NORTH AMERICA DROSOPHILA BOARD
RULES OF CHARTER
PREAMBLE
Over time, the
Drosophila research community has experienced a very significant level of
expansion. In recent years, several new activities, with potentially dramatic
impact on the community as a whole, have been initiated by various individuals.
In recognition of these facts and to ensure and facilitate inter-communal
communication, some changes to the Drosophila Board are warranted. The present
document embodies these changes and provides a historical framework for the
benefit of the newer members of the community.
A SHORT
HISTORY OF THE DROSOPHILA BOARD
The Drosophila
community has held an annual research conference for more than 30 years. In the
early days of the group, the community was small and less than a hundred
individuals would attend these meetings, which could therefore be organized in
an informal fashion. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, the community
had grown to such an extent that attendance at the conference was typically
over 1000 individuals. Consequently, organization of the conference became an
overwhelming task for any one individual, and the University dormitory housing
traditionally used for the meetings became inadequate. Furthermore, meeting
registration fees exceeded expenditure, and moneys began to accumulate. As the
number of conference attendees and as the fund increased, and when the housing
for the conference was moved to commercial hotels, questions of personal
liability began to trouble the individual organizers. It was at this point that
Linda Hall and Dan Lindsley suggested the creation of a Drosophila Board and
drew up an agreement with the Genetics Society of America's administrative
offices to run the annual meetings. The agreement with the GSA offered two
advantages: (1) the administrative details would be handled by professionals,
and meeting cancellation insurance could be more readily obtained, (2) the
Drosophila fund could be held in trust by the GSA to help defray meeting costs,
while avoiding IRS problems for individual scientific program organizers. When,
following his untimely death, the Larry Sandler Memorial Lecture Fund was
established, the GSA agreed to set up and manage a separate account for this
fund.
During the first
few years, the Board was made up of individuals who had been actively involved
in organizing previous conferences with an attempt to include members from
across the U.S. and Canada so that the board would represent the interests of
the entire North American Drosophila research community.
COMPOSITION OF
THE DROSOPHILA BOARD
The Drosophila
Board is a representative group of working scientists who use Drosophila as
their primary model organism.
The Board meets
once a year in conjunction with the North American Drosophila Research
Conference. Additional business is conducted by email, FAX, and, if necessary,
by telephone conferences.
Officers
The
Drosophila Board will have a President, elected by the community, who will
serve for one year as President elect and for one year as President.
To ensure
long-term memory of the Board, the President will serve three additional years,
as "past-President", "past-past President" then
"Member-At-Large" in sequential years.
The Drosophila
Board will have a Treasurer who will serve for three years. The Treasurer will
nominate a successor who must be a current or past member of the Board.
The nominee must be approved by a vote of the Board.
Regional
Representatives
The Board
consists of one elected Representative from each of the following regions of
the U.S. and Canada:
New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island)
Mid-Atlantic (Downstate New York, New Jersey, Eastern
Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia)
Southeast (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Puerto Rico)
Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois,
Indiana, Missouri)
Great Lakes (Upstate New York, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania,
Michigan)
Heartland (Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, North
Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas)
Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana,
Wyoming, Alaska)
California (California, Hawaii, Nevada)
Canada (Canada)
In addition, there will be three International Representatives from each of the following regions:
These
delegates will be appointed by the communities in these regions. Regional
Representatives serve on the Board for a period of three years. Terms of office
for the Officers and the Regional Representatives begin andend in the spring,
coincident with the annual meeting.
Ex officio members
The following
individuals from the research community (or their designated representative)
will serve on the Board as ex officio members:
The Director of
FlyBase
The Director of
the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project
The Director of
the Bloomington Stock Center
The Director of
the Tucson Drosophila Species Stock Center
The Chairs of the
Stock Center Advisory Committees
The Editor of DIS
and
The current chair
of the Sandler Memorial Lectureship selection committee
The Program
Chairs of the previous, current, and upcoming North American National
Drosophila Research Conference will be invited to attend the Board meeting.
The Board's
discussion of community issues benefit from input from the entire
community. It is the responsibility of the Regional Representatives to
canvass Drosophila researchers residing in their regions so input can be
obtained on major issues of concern. Advice from the ex officio members is invaluable and will be
solicited on all Board issues. However, the Officers, including the
Treasurer, and Regional Representatives, as the elected officials of the Board,
constitute its voting body.
ELECTIONS
The
"past-past President" will be responsible for organizing the election
of the President and the Regional Representatives. A nomination
committee will be formed to name two or three delegates for each position to be
elected. Delegates living in the different regions are chosen to ensure
diversity and broad representation on the Board, but everyone in the Drosophila
research community may vote for the all candidates, including any of the regional
representatives who are on the ballot that year. Elections will be held
in December. The newly elected Representatives will participate in the
Board Meeting and begin their term in the following spring, coincident with the
annual meeting.
RESPONSIBILITIES
OF THE DROSOPHILA BOARD
The primary
functions of the Board are:
1. To serve as
advocates for the Drosophila research community and represent community
interests for advising funding agencies.
2. To facilitate
a free and productive relationship between the research community, the
administrators of FlyBase, the editors of DIS and DIN, and the Directors of the
National Stock Centers.
3. To insure a
successful annual North American Drosophila Research Conference. The Board
selects the venue and appoints the Scientific Organizer(s); the President signs
the protocol of agreement with the GSA.
4. To administer
the meeting fund of the Drosophila research community.
5. To administer
the Larry Sandler Memorial Lecture fund.
MEETING SITE
The site of the
annual Drosophila Research Conference will rotate in the following order: East,
West, Center of the U.S.
This charter was
prepared for the Board by Th. Kaufman and J. Lucchesi and was revised by the
Board at its meetings on March 31, 1993, at the Town & Country Hotel, San
Diego, CA, on April 5, 1995, at the Westin Peachtree, Atlanta, GA, by an
electronic vote in February 2003, on March 20, 2003 at Chicago and on March 23,
2004 at Washington D.C.