Sue Haig

HI Mercedes--thanks for your note. I agree with you completely. I think I was more responding to John's comments about passing judgement on the "Vision" before the full Plan was developed.

Just to be clear--the original SFO committee disbanded. The three committees we now have (governance, publications, and finance) are made up of representatives from the 4 potentially interested societies--AFO, AOU, COS, and Waterbirds.

We would be more than interested to hear comments or concerns by anyone. Already this week, we are working on some changes as a result of John's message. That does not mean everything suggested will be changed but there are so many aspects and details to attend to that the more eyes we have reading and thinking about SFO, the better it will be.

As I have noted elsewhere, the committees are aiming for a draft plan to be ready for the NAOC. If the productivity gods smile on us, we will be able to email a draft to at least members of the interested societies before they leave for Vancouver. There will be numerous opportunities to hear about SFO and discuss it as a large group, by society, and one on one at the NAOC.

So....keep those cards and letters coming....

Sue

John--It is important to understand that the title of the document was "Vision for the Society for Ornithology". Not all is set in stone by any means. The potentially interested societies (AOU, AFO, COS, and Waterbirds) are currently meeting to create a plan that is more refined and agreeable to their members. Thus, I will not spend the time discussing each aspect you raise as things are changing everyday with respect to SFO.

One issue we all need to understand, however, is that professional societies worldwide are declining financially and w/respect to members. Thus we are not alone but we need to get ahead of the curve. A good review can be found at:

What is Important to Biological Societies at the Start of the Twenty-First Century?

Author(s) :Susan Musante and Sheri Potter

Source: BioScience, 62(4):329-335. 2012.

Published By: American Institute of Biological Sciences

URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1525/bio.2012.62.4.3

Photos from the historic meeting of the AOU Council, including all former presidents, and presidents of the Cooper Ornithological Society, Neotropical Ornithological Society, Association of Field Ornithologists, Wilson Ornithological Society, and Society of Canadian Ornithologists currently in session in Dallas, TX.

https://picasaweb.google.com/111868492024708616895/AOUCouncilSFODiscussion?authuser=0&feat=directlink

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Nuttall Ornithological Club has joined the group of ornithological societies interested in participating in discussions related to development of the Society for Ornithology. It will be great to hear their perspective on the various issues we face.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Nuttall Ornithological Club has joined the group of ornithological societies interested in participating in discussions related to development of the Society for Ornithology. It will be great to hear their perspective on the various issues we face.

John--

Every interested society, including the AOU, is at the same stage right now. They are waiting for a series of committees, made up of 30+ members of all the interested societies, to draft a plan they can take a look at in feb.

Honestly, John, your questions in this forum are repetitive and can be answered by reading information I have already provided in this forum. I assume you are speaking from the RRF perspective. Given RRF has bowed out, I don't see why you care about this aside from being a wet blanket for something you will not be part of anyway. Thus, I will refrain from spending more of my time repeating information to you. Sue

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Waterbird Society will join our ranks of interested societies. Thus, all OSNA societies except the RRF will join in our planning. The Neotropical Ornithological Society and Western Hemisphere Shorebird Research Group will join us as well.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Waterbird Society will join our ranks of interested societies. Thus, all OSNA societies except the RRF will join in our planning. The Neotropical Ornithological Society and Western Hemisphere Shorebird Research Group will join us as well.

Hi Jay--nice to hear from you. I'm sorry you took so much time to review something where there really isn't much to review yet. I've given up trying to answer questions on this forum that would take pages and pages to answer when I have told people we are preparing those pages and they will be better presented in a report this spring than in this forum.

That being said, to address your issues briefly:

1. The Governance and Management committee that I chair is reviewing membership issues. I can tell you that status such as "Fellow" etc would be retained in SFO. We are working on the dues being quite minimal --$25/year?

2. AOU 20XX, etc.: it was an AOU idea (!) but we now have lots of interested societies. However, I hear what you are trying to say.

