The International Society for Psychophysics

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the ISP

Item1. Approval of the 1999 minutes

The report from the business meeting in 1999 in Tempe was unanimously approved.

Item 2. Elections to the Executive Committee

Martha Teghtsoonian and George Gescheider had completed their two-year terms on the committee and at the end of the meeting were thanked for the work they have done on our behalf.  Debra Zellner (USA) and Douglas Vickers (Australia) were the only nominees and were elected by acclamation.  Erdmute Sommerfeld, as organiser of Fechner Day 2001, will also serve on the committee.

Item 3. Fechner Day, :Leipzig, 19-23 October 2001

Erdmute Sommerfeld outlined plans for the meeting which will celebrate the 200th birthday of G. T. Fechner.  The ISP scientific meeting will be preceded by special lectures in his honour,.arranged by the Fechner Society.

Item 4. Fechner Day 2002

The invitation to Brazil is confirmed but the location has not yet been finalized.  There was general agreement that August would be preferable to October to make it easier to plan a long visit.

Item 5. Fechner Day 2003

Cyprus and Boston have been proposed.  On a show of hands there was overwhelming preference for Cyprus.

Item 6. ISP Groundrules for Fechner Day Meetings

Helen Ross was thanked for preparing a working paper with proposals for the conduct of ISP meetings. (See the ISP web site,  http://www.psy.ulaval.ca/~ispp/ )  The proposals were generally welcomed but it was agreed that there should not be a limit on the number of people attending or on the number of posters.  It was thought desirable to have posters on display throughout the meeting, with timetabled sessions at which their authors would be available to discuss them.  There was support for limiting the number of theme sessions to four in three days and it was agreed that sessions should not be very long or have large numbers of speakers.

Item 7. Travel support for professional colleagues from eastern Europe

Marina Pavlova spoke to proposals prepared by herself, Greg Neely and Bert Scharf that the society should allocate funds from its reserves to assist professionals who have limited access to travel funds to attend our meetings.  She explained the great difficulty that colleagues in eastern Europe have in obtaining funds for travel to our meetings and of the great benefit they derive from them when it is possible to attend.  There was considerable sympathy for the difficulties described but the meeting agreed that the first claim on any surplus should be to bring students to the meetings.  The reserves need to maintained at a level that provides protection against an unpredictable shortfall in the finances of future meetings and it was agreed that they should not intentionally be allowed to fall below $8000US. (They are currently around $9000US.)  Local organisers should seek funding on a meeting-by-meeting basis to support colleagues from regions with poor access to travel funds, and many meeting organisers have been successful in doing so.  It was agreed that if, at any future time, sufficient ISP funds were to be available to support professional colleagues (after funding student travel) any procedure for allocation should be an open one, with a date being publicised by which applications should be made.  It was agreed that any decisions about such procedure and about allocations of funds should be made by the management committee at the relevent time.
Item 8. ISP Dues

It was agreed that in future, ISP dues should cover a period from 1 July to 30 June.  As a result, dues paid when attending an autumn meeting will, for instance, confer eligibility to nominate or second candidates for the management committee up to the following June.  Members were reminded that to remain a member in good standing, dues should be paid each year, even if the meeting is not attended

It was agreed that the dues for 2001-2002 would be $50US with an invitation to make an additional voluntary donation to support attendance at the meeting by disadvantaged professionals.

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the ISP

Before opening the official business meetig, the ISP president expressed congratulations and appreciation to José Aparecido da Silva and the organizing committee.

Item1. Minutes

The minutes of the 2001 meeting in Leipzig were approved (Proposed : Bill Petrusic; Seconded : Steve Link; Agreed nem con)

Item 2. Finances

A report (Attachment 2) was presented by Lawrence Marks on behalf of the treasurer, Debra Zellner. The possibility that the treasurer would not be a regular member of the executive committee, and would have a longer term, was discussed, but no motion was voted.

Item 3. Elections

Marina Pavlova mentioned that she received no email message this year regarding the nomination of new members on the executive committee. There were three nominations (Galina Paramei, Steve Link and Scott Parker) and two positions to fill. No new nominations were presented at the meeting itself. The voting was: Galina Paramei 19; Steve Link 24; Scott Parker 14. (At a subsequent meeting of the executive committee, it was agreed that Steve Link should be the new president of the ISP and Galina Paramei the new treasurer.)

