RTC-SRA

Business Meeting Minutes

February 20, 2003

The meeting was called to order when a quorum of officers was present. Attending the meeting was: Rob DeWoskin, Elaina Kenyon, Shawn Sager, Woody Setzer, Greg Blumenthal, and Paul Schlosser. Jeff Hayward joined the meeting via conference call.

Woody Setzer presented the agenda:

1. Election of officers by the board
2. Minutes or notes from last meeting?
3. Web site
   1. Remove job advert. (Mike DeVito was hired for that position)
   2. Resume practice of posting meeting agendas and minutes?
   3. Post by-laws?
   4. Post new officers
   5. Anything else?
4. Program for the current year
   1. Seminars or workshop?
   2. if seminars, how many and when?
   3. if workshop, when?
   4. Topics
5. Next meeting time and place
6. Anything else?

Election of Officers

The slate of officers was approved by the board.

By Laws

Paul Schlosser said that we now need to submit the revised By Laws to the board. They will be submitted to Jonathon Weiner to take to the Society for Risk Analysis Board by Paul Schlosser.

Minutes and Agenda

Minutes were from the last meeting were sent to the officers today.
Minutes of the last meeting were approved.

Web Site

1. Rob DeWoskin updated the web site to remove the job advertisement.
2. The minutes and agendas will be posted to the web site. Directions for up-loading the files to Shawn Sager.
3. Jumpline is used for the web site. Paul Schlosser can’t administer the email lists right now. Rob DeWoskin wondered if we were interested in updating the site. For now, the site will remain as it is.
4. The By Laws will be posted to the web site.
5. Greg Blumenthal’s biography has been added. Rob DeWoskin will add updated biographies as they become available.

Treasurer’s Report

Jeff Hayward has received several memberships in the last few months. He will forward the names and email addresses to Woody Setzer to be up loaded onto the membership email list.

Program for Current Year

Four seminars
Locations: USEPA – need to figure out scheduling and security rules (Elaina Kenyon); Universities

Topics (details in December 2002 minutes):
Homeland Security
Exposure Assessment Issues (possibly at Duke)
   Rob contacted lead author at Duke; still waiting to hear
Panel Discussion on Risk Careers
Variability and uncertainty
Student Poster Competition

Format for seminars:

1. coordinated talks (3 seminars) throughout an afternoon or one hour seminars?
2. coordinate with another seminar series — either piggyback with another seminar or ask the outside speaker to give another seminar. Talks on related issues at USEPA regularly. NIEHS posts their seminars on their web site.
3. Homeland security and small pox are issues that would probably be a big draw. Location is an issue; don’t want to exclude one part of the triangle.
4. Teleconference with PowerPoint slides is an option.
5. Paul to contact Chris Frey to see about coordinating with his class.

Group concluded that:
Preference is for a series of seminars on related topics.
Rewards of a symposium are better than a series of single talks.

Timeframe – First two weeks of May and mid September
Time of day – 2 PM to 5 PM, with a snack

Format – 2 talks, snack, last talk and a panel or have a discussion with 2 opposing points of view

Venues – CIIT, ARCADIS, USEPA

Topics –

1. Risk Assessment for Acute Exposure (Greg Blumenthal) how to combine acute data sets, go from chronic and subchronic data to acute exposure. Greg and Rob will coordinate this seminar. Greg will start making contacts. We need to have 3 speakers; 40 minutes each.
2. Careers in risk assessment – coordinate with Chris Frey’s class in April or NCCU or UNC at another time.

Goal – 2 mini-seminars each with 3 talks focusing on a single topic.

We will continue this discussion via email.

Next Meeting: March 27 at 4 PM at ARCADIS in Raleigh