Snippets from NZSAP meetings

• The next conference will be in Lincoln University. The Society thanks Dr Andrew Sykes and Dr Alistair Nicol for their invitation.
• The 1994/95 annual accounts were approved by the auditors. Thanks must go to Jock Macmillan and Wanda Watson for their excellent work.
• The annual subscription has increased to $50.00 (GST inc.) with a corresponding increase to $25.00 for student and retired member subscriptions.
• At the Annual General Meeting a report was presented by a sub committee of Steve Davis, Ken Jury and Alistair Nicol of a review of the specifications of the McMeekan, A H Ward and Young Members awards. It was decided that modifications to the existing awards, as recommended by the Awards Committee be implemented at the discretion of the incoming Management Committee.

  Considerable discussion followed Dr Alistair Nicolís suggestion at the AGM of a new award called "NZSAP publications certificate of merit" which would be intended for members who have made significant contributions to the Proceedings and Occasional publications. Various criteria for the award were discussed and some members expressed concern about its value.

  One member suggested that rather than just a simple tally procedure that, given the background of the society, a multi-trait "author" model BLUP should be used to identify deserving recipients. Fixed effects would include year of publication and scientific discipline (to cut reproductive scientists with their dinky 10 animal/2 week experiments down to size) and "contribution" variates would include first authorship, co-authorship and occasional publication authorship. Appropriate transformations would also be needed to "normalize" the data. The resulting values would be called PUB_BVs and an annual list would be drawn up and circulated (tongue firmly in cheek at this point).

  The AGM finally decided that proposals for two new awards: one for the most innovative work reported to the annual conference and another for publication frequency be developed by Steve Davis and Alistair Nicol and presented to the 1997 AGM.

• Management committee will have a phone meeting on June 24th and a face to face meeting on October 2nd and 3rd, although the latter date has still to be finalized. If you want anything brought up at those meetings please advise your local committee member.
• A very successful inaugural Livestock Improvement Corporation Lecture was given by Professor Michel Georges at the 1996 conference. Thanks to LIC for their support for the concept. In future years, time will also be made available for questions at the completion of the Lecture. Jock Macmillan is currently finalizing the rules and agreement with LIC for these lectures to be held on a continuing basis. Negotiations are presently also underway with another Corporate body for sponsorship.
• The annual general meeting passed a resolution giving the Editor authority to decline papers received later than one week after the conference. The adamís apples of some people attending the AGM were noted to move rapidly in the vertical axis after this resolution was passed!!!!
• Although the final date has not been set yet for the October Management Committee meeting, closing date for abstracts for the 1997 conference will be in the second week of September.