Item 4. Future meetings

Elisabeth Borg provided information concerning the 2003 meeting to be held in a hotel in Cyprus (Greece) in October. Armando Monica de Oliveira confirmed that he will organize the 2004 meeting on campus at Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal) in October. Doug Vickers confirmed that he still considers preparing the 2005 meeting in Australia; Bruce Schneider mentioned that it might be difficult for most members to make the long trip to Australia in October and proposed to hold the meeting in August. Doug Vickers said that an August meeting would coincide well with the break between semesters at the University of Adelaide. This would also mean that the meeting could make use of university facilities and college lodgings. A more detailed proposal will be presented to the 2003 meeting in Cyprus.

Item 5. ISP Website

The ISP has had problems over the years in developing a Website and maintaining it up to date. Members were asked if they would agree to take the responsibility of the Web page. Simon Grondin and Yves Lacouture offered to take charge of the Website, and to make an effort to update and centralize an electronic mailing list. There will be money offered by the ISP for the development of the page, but the amount remains to be discussed by members of the Executive Committee.

Item 6. Annual Fees and Meeting Registration

It was agreed to send the Annual Fees ($50.) directly to the treasurer. Increasing fees was considered but members agreed that any increase should be in the registration to the meeting. Those paying Annual Fees receive the Proceedings even if they do not attend the meeting. Efforts should be made to remind members more than once a year to pay the Annual Fees. It was agreed that the Meeting Registration costs should be determined by the organizers and paid to them.

Item 7. Inclusion of papers in the Proceedings

Increasing the number of papers in the Proceedings is costly. For this reason, the following motion was passed (proposed by Bruce Schneider and adopted nem con): At the moment of printing the Proceedings, the registration costs and the annual membership fee for the current year must both have been paid. Otherwise, the text of the non-registered member will not be included in the Proceedings.

Item 8. Additional copies of Proceedings

It was agreed that, if someone wants to have extra copies of the Proceedings, they will be sold at their real cost (as determined by the organizers).

Item 9. New Journal in Psychophysics

Thomas Lachmann is working with a team of collaborators on the possibility of developing a new journal in psychophysics that may eventually to be related to the ISP. Members expressed reserve about the effort involved and the likely difficulties, but nevertheless encouraged Thomas to develop a more precise proposal. The possibility of having an electronic journal was also raised.

Item 10. Citation index

Ana Garriga-Trillo mentioned that the citation index issued raised last year (of (a) having Fechner Day Proceedings included in the Science Citation Index and (b) of having an ISBN number allocated to the Proceedings) had been postponed to the 2002 business meeting. However, it was manifestly too late to open it this year and the meeting was closed.

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the ISP

Coimbra, Portugal, October 19-21. 2004. Submitted by Lucia Regolin.

Item1. Minutes

Minutes of the Larnaca, Cyprus, Fechner Day 2003, submitted by Wolfgang Ellermeier meeting: Minutes, as corrected, were unanimously approved..

Item 2. Report by Mark Elliott on the society web site

The Society website was presented and people who contributed to it acknowledged. The website, housed both at Laval, Canada and in Leipzig, Germany, costs about 30 US dollars per year. The suggestion to have a pdf of all proceeding online would be very welcome except for the impossibility of handling such a huge file. Providing information about members’ labs in order to set up a direct link is encouraged. Members are also encouraged to provide any information about previous meetings which are currently missing from the website.

Item 3. Treasurers report

(Galina Paramei):

About 7000 US$ were leftover from previous meetings =

5500.- US$ are still believed to be in this account (with Debra Zellner, Montclair) from former fund raising.

1163.- EURO are with Claude Bonnet in Strasbourg, France

200. – EURO are leftover from the Meeting in Brazil

430 Cyprus pounds are leftover from the 2003 meeting (Birgitta Berglund)

Donations amiunted to 165+105 euros, and this is obviously not enough. Donations are stongly encouraged.

An important issue concerns the difficulty in handling such a sparse budget, spread in several bank accounts and only accessible by different people. The need of opening a new bank account as a no profit society and to get rid of all of the other accounts is put forward.

A main issue arises about how should non-attendants pay for their registration to the Society.

Another main issue concerns the fact that the Society registration has expired, and that it has been impossible to register the Society in Marseille because in order to do so all the documentation should be translated into French.

Item 4. Students travel stipends

Four students received a stipend.

Item 5. Election of new executive committee members

After examining the list of candidates the President explains that only two nominations were confirmed by the candidates themselves: Galina Paramei for reconfirming her past position of treasurer and Lawrence Ward to replace Steve Link who retires the presidency this year. The two nominees were elected unanimously.

Item 6. Future meetings

The 2005 meeting, as resulted from the ballot For the 2006 meeting the cconducted in 2004, is to be held in Adelaide, Australia. Candidate venues for the 2006 meeting are 1) Indiana, 2) Tokyo and 3) England. The membership will be polled via e-mail in due time regarding their preference between these three possible venues.