CNIRS BOD Letter to the Membership
October 17, 2013
Dear Membership,
Respice, adspice, prospice! As we pass through the midpoint of CNIRS
2012-2014 term in the autumn of 2013, let us take a moment to examine the past, examine the present and examine
the future.
We began our term with many questions about the
future of the Council for Near Infrared Spectroscopy. With a vision, a sense of
urgency and renewed energy from a very dynamic group of individuals that make
up the Board of Directors, we set out to examine some fundamentals about what
the Council is, what it does and what it can do to best serve the members of
CNIRS.
At the last board meeting, held on September 23,
2013, the first fundamental issue that has been successfully addressed by this
council is growing the membership. The Council Secretary reported that CNIRS is
now 90 members strong! About this same time last year, CNIRS reported in our
Delegate that there were SAS 61 members. This growth can be mostly attributed
to the commissioning of the CNIRS Linkedin web-site (another project of this
board) but meetings such as our own IDRC as well as the EAS, Pittcon and SciX
meetings are also where CNIRS has successfully recruited new members.
Crucial to the sustainability of CNIRS is that it
maintains a stable treasury. The Council Treasurer reported that CNIRS treasury
is at a level that will be sufficient to fund the IDRC and pay for services
that it relies on to conduct the council’s business.
Two key changes that will occur over the next two
years that will impact the council are the CNIRS Web infrastructure and the sponsorship
of the Gerald S. Birth Award.
The board voted unanimously to adopt a new website
platform that will allow the council to improve the website functionalities,
have membership management tools, voting tools, in addition to replace our
merchant account and some features of our current group email platform within
an affordable budget for an organization of our size.
The Gerald S. Birth Award Search Committee will be
searching for a replacement for Unity to sponsor the Birth Award. The committee
will compose a letter to approach potential sponsors. Several ideas were explored
and discussed by the board, including the option of having a number of
companies, rather than a single company, to sponsor the award. The awards
committee also proposed an increase in the amount needed for the award,
potentially up to $2-3K more.
The IDRC Chair updated the board on the following:
· The
IDRC budget was prepared.
· The
conference chairs have been named as well as the short course coordinator
selected.
· The
topics for each of the sessions have been established.
· An
up-to-date brochure has been prepared and distributed at ICAVS-7 in Kobe,
Japan. The brochure was also sent to the CNIRS members. We have received
significant positive feedback in regards to this communication.
· A
number of brochures have been forwarded to the Vendors Committee Chair who has
started communication with vendors.
· Next
steps are to meet with IDRC conference chairs and determine when to start call
for Papers.
CNIRS is a
supporting member sponsor of the FACSS/SciX meeting, held this year Sept. 29 -
Oct. 4, 2013 in Milwaukee, WI. Current and past CNIRS board members in
attendance were Katherine Bakeev, Benoit Igne, Gabor Kemeny and Igor Kovalenko.
Presenters promoted CNIRS after their talks, thanked CNIRS for the financial
support for the conference, promoted NIR and promoted the Chambersburg
Conference. Presenters reported reasonable size audiences, 20-25 people.
The IDRC Committee is
actively searching for a Chair-Elect for IDRC 2016 and is searching for someone
interested in chairing the 2016 meeting. They hope to have one or more
suggested chairs at the next CNIRS BOD meeting.
The Constitution/By-Laws
Committee turned in a proposed final revision of the CNIRS Constitution and
By-Laws for consideration and approval by the BOD at the next CNIRS board meeting.
As always, the
board would like to hear from the membership on any issue.
The next CNIRS board
meeting is tentatively scheduled for December 15, 2013 2 PM
On behalf of The Council For Near-Infrared
Spectroscopy, Board of Directors,
Gary E. Ritchie
President, Council of Near-Infrared Spectroscopy