3. Finances/endowments would be tricky and would take years to resolve. Thus, we are not depending on them for starters (aside from the AOU endowment). Finances are also being dealt with by my committee: Fitz, Frank Gill, Bonnie Bowen, Jed Burtt, and Stan Senner. The best people I know in ornithology to deal with such issues.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, Sue

John--to be specific I would have to give you a plan that we have not finished. Thus, given no one is voting on anything anytime soon, I'm afraid you will have to wait until we have something to show the world--in February. Sue

Dick--never would I think of listing you as supportive--no worries, there!

However, I do appreciate your non-supportive ideas as we do have a dilemma. Part of the deal with SFO is to hire someone as a serious fund-raiser as we can't support our activities (w/o draining the endowment) w/o some help.

And more than money, our membership decline and the fact that the average age of AOU members is in their 50's means we are are not being effective in our efforts to recruit and train ornithologists, let alone fuel the field of ornithology. So it is complex.

By the by, if you double click on those figures, they get much bigger. I can email the membership figures if you's like. The bottom line is we have ~25% decline in AOU members since 1999. Can't do that too many times before we have no AOU.

I'll pass your ideas on to the respective committees --more ideas are always welcome. Thanks! Sue

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Research Group will be joining our planning discussions. They are interested in the opportunity for a small group to have a home with the benefits of the management and meeting benefits offered by SFO yet retaining their identity via special workshops, sessions at annual meeting, etc.

CORRECTION: Society of Canadian Ornithologists President Erica Nol just informed me that SCO/SOC should be included in the same interest category as AOU, COS, AFO, and WOS -- that is ...interested in participating in planning discussions but certainly not making any decisions at this point.

It will be great to have SCO help us plan efforts for SFO!

DIck--Waterbirds and NOS have met and were going to discuss the idea but not vote on anything. SCO is sitting back and waiting to see what happens. We have the presidents of AOU, COS, AFO, and WOS attending the mid-year Council meeting so no doubt they are not voting on anything any time soon--as they understand we do not have a plan for anyone to vote on yet.

As for my committee, we have 3 past presidents helping directly and 2 past AOU presidents helping in the wings--5 past presidents is a lot of support. We also have former presidents of AFO, WOS, and COS helping.

I've been on many ad hoc AOU committees, so I'm sure we would have been called on this by our ever - vigilant secretary if there was an issue. And, I have never read where a group of AOU members could not present an idea to the Council.

Perhaps a focus on the big picture would be more constructive. Consider these OSNA membership numbers: would this not give you reason for concern?

http://ornithologyexchange.org/files/file/12-%7B%3F%7D/

http://ornithologyexchange.org/files/file/13-%7B%3F%7D/

Given this situation, how would you solve this problem? I truly would be interested in your response. Thanks, Sue

CONGRATULATIONS JED!! What a wonderful and deserving honor! You have done so much for teaching, academia, ornithological societies and the field of ornithology that I am just thrilled that you have been recognized for your incredible efforts. Here's to you! Sue

Dick--I was very specific in my notes to the OSNA presidents that we were not asking them to join SFO at that time. Thus, I feel bad that RRF spent all that time going through the process of evaluating their future when they did not have the correct information to do that. Given no other OSNA society took the message I sent the way that RRF did, I think they somehow misunderstood what I was asking of them.

In any event, RRF or any other OSNA society is always welcome to join in the discussions at any point.

By the by...you keep raising this phrase "unofficial committee". It's kind of like the people that raise the issue of Obama's birth certificate. I asked President Faaborg if we could form a committee to look into the future of AOU. He readily agreed. I kept him and the Exec Comm. up to date on what we were doing. I can't see where there is fault in that. Sue

Ruth -- It is surprising to get this response from you as I/we nevered asked RRF to join SFO. We clearly stated in the note to you, as RRF president, that we were asking RRF to join the discussion to explore development of a new society. No society, including the AOU, has been asked to join SFO. And every OSNA society was invited to participate in these discussions.

