THE INTERNATIONAL BIOACOUSTICS COUNCIL (IBAC)

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting

held during the 17th IBAC Symposium held at Chartres, France

9^th April 1999, 1900-1945 hrs.

The meeting was attended by 30 persons.

1.           Chairman’s statement

              The Chairman, Gianni Pavan, opened the meeting.  It was agreed that the symposium had been very successful and enjoyable.

2.           Election of Executive Committee members

              Michael Fine was proposed by Arch McCallum as a new Committee member, seconded by Patrick Sellar.

              Sten Wahlstrom stood down from the Committee in accordance with the Rules. Thanks were expressed in his absence for his tremendous support for IBAC over many years. There were no other nominations. The other officers were willing to stand for re-election and this was approved.  The new committee is: Gianni Pavan (Chairman), Richard Ranft (Honorary Secretary), Thierry Aubin, Matija Gogala, Hon Yan, Michael Fine.

3.           Venues for next symposia

              Gianni Pavan proposed to organise a conference in Italy after the end of the International Film Festival being held in late August 2001.  There were good facilities for accommodation, conference rooms and excursions.

              Maria Luisa da Silva offerred to host a conference in Brazil in 2003.  Jacques Vielliard said the IBAC meeting should be held in alternate years, and avoid clashing with the International Ornithological Congress (being held in 2002 in China); Arch McCallum also pointed out avoiding clashes with USA meetings especially those held by the Acoustical Society of America.

4.           Newsletter

              The Biophon newsletter would no longer be published on paper and Gianni Pavan offered to published it instead on his website.  Arch McCallum referred to TitNet, an email discussion group, as a possible alternative model for sharing information.

5.           Other business

              Michael Fine asked that delegates’ first names were printed on conference meetings. 

Nicholas Mathevon questioned the lack of information about the impact factor of the Bioacoustics journal, and the standing of its publisher.  Richard Ranft explained that the journal was not cited in citation indices and this problem was being looked into.

              S Taylor asked that all delegates’ names were published on the conference website.

Patrick Sellar offered a vote of thanks to Thierry Aubin, Nicholas Mathevon and their colleagues for a well-planned, successful conference.  He noted with approval the variety of high quality presentations, the opportunities in the schedule for socialising, including 2-hour lunch breaks, the welcome given to newcomers to IBAC meetings, and the fact that this was perhaps the first IBAC to be organised almost entirely via email and the WWW.