Minutes of the 47th Annual General Meeting

16th April 2009 at University of East Anglia

Chair: Tom Cavalier-Smith (President)

1. Minutes and matters arising
Minutes of the 46th meeting were approved. Matters arising will be dealt with under items below.
2. President's report
The President warmly thanked Harriet Jones for organising the Spring meeting at UEA. He welcomed the incoming President and hoped that the society would continue to thrive. He hoped that the practice of the outgoing president presenting an address at the meeting that he has initiated will be continued.
3. Officer's Reports

Secretary's Report

1. Arrangements for ISOP

This meeting will be held 18-24th July 2010 at University of Kent at Canterbury. Local organizer is Tim Paget. An e-mail from Wayne Coates was circulated to the Committee detailing arrangements for symposia. Subjects for BSPB symposia and possible organizers were discussed:

  1. Species concepts in protists, cryptic species, parasites and non-parasites (Tom Cavalier-Smith).
  2. New insights into free-living flagellates (David Bass and Edvard Glücksman).
  3. Protists with small genomes (suggested convener, Briony Williams).
  4. Lateral gene transfer in protists (suggested convener, Tom Richards).

These ideas will be communicated to ISOP in co-ordination with our co-opted members, David Montagnes and Emily Roberts. The possibility of running a protist workshop before the meeting was discussed last year; this will be followed up with John Day.

Action WG

There was general agreement that BSPB should have a membership desk at ISOP to attract new members and advertise future meetings. We will request that our logo goes on all the promotional material. In addition, we will look into getting a range of promotional material such as T shirts and mugs to sell and also give to new members; Edvard Glücksman volunteered to look into prices. Barry Leadbeater's book for the BSPB "A century of Protozoology" is already given to new members and copies will be provided for ISOP.

Action Committee

2. Website
Suggested updates/additions to the website are a link to the tree of life website, a summary of the latest protist phylogeny (TCS) and more protist images. The AGM minutes will also be put on the web. It was not clear whether members want their interests listed on the website. David Bass volunteered to liaise with Ian Senior on improving the website content.

b) Treasurer's Report

  1. The financial assets of the BSPB totalled £11,856.87 at the end of 2008, with a balance of £2493.86 in Treasurer's account and £9,363.01 in 30-day account. a. £291.85 profit from Gregynog meeting April 2008 b. £1451.87 income from subscriptions c. £250 honorarium to Ian Senior for website
  2. The accounts were audited by Barry Leadbeater in March, many thanks to him.
  3. A breakdown of subscriptions shows that a number of members have not updated their standing order payments to the current £25 pa subscription level. We still need to chase up members.
  4. Student bursaries. The Treasurer will ask for students to come forward at the meeting and then decide on the amount of bursary available. It was not clear what arrangements for bursaries would be at the ISOP meeting next year and this needs to be agreed with ISOP.

Action: HS

c) Membership Secretary's Report

Dr Smith reported on behalf of Dr Coupe and has volunteered to take over the duties of Membership Secretary as well as Treasurer, subject to agreement from Dr Coupe. Action: HS

4. Election of new officers
Nominations for Vice President and 2 Committee Members were sought, the second to replace the position of Membership Secretary subject to agreement from Dr Coupe.
  • Vice President: Alan Warren
    Proposer: Tom Cavalier-Smith
    Seconder: Terry Preston
  • Committee member: David Bass
    Proposer: Tom Cavalier-Smith
    Seconder: Terry Preston
  • Committee member: Martin Carr
    Proposer: Tom Cavalier-Smith
    Seconder: Terry Preston
5. Future meetings
Confirmed meetings
  • 2010 ISOP 18-24th July 2010 at University of Kent at Canterbury
  • 2011 BSPB Spring meeting at Southampton. Local organizer Mike Zubkov. Dates to be arranged.

Proposed meetings

  • 2012 Joint meeting with ISEP to be held at University of Exeter.
  • 2013 Fiona Henriquez volunteered to organize the Spring meeting in Scotland.
  • Dave Roberts offered to put on a web-based taxonomy meeting some time ago, but it is not clear whether this meeting will go ahead and on what date. TCS suggested the possibility of a systematics meeting with publication 2011/2012
6. AOB
The AGM warmly thanked Harriet Jones for organising an excellent meeting at UEA and the outgoing Committee members, Tom Cavalier-Smith, Stephen Coupe and Jill Thurman, for all their hard work on behalf of the BSPB.