I wonder how RRF made the decisions they did without any idea of what the plan for SFO would be? We do not have a plan yet, hence there is really nothing for RRF or any society to judge the new society.

In any event, RRF will always be welcome to participate in discussions related to SFO. We hope you and RRF members will stay tuned for how this society is evolving. Sue

Ricky--I do not know. The Council has to sort out how to deal with this. Sue

John--the following has already been sent to all OSNA members and OE as a new article. However, I guess it takes a while for the messages to go out. In the meantime, this is what you and everyone else should receive:

Update on Society for Ornithology business plan

John--have you read the previous posts where I outline our plan for gathering input from everyone? And have you also considered that we cannot propose something to the membership without figuring out what to propose to them? How else would you be proceeding? Clearly asking members if they would like to give up the AOU without having a plan for what we might do instead seems a bit ridiculous.

Next--the AOU Council in no way voted to disband the AOU. That was very clear in the announcements you have gotten via email, on the AOU website, and on the OE newspage. They voted to let my committee further develop a plan for a new society so they could further evaluate the idea at the mid-year Council meeting in February.

As I have stated previously, we have reps from AOU, WOS, COS and AFO on our committees. We have invited the presidents of AFO, COS, and WOS to the mid-year meeting. I won't go into detail about the rest of the plan for comments as I have done it several times above.

Ricky and I corresponded quite a bit privately after her note. By the time we were done, it did not seem like there was much left to comment on on OE.

I will await your ideas for a better plan for how we should proceed in communicating to the members w/o any sorting of planning document. Sue

Ricky--I am afraid people are interpreting lack of communication as an indication there is something we are not talking about, Rather, at this stage we have nothing to talk about as committees are just off putting reports together. There will be a lot more to talk about, and people will have the chance to provide input, once we have the draft SFO proposal put together for the Council.

As for the process AOU will go through, we need to wait for the february council meeting on that as well. I cannot say what the Council will recommend.

Thanks again for your interest, Sue

Ricky--I am afraid people are interpreting lack of communication as an indication there is something we are not talking about, Rather, at this stage we have nothing to talk about as committees are just off putting reports together. There will be a lot more to talk about, and people will have the chance to provide input, once we have the draft SFO proposal put together for the Council.

As for the process AOU will go through, we need to wait for the february council meeting on that as well. I cannot say what the Council will recommend.

Thanks again for your interest, Sue

Bob—

We are developing a business plan in the following way:

1. Small committees made up of 3-7 members each and from across OSNA societies are drafting ideas, options and costs for the following key areas:

2. The committees are each drafting short reports (less than 10 pages) which I will then merge into a document we will call the draft business plan. This document will be the proposal for discussion at the AOU Council meeting in February 2012.

3. From the AOU perspective, we will discuss the options presented and further refine what we would like to see if the new society were established.

4. We will then send out the proposed business plan to all OSNA societies for their comments and those of members.

5. We (SFO committee chairs) will meet with OSNA presidents or representatives monthly from March until the NAOC to discuss each aspect of the plan. The different societies can enlist comments from their own members as they see fit.

6. A final draft business plan will be presented at the NAOC to the AOU Council with a request for funding the start of SFO. Other societies can choose to join SFO then or later (or never) on whether they want to join our efforts.

As for society reps, we are not asking reps to just represent their society. Rather we are asking them to brainstorm like the rest of us as we design SFO. Again, this is not a federation, we are designing a new society.

I am sorry I have not contacted Tim. Bob Beason called a few weeks ago and I have had the flu or been traveling since. We are more than happy to have him join one of the committees. I just have not had time to invite him yet.

The bottom line is that we are not looking for comments from the societies or the general membership at this time. There will be months and months of time to alter or incorporate new ideas prior to the NAOC and afterwards. We just feel this small committee approach is the most efficient way to get the ball rolling.

I ask for your patience with this process. We have devoted many hours since July to develop this first draft. There are many ornithologists from across OSNA working very hard on this. Sincerely, Sue

Ricky--I appreciate the time you have taken to outline your concerns and information needs. There are several major points that I'd like to make in response.

