Pennsylvania Chapter,  American Fisheries Society

Minutes- Fall Technical Meeting, 11/9/01

I.  President Bob Ross called the meeting to order at 7:15PM.  The meeting was held at the H. R. Stackhouse School of Conservation, Fishermans Paradise, Bellefonte, PA.

II.    There were 25 members present.

III.  The minutes of the last meeting were available in the front of the room.  They were accepted without comment.

IV.  Mike Hendricks gave the Treasurers Report.  The checking account has over $7,000 in it, up from less than $2,000 just 18 months ago.  This is due to profits from 2 fish ID workshops, a riparian buffer workshop and a successful raffle at our spring meeting. Thanks go out to Andy Shiels, Renea Ruffing, Rick Spear, Doug Nieman and the other members of the EXCOMM for their efforts in these activities.   Thanks largely to the parent society checkoff for chapter dues, we now have 177 paid members.

V.  Bob Ross reported on the NED conference call which he participated in as chapter president.

VI.   The Spring meeting will be held on 3/22/02 or 4/5/02, at Mansfield University.  Dick Soderberg will arrange the speakers around a theme of invasive species.

VII.  Doug Nieman is working on planning for the next Fish ID workshop on cyprinids, to be held at West Chester University sometime next summer.

VIII.  In Spring 2003 we will hold a joint meeting with The Wildlife Society and the Society of American Foresters.

IX.  Matt Chan, our volunteer webmaster discussed our new web page.  We will use the AFS server at a cost of $105 per year.  FrontPage software is required.  Matt is working on getting that software now.

X.  Raffle winners were:  Kristine Playfoot- professional membership to AFS, Seth Leslie- student membership to AFS, Angela Lambert- chapter hat.

XI.  Program chairman Dick Soderberg presented our student speakers:

Jeff Michaels (poster)- �Behavioral Evidence for American Shad Chemoattraction to Conspecifics.�

Neil Crouch- "Possible effects of perchlorate on the endocrine and reproductive systems of goldfish, Carassius auratus."

Mary Walsh- "Response to riparian restoration in a central PA watershed."

Renea Ruffing- �Round gobies in Pennsylvania waters of Lake Erie.� 

The best student paper award went to Neil Crouch.  The chapter will pay $300 toward Neil�s expenses to attend the AFS meeting in Baltimore in August, 2002.

XII.  The meeting was adjourned at 9:30PM.

Respectfully submitted, Nov 11, 2001.

 Michael L. Hendricks, Secretary/Treasurer