Committee Chairs and FES Members in Attendance: Robert Meagher, Lois Wood, Jeff Shapiro, Howard Frank, and Tom Walker.
 

President's Opening Remarks: The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. on April 20, 2000, by President Peterson.
 

Secretary (John Petti): Marco and Lois filled in for John who could not attend the meeting. Minutes from the December 9^th Executive Committee Meeting were reviewed and accepted by unanimous vote.
 

Business Manager (Teresa DuChene): Teresa presented a Financial Report for the period to March 31, 2000. John Capinera moved to accept the report, Rob Meagher seconded, and the vote was unanimous in favor. 

• •After making numerous attempts, E. O. Painter Printing failed to collect page charges from two authors and has deducted the $1,165 balance from FES/Painter account. Teresa would like the Board's help in recovering the funds from the authors.
• •Teresa received requests from John Anderson and Lance Peterson for Emeritus status. John Sivinski motioned to approve the request, John Capinera seconded, and the motion was approved unanimously.
• •A request for an exchange agreement between a Columbian publication, Revista Cenicafe, and the Florida Entomologist was received. Howard Frank pointed out that the exchange could benefit the Society by increasing our exposure in Columbia but questioned its relevance. President Peterson suggested obtaining a sample of the publication for review to determine if and how we might benefit before making a decision.
• •Teresa pointed out that at least three companies were deleted from exchange subscription membership due to our current policy. As a result, the Florida Entomologist is no longer listed in their databases so we may need to review our policy on exchange subscriptions to include these types of organizations. 

Local Arrangements (John Capinera): John introduced a couple issues to be resolved before the annual meeting. 

• •Poster boards capable of holding two 4' X 8' posters will cost $65.00 each. The Board decided to limit poster size to 4' X 4' so each stand will accommodate four posters. In addition to announcing this in the FES Newsletter and Website, Pat Greany is to inform authors submitting posters of the size restriction.
• •A company is interested in having a 10' X 10' product display at the hotel. After much discussion, it was decided unanimously to permit this provided the company pay a $350.00 fee which would include registration and a banquet ticket for one person. One additional person would be allowed to attend for the price of a banquet ticket. Additional persons would have to pay the standard registration fee. Any additional hotel charges would have to be paid by the company.
• •The hotel requires a head count seventy-two hours in advance because the meal is sit-down. The final count can not be accurately determined without knowing the number of on-site registrants and the Society would end up paying for meals if the number is over estimated. Lance suggested making a conservative guess that would preclude this from happening and encouraging members to pre-register to avoid being excluding from the banquet. Members are to be made aware of this possibility by announcements of the limited seating in the Newsletter, pre-registration form, and FES and ENSO Websites. Nancy Epsky suggested allowing members to pre-register but pay on-site.

Program (Pat Greany): Pat announced a submission deadline of May 31st.

• •Topics for symposia are finalized and include Behavioral Ecology, Mosquito-borne Diseases, and Protected Crops. There will also be a Spanish papers session.
• •Pat moved to waive the registration fee for non-FES invited symposium speakers, pointing out that we should be grateful for them taking the time to prepare for and present their talks. John Sivinsky seconded and the motion was carried.
• •North Hutchinson Island is being considered as a possible location for the 2001 Annual Meeting. Since it is close to Fort Pierce, we might benefit from increased attendance by personnel at the new USDA lab and UF experiment station located there and tours of these facilities could be arranged. More information will be available at the next meeting.

Public Relations (Nancy Epsky): Notices for the annual meeting have been sent to the ESA Newsletter and to the Agriculture Network Information Center's Agricultural Conferences, Meetings, and Seminars Calander (www.agnic.org/mtg).
 

Newsletter (Lois Wood and Nancy Epsky): Lois provided copied of the FES Newsletter schedule of publication and items to be included in each of the four issues.

• •The actual publication dates of recent issues have deviated from the schedule because some vital information has been submitted late. Lois asked that persons required to submit information to the Newsletter do so in a timely fashion that will facilitate its timely publication in the future.

