Attending:Richard Close, Larry D'Antonio, Frank Ford, David Hemmendinger, Danny Kopec, Amruth Kumar, Scott McElfresh, Ralph Morelli, Viera
Proulx, Ingrid Russell, Bill Taffe, Charlie Welty, Karl Wurst, Richard Wyatt.

I. Minutes of January Meeting

1. M/S (AK/LD) Written reports will now be required of the following board members: registrar, treasurer, journal editor, web-master, membership chair, and chair. The treasurer's report will be submitted  before the September meeting and everyone else will submit theirs before the April meeting. Passed unanimously.

M/S (FF/BT) Accept minutes of the January meeting. Passed unanimously  (Minutes of the previous meetings will no longer be handed out at the meeting. They are available, of course, from our web site. )

II. Reports

2. Chair's Report: Richard (see chair.pdf)

Everyone gave praises to the work that Matt Dickerson and Laurie Smith King have done over the years. They will be missed.

The board considered accepting all papers or significantly increasing the acceptance rate. This was not a popular idea for reasons having to do with tenure.

The national web site is not up-to-date as to who the national vendors are.

3. Editor's Report: Larry (see EditorReport.doc)

4. Webmaster's Report: Karl

Karl wants to have all items submitted electronically. This means papers, posters, panels, tutorials, and workshops.

Karl is now the single point of contact for all CCSCNE Web pages.

It was also determined that the messages sent to the board alias will only go to the board. Messages sent to the conference alias will go to both the conference committee members and to the board.

5. Treasurer's Report:  Scott

We have done very well this year. We seem to be $3500 in the black. All the expenditures should be finished in June.

The budget for the 2005 conference will be ready for the September meeting.

Richard was asked to present the following to National:  We want to be able to bank money in the future.
Discussion: There were various suggestions from the board on how to handle it. There are also legal, accounting, and IRS issues. It was suggested that we be specific on how we use it. The idea that we would retain all the profit was also questioned.

6. Membership Chair's Report:  Danny

We did give our membership list to Clair Bates Congdon for her Gender Issues mailing.

The mailing list has not been enlarged. It was suggested that all department chairs be added to the list.

Danny was charged with adding the email addresses of all chairs starting with New York state and continuing through the rest of the northeast. Richard defined the goal to be that all chairs in north of a line running from Chicago to Washington D.C. be added to the list over the next few years.

7. Registrar's Report: Frank (see RegistrarReport.doc)

Local registration was done this year. There were some minor problems. There were some overlapping categories of people. There were lots of forms going lots of places.   Suggestion:  Have one registration form for everyone and have it sent to one place.

Frank asked if SIGCSE could give us a mailing list.   It seems to be being done already.

Bill suggested that ABET has a good list.
Bill also suggested contacting department chairs in the conference area and giving them one free registration for the 2004 conference.

Danny will get U.S. mail addresses of department chairs within 100 miles of the 2004 conference.

There has been much confusion as to where the checks are to be sent.
Viera suggested that we have online registration and the checks be sent separately.
Frank said that receipts should go to one person, not one receipt for each participant. For a programming team with 3 members, each member gets a receipt. One receipt should go to whoever pays the registration fee.
Scott suggested that onsite registration people just do onsite registration. Everyone agreed.

8. Operating Document Sub-Cmte Report:/ Frank, Karl, Amruth

Postponed.

9. 2004 Conference Committee:/ Scott and David

(David had to leave early so his report and questions were actually handled first.)
David wants input from the various chairs as to how this conference went. He wants to receive statistics on the number of attendees in this and previous conferences. (This information is presently on the Web but difficult to access. Karl Wurth will address this difficulty.)  It was emphasized that service providers, such as dining service, should have clear communications for scheduling meals, breaks, etc.

Registration for next year may or may not use the national database.

Various members noted that many special characters were not printed in the proceedings, open boxes printed instead.

The 2004 conference chairs mailing list will be available when Karl gets it. He plans to have it a few days after the conference.

Aliases for conference chairs will be available at the end of May.

The September meeting is planned for Sat., Sept. 13.
Frank and David will attempt to get the call for papers ready over the summer.

January meeting is scheduled for Jan. 17, 2004. There was much discussion as to whether or not this was too late. Jan. 3 was determined to be too early. Several members had other commitments on Jan. 10. There was some concern that authors would not have time to be notified and then get their camera-ready copy in. Feb. 9 was set as deadline for camera ready and authors should be informed that this is a firm deadline.

