2000 executive, with
a special thanks to outgoing executive members Chantal Farmer, Erasmus
Okine and Xin Zhao. Many thanks also go to John McKinnon for his leadership,
commitment and hard work as president this past year. Luckily for me,
John won't be too far away!
As membership chair for the past couple of years, I have hounded many
of you to renew your CSAS membership. This year we hope to make the process
easier by implementing the use of credit cards for payment. As you may
have guessed, I am truly committed to building a strong Society that represents
Canadian and international members working in diverse areas of animal
science. Our membership is 473 strong and increasing.
There are a number of items that the executive plans to tackle this year.
Firstly, the Society will be moving to communicating with the membership
through our new web site (www.csas.net)
which will be up and running later this fall. The December newsletter
will be the last printed issue sent out to all Society members. In the
future, information and updates will be posted regularly on the web site
with hard copies sent to members without Internet access on a cost recovery
basis. This initiative will reduce expenditures by about $3,000/yr, which
will help maintain the financial viability of the Society. I look forward
to working with Tim McAllister who is heading up this initiative.
We have a very strong scientific journal that is edited by members of
the Society. We plan to build on this relationship to enhance the visibility
of the Society within the Canadian Journal of Animal Science. The first
steps to strengthen this tie have already been taken with an invitation
to Mick Price, CJAS Editor, to attend CSAS executive meetings. We also
hope to encourage local organizing committees of future annual meetings
to publish symposia review papers in CJAS. Congratulations to the local
organizers of the 1999 PEI meeting who have succeeded in getting the 4
first symposia papers from that meeting printed in the June issue of CJAS.
The other strong feature of our society is its annual meeting that provides
a forum for researchers and graduate students to present their findings
and meet with colleagues and friends. I would like to take this opportunity
to thank Jim House and all the members of the local organizing committee
for the recent meeting held in Winnipeg. Their commitment and hard work
did not go unnoticed. Our next meeting will be held with AIC in Guelph
from July 8-11 (for more info check out www.AIC2001.com).
Guelph may be our last meeting for some time with AIC. In 2002, we will
meet in Quebec City with the American Society of Animal Science and the
American Dairy Science Association. We are exploring an alternative format
for 2003, but more on that later.
Finally, the Society needs to get its finances in line. For the past 4
years, we have been incurring losses that have been eating into the Society's
equity. In addition to reducing expenditures (like the newsletter), we
need make some decisions related to membership fees. I encourage you to
review the notice of motion to increase fees made at our annual meeting.
Please be prepared to vote on this issue at the next annual general meeting
in Guelph.
The executive will be addressing these and other issues this year. If
you have any comments or suggestions, or simply want to lend a hand, please
do not hesitate to contact me or any other member of the executive. We
welcome your input!
Until next time,
Karen Beauchemin