Honors and Awards (Greg Nuessly): Lois announced Greg Nuessly (not present) as new Chairman of the Honors and Awards Committee and reported that she had placed a call for award nominations in the Newsletter on his behalf.
 

Caribbean Directory (Howard Frank): Howard reported that the Venezuelan Entomological Society had approached him for ideas to help boost their subscriptions. Working with Howard and Marco Toapanta, Julie Stavisky presented ideas for reciprocal Web advertisements with links to give both Societies more exposure. Howard motioned for approval to contact the VES Webmaster to establish a mutual agreement, John Sivinski seconded, and vote was unanimous in favor. 
 

Computer Resources / Long-Range Planning / Webmaster (Richard Mankin): Richard reports that the committee has spent the first quarter of 2000 focusing on the problems of declining membership and the slow progress of merging the business manager and Website databases.

• •Membership trends and informal polling of member and non-member entomologists suggest that the Society is suffering from competition with other scientific organizations. The Long-Range Planning Committee believes the only way to reverse the trend is for the Society to develop a more compelling benefits package. In particular, they suggest an increased focus on communication and linkages with our Caribbean and South American neighbors.
• •Richard reports that it may not be possible to complete the merging of the business manager and Website databases unless we change to a new service provider. The Committee recommends that we continue the present relationship because the greatest use of the Website is for journal searches and not for accessing the membership database.

Publications (Tom Walker): Tom provided a detailed report on e-publication of the Florida Entomologist.

• •Making all articles in the Florida Entomologist immediately and freely accessible has had little effect on revenue from library subscriptions. In fact, FES's income from library subscriptions in 1999 was 5.8% higher than in 1994 after adjusting for inflation.
• •Subscription revenues are expected to eventually decline due to free Web access to Florida Entomologist articles. Tom investigated the possibility of charging authors the equivalent cost of 100 reprints in exchange for immediate posting on PubMed Central as a potential means to recover the expected lost revenue. Posting some articles in an issue, while not posting others, will require approval of the PMC Advisory Committee. Tom submitted and the PMC Advisory Board is considering a proposal for posting partial issues. The proposal is expected to be approved, provided the remaining articles in the issue are posted on PMC within two years.
• •Tom is about one month away from determining the cost of making the articles suitable (conversion to HTML format) for posting on PMC.
• •Pat Greany expressed concern on behalf of Dick Baranowski in regard to extra work involved in e-publication of the Florida Entomologist on PMC. Tom assured the Board that the only extra work involved would be a result of more authors wishing to publish in the Journal.
• •John Sivinski asked for the Board's approval to produce a dummy issue of the Florida Entomologist exhibiting the proposed format changes. He informed the Board that according to E. O. Painter, page and figure charges would increase from $45.00 to $54.00 and $20.00 to $24.00, respectively. The 20% increases in cost to authors would be generally offset by the 20% increase in page size.
• •The issue of what should appear on the cover was revisited. The general consensus was to have a color photograph on the cover, preferably one from an article in that issue. To avoid the potential problem of there not being suitable artwork available from the articles in a particular issue, Lance suggested having a photo contest at annual meetings and using one of four winning photos on each of the four annual issues. From a Webpage perspective, Richard Mankin added that a color photograph cover would jazz up the Journal's presence on the Internet. 
• •President Peterson read a letter voicing one member's opposition to the format changes and stated that he would like to see a sample issue with the proposed format changes and a color photograph on the cover and added that, if possible, would like to have it available for members to inspect at the annual meeting.

Nominations (John Sivinski) John announced nominations for the 2000 ballot.

• •Rob Meagher and Ken Bloem agreed to run for the position of Member-At-Large.
• •Stephanie Bloem will run unopposed for the position of Secretary.
• •There are several potential candidates being considered for the position of Vice-President. Final candidates will be selected in time for the ballot to appear in the next Newsletter.