1. As a former AOU president, thus current member of the AOU Council, not to mention AOU member, you have had access to more information and invitations to comment than you are outlining. I believe you were the only living former AOU president (aside from Dick Banks who was ill) not to be in attendance at the Jacksonville council meeting where these ideas were presented and discussed. You also have an invitation to attend the mid-year council meeting, at AOU's expense, to voice your opinion. I do not believe we have heard whether or not you will attend. The announcement of the plan to develop SFO, with the associated powerpoint presentation, has been available on the AOU website, here on the OE website, and there has been an announcement in the OSNA newsletter and in the media.

2. While you seem concerned that, as AOU president-elect, I am responding to the questions about these ideas, you did not suggest who it is you would like to hear from. I developed and chaired the committee to evaluate and develop the future of the AOU and now chair the committee that is developing the plan for SFO. There is no one who knows more about this than I do. Although, I would more than welcome other members of the SFO committees to chime in at any point.

3. It is not novel to think that the issues you outlined are needed--we are working on them now in a business plan format and via committees lead by members of every interested OSNA society. Thus, I cannot answer questions about the details of the Society for Ornithology at this moment. As mentioned previously, committees are drafting outlines that will present various options for moving forward and are researching the costs associated with specific ideas so all societies will have a variety of options to consider. Someone had to do this background work before we could present and evaluate what might be best for AOU or any other OSNA society.

4. We are in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation here. We were trying to be as open and straight-forward as possible with every OSNA member/society by announcing ideas we were considering so early on. Thus, we proposed our ideas to the council and attendees at the Jacksonville meeting less than 2 weeks after developing them and we announced it to all OSNA societies (via contacting presidents of each society) shortly after the Jacksonville meeting. By doing so, we left ourselves open to criticisms such as you are rendering that we did not have a complete plan. However, had we developed a plan in secret and then announced it with all the details worked out, we would be criticized as well. We thought we would error on the side of openness and take our lumps--which we are doing to some degree. However, I am not lying in telling you how much support we have been sent--mostly by mid-career and younger members—those we most often lose. You need to review our membership trends, and those of the other societies, to get a reality check on what is happening to membership. We need to do something about this.

5. We presented an outline of the process we are following to all OSNA presidents several months ago. It was their responsibility to share with their councils and members as they saw appropriate. I will repeat it below.

Overall, I believe a little patience this fall will be rewarded with a detailed plan that will address your concerns and those others have expressed with plenty of time to revise the evolving plan. I hope you can embrace this path we are taking to evaluate our future.

Sue

· Develop business plan for SFO

February 2012:

· AOU Council meets to evaluate business plan.

· SFO executive committee solicits comments from interested OSNA societies and AOU members. Other societies can solicit opinions from members as they deem appropriate.

Spring –Summer 2012:

· SFO executive committee meets monthly via teleconference with interested OSNA society presidents or representatives to revise business plan.

· SFO executive committee refines plan as per recommendations from OSNA societies.

· SFO Executive committee meets with OSNA presidents at NAOC to further discuss plan.

· SFO committee chairs present proposed plan to AOU Council at NAOC with a request to fund the beginning of SFO.

· Other OSNA societies can vote to join SFO, reject joining SFO, or choose to join at another time.

Fall 2012:

· Proceed with development of SFO if business plan is approved by AOU, if not other societies.

NOTE: approval to proceed does not mean AOU or any other society will disappear. AOU would continue for a few years while SFO was developed. Other societies would similarly follow this path (more or less) at their discretion.

Allen--the storm is drowning us regardless of whether the Auk is online or not. The world has changed, scientific societies have changed, and we need to change with them or become the Auk itself. I'm not going to repeat the discussion I've had with Dick here as you can read it above. As you suggest, there are better things to do than re-hash points that have been made over and over again. Thus, I'm going back to my day job so I can study birds and not kill trees in the process, Sue