Draft Minutes of the First Meeting of the New IAGA Executive Committee in Sapporo, 11 July 2003
The new President, Charles Barton, opened the meeting and wished those members of the new Executive Committee who were present, and the new Division Leaders present welcome to the meeting and to the new four-year period of IAGA activities.
Those present were: Charlie Barton (President), Eigil Friis-Christensen and Yohsuke Kamide (Vice-Presidents), David Kerridge (Past President), Gurbax Lakhina, Jan Lastovicka, Volodya Papitashvili and Kathy Whaler (EC Members), David Loper (Div. I), Brian Anderson (Div. III), Barbara Thompson and Steve Schwartz (past Chair) (Div. IV) and Toshi Iyemori (Div.V).
The President asked those present to introduce themselves and to comment briefly on matters they considered to be of particular importance for the next few years of IAGA work. A wide range of topics were mentioned and discussed.
D. Baker summarised the situation of the IGY+50 plans at the end of the General Assembly. Considerable progress had been made in Sapporo. A core group of the Task Force, consisting of Dan Baker (USA, Chair), Alan Rodger (UK), Brian Fraser (Australia), Yohsuke Kamide (Japan), Barbara Thompson (USA), Volodya Papitashvili (USA, Russia), Baldev Arora (India), David Kerridge (UK) and Ex.officio Charles Barton (Australia), Bengt Hultqvist (Sweden), will carry the work on after the Assembly*.
The President then established a Task Force on the Future of IAGA (in a broad sense). K. Whaler, A. Rodger, D. Kerridge and the young scientist who represented IAGA in the IUGG Young Scientists' Team, Aaron Ridley, University of Michigan, were asked to be members. The group should be quite free to review and propose changes/additions of/to all aspects of IAGA activities.
The President brought up the question whether the EC should meet in 2004. A meeting was considered desirable and would be called in the summer of 2004, possibly in connection with the COSPAR meeting in the second half of July.
Division leaders raised the need of a meeting of the Division Leaders between the assemblies. Matters connected with inter-Divisional activities both within various programmes and during conferences were considered important subjects for a Division Leaders meeting. B. Anderson agreed to investigate the possibilities of holding such a meeting in connection with the AGU fall meeting in December 2003, where, hopefully, most Division Leaders would be present anyhow.
D. Kerridge agreed to investigate the possibility of having a protected part of the IAGA website.
J. Lastovicka agreed to be responsible ("enabling") for the establishment of a group of young IAGA scientists.
The President invited all EC members and Division leaders to provide photographs of themselves for inclusion in the website. Photographs of those present were taken for this purpose.
The President expressed sincere thanks to David Kerridge for all work and enthusiasm he had spent as President of IAGA during the past four years.
The meeting was closed at 1530.
Bengt Hultqvist
Secretary General
*Action items for the future are in bold print.
