Minutes from the SSP Board Meeting, Stockholm 7th October.2001
Present: Karl Skírnisson President (IS), Cecilia Thors, board member (SE) and Mats Wahlgren, deputy board member (SE). Absent: Maria Vang Johansen, vice president (DK), Charlotte Maddox Hyttel, secretary (DK), Katja Pulkkinen, treasurer (FI), and Einar Strömnes, deputy Board members (NO).
1. Home page: It was decided that Karl should soon start working on a home page for the SSP. The home page should resemble to home pages of other parsitological societies and contain e.g. some basic and historical information on the society, a membership list with e-mail addresses, information how to become a member of SSP, advertisements about future meetings and events, the statute, information on the Bulletin, photographs made during past SSP meetings and links to other parasitological societies. In the future it will be necessary to find someone who is willing to take care of the home page, and update it regularly.
2. Change of the statute: According to discussions during the General Assembly on Oct. 10th, 2001 the new elected Board is clearly supposed to prepare the joining of the SSP and the Baltic Society for Parasitology (BaSP). For this purpose the statute of the SSP must be changed. It was decided to start working on this. Karl will send the present statute and some preliminary suggestions to the Board members.
3. New members. It was decided to ask the local SSP Treasurers (Katja, Cecilia, Maria, Einar and Karl) to start a campaign to enlist new members. For this purpose the SSP Treasurer (Katja) should soon send a membership list to the local Treasurers. From this list it should be figured out locally which colleagues might be willing to join (or even rejoin) the society. Karl suggested making a small leaflet containing some basic information on the SSP together with an application. The leaflet could be sent to some contact persons for further distribution. Also the local Treasures are asked to collect the e-mail addresses of the Society members.
4. The future of the Bulletin was discussed. It was suggested that a regular printing of the Bulletin should be stopped but the Bulletin should be used, when needed, as a forum for publishing abstracts and selected review lectures of ordinary or special and joint meeting of the SSP. Organizers of future meetings are expected to cover printing costs but distribution to SSP members who are not attending the meeting could possibly be covered by the Society. Society news etc. should be published on the Home Page. Costs used for the editing, printing and distribution of the Bulletin could partly be used for the home page.
5. Request from the German Society for Parasitology on a future joint meeting. Karl will contact Dr. G. Valkiunas in Lithuania and ask him for the opinion to possibly organize a joint meeting of the Scandinavian, German and Baltic Societies in 2005. According to the answer the Vice President of the GSP, Prof. T. Schnieder will be informed by Karl.
6. The future of the society was discussed. When the SSP Home Page has been opened and a list of e-mail addresses is available our Members can be asked to define their main fields of interest.
Based on the results the topics of interest (e.g. practical veterinary and human parasitology, molecular parasitology, phylogentic and taxonomical studies, ecological studies, etc.) could be defined. These interests, or at least some of them, could then be covered during our future meetings by activating leading groups to organize attractive special sessions.
If the BaSP and the SSP will join the Board support the idea, which Prof. A. Skorping put forward at the General Assembly in Stockholm 2001, that financial sources should be found to support the unification.
08.10.01 - Karl Skirnisson, reporter in absence of the secretary