David brought up the possibility that a contribution of as much as $5000 could be available for the 2004 conference. There was much discussion of this. Members did not want to set high prize money precedence on this conference that could not be met in future conferences. Suggestions included:

    More money for speakers.
    More travel subsidies.
    Opulent goody bag.
    Better meals, breaks, and social hour. Have beer and wine?

Other suggestions are welcome.

We usually have 10 – 12 vendors and they want maximum exposure to attendees. Best for them to be near both the food and the sessions.
Scott will contact SIGCSE about deadlines so ours can be later.

It is now policy that each committee should have a senior person (who has been in the same position in a previous conference) and a junior person (who is new to the position). David is senior and Scott junior. Larry will be senior papers chair. The rest of the conference chairs will decide senior/junior roles for themselves. Having a senior person means that most material will go to that person. Allows cleaner communication.

The board considered accepting all papers or significantly increasing the acceptance rate. This was not a popular idea for reasons having to do with tenure.

10.  OPTIONAL REPORT:2005 Conference:/ Frank

Cancelled

11. Enhancing Web-based features. Covered in earlier parts of the minutes.

(Note: Wording copied directly from the agenda are listed in italics in this item and in the remainder of the minutes.)
From the minutes of the January meeting:
Interactive registration was suggested. This is useless without credit
cards.  We need added security to run it on line.   Right now can only
have card-swipe machine at conference or signed paper registration with
card number (which is entered by whoever does the registration).   The
credit card companies charge more depending on how many ways it is
possible to charge something.
Suggestion:  Have PayPal do the work for interactive registration.
Richard will raise the issue at National.

See the Chair's report.

12. Meaning of tutorial, workshop and panel

From the minutes of the January meeting:
      No real headway made.
A blurb was written and circulated, and repeated here:

• Tutorials

      a. one or more presenters (usually one)
      b. 75 minute duration
      c. lecture style presentation
      d. attendees do not have access to a machine
      e. any suitable introductory or advanced topic

• Panels

      a. multiple presenters (usually at least three)
      b. 75 minute duration
      c. position statement (and supporting material) given by each panelist
      d. panelists sometimes also discuss the views of the other panelists
      e. positions presented are normally quite different from each other
      f. introduction/overview and summary usually given by panel moderator
      g. audience discussion encouraged

• Workshops

      a. one or more presenters
      b. three hours duration
      c. lecture/laboratory style presentation
      d. attendees have access to a machine
      e. any suitable introductory or advanced topic
      f. item workshops are held on the Friday morning before the conference proper.

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IV. New Business

13.   Refunds for Programming Contest

This item appears not to have ever been dealt with.  We need to set a policy.
For example, some schools paid for 2 teams and only had one accepted. How do we do refunds. The treasurer and the chair will work this out on an individual case basis. There will be no refunds after the deadline.

The Web site should have more information about the programming contest. The conference chair and the programming contest chair will determine what platforms are to be available for the September meeting. This information will be in the CFP, etc.

There was much discussion of what platforms should be available. A strong case was made for having Windows, Unix, and Mac available at all conferences. Many board members thought that was impossible due to the systems available at their schools. Even Northeastern Univ. would find that basically impossible. There are Web-based platforms from Harvard and TuringsCraft.

It was also suggested that faculty advisors should not be contest judges. Frank thought that would make it very difficult to recruit enough judges.

14. Guidelines for Paper Reviewers

A paper reviewer this year has asked us to look at providing guidelines to
standardize reviewers' expectations and the judging criteria. We have
attempted to look at this matter in the past but did not make much headway.
As I recall, the central difficulty was that the board was not itself of
a unanimous view as to what constituted ``a good paper''.
Do we want to take up this difficult but important matter anew?

Delayed to September.

15. Timeliness

There have, it has been reported to me, again been some regrettable delays
in the release of forms relating to the conference.   Every effort needs to be
made to avoid delays in the future.
It has also been reported to me that other matters have not been dealt with
in a timely manner.  Again, every effort needs to be made to avoid
untimeliness.

Delayed to September.

