Message from your Hosts

Hotel Reservation

The deadline is approaching for The Viking Hotel reservation at the meeting rate – May 1. There are a couple of “shoulder days” before and after the actual meeting days which can be reserved at the same rate for those wishing to come early or stay later.  The reservation must be made with the SPUS code to secure the meeting rate and also to credit the SPUS account as the rest of the contract is predicated on reserving a certain number of rooms.

This is easily done from the link on the web site: https://www.spusconference.com/ If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask us.

Event Registration

On the website, registration to sign up for the conference is open. We have not finalized the costs, but suspect the registration fees will be in the range as listed on the registration form you will be sent.  Unfortunately we do not have the ability to prepay by credit card this year, so we are back to our usual cash at the meeting. We are sorry for this.

Membership Openings

There is one non North American membership opening. As you all know Marc-David Leclair has accepted our invitation to come as a guest of the Society for the Newport meeting. This leaves a second vacancy for a non-North American candidate as both Rien and Miguel indicated their wish to change their status to Senior Member. The process for new member election is below. Those who wish to nominate someone for new membership should submit that individual’s name, a brief resume/bio sketch, and CV. These should be submitted to me well in advance of the meeting, so they can be distributed to the membership.

The timeline for this will be submission of proposed members by August 1, 2019. The list and supporting documentations will be circulated to the membership by September 1, 2019. This will allow sufficient time for the members to review the potential candidates. A discussion of these candidates will be held at the Business Meeting. However, no new nominations are allowed to be submitted at the Business Meeting.  

Below are the minutes from the September 2018 discussion regarding new member nomination process.   

Transportation

We have used a private driving service for trips to Logan which should be more reasonably priced than a limousine service.  I have spoken with Marco Franco who is in charge of a group of drivers and he would be willing to provide the service on an individual basis in either direction.  The costs depends somewhat on the time of day.  If you are so inclined, you can contact Marco directly by email at marcofrancompm@aol.com or by phone/text or through WhatsApp at +1-401-486-7070.

- Tony and Barbara -

New member Election  Process

Step 1

1. Names, a brief resume and the CV of potential members will be submitted to the meeting host at least one month before the meeting by sponsors, and the list of potential candidates will be sent out to the membership for review.
2. A discussion of the potential candidates will be held at the Business Meeting. No new candidates will be submitted at the meeting
3. The number of new members to be admitted will be determined before the voting. A blind ballot will be passed around and tallied.
4. If there is a clear cutoff in the scoring such that the votes of any members not present would not influence the outcome, the candidates will be identified. The sponsor will inquire of the candidate to confirm their interest in attending the meeting and joining the organization.
5. If there is not a clear separation of candidates, a runoff vote will be held by e-mail in the following months to poll all active members. The number of candidates listed will be the number of slots to be filled plus two/three.

Step 2

The next Host tallies the vote. A successful candidate shall have received an affirmative vote from at least two-thirds of the entire active membership. The next Host then extends a formal invitation to the candidate to attend the next Annual Meeting as a Guest of the Society. It is understood that such an invitation will imply, subject to formal ratification at the next Annual Meeting, that such a candidate will become a member to the Society.

Step 3 

Election of a new member to the Society shall be ratified by a two-thirds majority of the active members present at the meeting of the Society at which the candidate gave a scientific presentation.