2014 HFES Safety Business Meeting (BM) Notes and Comments

Approximately 20 members attended the business meeting.

1. Officers – The only officers of STG at the BM were William Vigilante and myself. Prior to the BM, I asked Carlos who they were and he referred to the STG web page. Our current officers are as follows:

Chair- Nancy Daraiseh Justin Morgan- Past Chair Secretary/Treasurer – Chris Mayhorn (Chris said that he was secretary 2 years ago and no longer holds the position). Program Chair – 2013 and 2014 – Jay Pollack Program Chair – 2015 and 2016 – William Vigilante Web Master(s) – Katie Berry and Michael Sawyer (may be current)

What are the terms of office? Do we need to hold elections?

2. Elections – The COTG discussed the lack of uniformity amongst TGs for the election of officers. This makes it difficult for members to know when the process should take place. I suggest that our election dates, terms of office and other facets of the process be added to our web page. This past year, there were election irregularities in one of the other TGs as well.

3. STG Mission (Scope) – At the BM, several members felt that the STG mission is to broad, unclear and lacks focus. Since many TGs host safety related papers, they felt that our TG should be clearer as to what we are about. We should have a “goal”. The mission should be updated to reflect current trends in safety science.

4. Arnold Small Lecture (ASL) - This years attendance was embarrassingly low; minimum 14 and maximum was 28. The very large room looked empty.

Again this year, there was a conflict with S3 and we had split attendance. I discussed the conflict with Lois. It stems from the transfer of ASL to General Sessions from Safety TG. Program Chairs do not see General Session schedule until too late. GS Chair not always informed to prevent conflict. The solution I proposed was to return ASL back to Safety TG, with the assurance that STG would receive a session for ASL that is in addition to those assigned based on paper submissions. Please communicate on this issue with Lois and ensure that our new program chair is kept in the loop.

The lecture was recorded. However, it came to my attention that the slides and the lecture have to be re-united post-hoc. This has not been done for several previous lectures and no one has taken up the cause for this years lecture as well. Mike can only do so much. We need to make a concerted effort to get a replacement for him (as well as giving him some token of appreciation for his efforts over the years). Note, HFES has asked us publicize the sale of the Small lecture series CD to improve sales. Thus, we need to update the CD with the last few lectures as well.

The ASL is our principal mechanism to advertise the TG to the general membership and reach out to the public sector. This lecture, in my opinion, should not be allowed to lapse.

5. Program Sessions – TG had 3 lecture sessions – attendance was good – from 20 – 30 at each session. See BM slides for more info.

6. Food service – this practice should be eliminated. Maybe use the funds for an off-site networking session similar to the PDTG-Health Care TG event that now receives sponsor donations for support (175 attendees this year). Few eat the food, and it is costly.

7. COTG items of interest:

1. Inconsistent elections amongst TGs. 2. Newsletters or substitute Web presence spotty for some TGs. 3. TG officers often unaware of their responsibilities. 4. Mike Wolgalter is trying to form a new children’s issues TG. (see above comment on our scope). 5. I had the impression that the COTG officers felt that they were not responsible for the actions or inactions of the TGs (an “It is what it is approach”).

8. Revitalization - the general consensus was that we have a valuable TG that is in decline. The TG needs to communicate more with members, have a useful and up to date web page, and do better at outreach. To my knowledge, we also did not meet the two newsletter requirement to members this year. I believe we can fold this task into the web page, but this TG requirement needs to be met.