16. Posterboards

Members of this year's conference committee have asked that the board consider requiring students to bring their own posterboards in the future.
Discussion. There was no decision made but several members thought that displayers should bring their own display board. Dimensions would be stated in the CFP and other advertising. Some could be available at the conference, too, for people who have difficulty transporting them.

17. Conference Receipts

 A member has asked for clarification:
Who sends receipts?  In the past, when registration was at the national level, email receipts were sent by the person receiving the registration,   not the treasurer.  That model might make sense here, except that several different people get registrations.  It would be important to have a  consistent receipt form.   For paper receipts, a special request could be made.
 When are receipts sent?   In the recent past, receipts were sent when the data was entered into the database, which was typically soon after  checks were deposited.

Discussion and clarification.  Delayed.

18. Use of Our NE E-Mailing List

This year we have had a request from someone wanting to use our email list to send a CFPs.  The conference was an entirely reasonable one.   However, as we did not want to have to make decisions as to whose requests to honour, we disallowed the use but allowed the person to use the list for the conference they had attended.
We should have a policy on this matter?
Discussion. Delayed to September.

19.   Presentations Without Publication

A member has asked:
      Should we allow a presentation if the paper or abstract is notsubmitted for publication in the proceedings?
      What about a tutorial, especially an invited one?

Discussion. Delayed to September.

20. Travel Policy

A member has proposed a modification to out travel policy:
The following can be paid by CCSCNE for Board and Committee member expenses
to travel to the September or January meetings, subject to the amount
budgeted specifically for travel.
(1) Hotel: up to $80 per person, with receipt, if the person must travel at
least 2 hours in each direction, or if the person must arrive early in
order to attend a meeting to put the actual content of the program
together.
(2) Meals: up to $50 per person, with receipt (up to $20 for dinner, up to
$10 for breakfast) [Meal expenses incurred on the trip TO the conference
are not covered.]
(3) Travel: up to $100 per person, which may include: - passenger vehicle
tolls, with receipt - mileage at current IRS rate OR gasoline, with
receipts OR mass transportation fees, or car rental costs (excepting
insurance), with receipts.

The following can be paid by CCSCNE for Board member expenses to stay after
the conference to attend the April board meeting, subject to the amount
budgeted specifically for travel and subject to availability of such funding
following the September and January meetings.
(4) Hotel for Saturday night - up to $80 per person, with receipt, if the
person must travel at least 2 hours in order to get home.
(5) Meals - up to $30 per person, with receipt for meals on the return trip
home. (Meal expenses incurred on the trip TO the conference are not
covered.)

Discussion. The following trim-downed policy was worked out with much discussion. The idea was to allow coverage of the conference meeting as well as the other meetings. Also, if the member required several days of attendance, that can now be reimbursed. The idea was that the travel policy had not been misused, we seem to have the funds, and members may have to be at some meetings, especially the conference, for additional days to get things set up and taken down. The board chair and treasurer will decide problematic cases.  (Richard and Charlie came up with the following working after the meeting.).

The following can be paid by CCSCNE for Board and Committee member expenses.
    (1) Hotel: up to $80 per person per night, with receipt
    (2) Meals: up to $50 per person per day, with receipt for actual meal expenses incurred.
    (3) Travel: up to $100 per person, which may include: - passenger
    vehicle tolls, with receipt - mileage at current IRS rate OR gasoline,
    with receipts OR mass transportation fees, or car rental costs
    (excepting insurance), with receipts.
This policy applies to all CCSCNE events and meetings, including those at the conference, provided the claim made under the policy is for activity related to conference or board committee work.

21. Who Gets Proceedings?

Who gets them: programming contestants, students poster presenters, others?

Discussion. Delayed to September.

22. Extra and Surplus Moneys

This year we have had at least $2500 over our budget.   There has been a lively debate as to how to spend it.
Discussion. This was discussed in item 9, above. The relevant portion is:
Suggestions included:

    More money for speakers.
    More travel subsidies.
    Opulent goody bag.
    Better meals, breaks, and social hour. Have beer and wine?

Other suggestions are welcome.

23. Presenter No-Shows
This year, we have had a presenter --  NSF --- not show up to do the presentation.
What do we want to do about such occurrences?
Discussion. Delayed to September.

Next meeting at Union College, Schenectady, NY,  Saturday, September 13, 2003, 11 AM - 4 PM.
 

Respectfully submitted,

Charles Welty
Secretary