MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 15 November 2018 The AGM held at the Citadel Hill Laboratory, Plymouth began at 3.15 pm with Council Member Professor Phil Rainbow in the Chair. He welcomed everyone to the meeting and reminded that only members can vote and participate in any discussion. To assist in the preparation of the minutes the meeting is being recorded. Once the minutes have been approved, the recording will be deleted. Those present were: Leonia Adams, Eliane Bastos, Sylvan Benaksas, Christine Bennett, Gerald Boalch, Sue Boxall, Gemma Brice, Barbara Bultmann, Maria Caparis, Chiara Consolaro, Richard Coombs, Michael Cunliffe, Martin Edwards, Olivia Eisenbach, Matt Frost, Chris George, Lance Gregory, Sarah Hinckley, Keith Hiscock, David Johns, Ian Joint, Tanya Jonas, Colin Kilvington, Guilia La Bianca, Bill Langston, Arianna Liconti, Emily Maher, Cynthia Mansell, Clare Marshall, Debby Mason, Linda Mavin, Christopher McGimpsey, Alex McGrath, Nova Mieszkowska, Scott Middleton, David Moulder, Paul Naylor, Jim Nott, Phil Pascoe, Judith Petts, Alan Rees, Chris Reid, Peter Rendle, Nicola Rickard, Cordelia Roberts, John Rundle, Jack Sewell, David Sims, Jennifer Skinner, Marion Smith, Janet Stack, Alexandra Street, Pam Tuckett, Ian Varndell, Willie Wilson, Christine Wood, Marianne Wootton and Constanza Zanghi Apologies were received from: Mel Austin, Guy Baker, Bob Barrett, Sir John Beddington, Colin Brownlee, Sally Campbell, Sir Richard Carew Pole, Eric Corner, Paul Dando, David Dixon, Mike Elliott, James Ellis, Peter Gibbs, Mary Gray, John Green, Paul Hart, Lucy Hawker, Douglas Herdon, Patrick Holligan, Tom Hutchinson, Peter Jonas, Maria Kafritsa, Susan Knox, Mrs Landricombe, Linda Maddock, Gillian Mapstone, Dave Morritt, Angela Newman, Nick Owens, Robin Pingree, Celia Rinagl, Elaine Robson, Tony Rumsby, Michael Sleigh, Paul Somerfield, Russell Stevens, Gill Tanner, Claire Taylor, Heidi Tillin, Allen Varley, Nola Venton, Mrs Vowden, Richard White, Mike Whitfield and Carol Williams. 1. Minutes. The Minutes of the 133nd Annual General Meeting held at the Laboratory on 16 November 2017 had been circulated to members prior to the meeting. The Minutes were approved with the following amendment: Item 3, 4th Paragraph: Royal Duchy Shell should read Royal Dutch Shell. The minutes were signed by the Chair, Professor Phil Rainbow. 2. Report of the Council and Forward Look. Professor Wilson thanked Dr Frost who had presided over the period of the report as Interim Director. Professor Wilson directed everyone to the Annual Report, hard copies of which were available to the meeting. The Report had received a new look to try to re-invigorate it and this had been undertaken by Gemma Brice who had previously worked on the SAHFOS and CPR Survey Reports. As always, feedback is welcome. Professor Wilson went on to highlight some of the articles: Membership of the Association stands at 1600 members covering 37 countries and there are 400 Young Marine Biologist members, all very impressive; there are plans to increase membership over the next five years to 4-5,000 members through regional and country hubs. Because of Brexit EU funding is very topical at present and is a concern for the Laboratory as around 25-40% of funding is from the EU. The SAHFOS merger brought a massive international portfolio of funding. The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership, which has just celebrated 10 years of reporting, has provided a large amount of coverage; and along with the British Ecological Society (BES), the MBA led a conference on the marine environment after Brexit, enabling the Association to use its members’ expertise for consultation. There is a huge diversity of educational products and opportunities provided by the MBA and as Director, Professor Wilson had been invited to a Beach Rangers event, where young volunteers work with the local community. Also the Capturing our Coast Volunteer Award evening which linked up with six other hubs around the country and where the MBA received many of the prizes. Professor Wilson highlighted the importance of the volunteer programmes, which are extremely significant for the MBA. Mention was made of the enthusiasm of the NMBL staff in their talks to visitors being given a tour of the Library and collection of rare books. In 2017 visitor numbers increased by 55%, 39% of which were students. Various campaigns such as Adopt a Book, the second hand bookshop and products for sale help fund the restoration of old books from the collection. In the case of the MBA’s own publications, the JMBA goes from strength to strength and has an increased impact factor of 1.4 while Marine Biodiversity Records, which Dr Nova Mieszkowska, Chief Editor, advises is about to acquire an impact factor. Part of listening to various talks when away from the Laboratory, allows Professor Wilson to commission articles. This has recently materialised with an article on the Toothfish Fishery in the Southern Ocean appearing in a future edition of The Marine Biologist magazine. Research is a massive component of what happens in the Laboratory and certainly in terms of the finances there is £3.5m in new research grants including another European Research Council Grant. This brings the number of ERC grants to two, which, for an organisation this size, is quite extraordinary as they are only given to the elite researchers in Europe, another sign of the prestige of the scientists at the MBA. Even though there is only a relatively small number of researchers, over 65 research articles have been published in a range of journals including Science and Nature; and there is the PhD students and MRes programmes, both really successful programmes. Professor Wilson went on to highlight some of the research which includes the use of Mesolens, one of only 3 in the world as part of the MBA’s world-class imaging facility; it allows low magnification, wide field images to be obtained with exceptionally high resolution and is an extraordinary piece of equipment. The ERC Grant, part of the Microbial Biology and Ecology Group explores the biology and ecology of marine fungi, a brand new area of research and the MBA is leading the way in marine fungal biology. Some of the work being done by David Sims’ Group is looking at the global satellite tracking of pelagic sharks and fisheries as part of the wider global ecology. The work being carried out on benthic ecosystems was heard earlier during Dr Howell’s talk, in particular the environmental change and results from work by Dan Smale’s group show that marine heatwaves can drive major shifts in structure. The MBA is involved in Consultancy and Heidi Tillin had reported that the MBA has delivered for a wide range of companies and is currently inundated with applications from different consultancies. A huge amount of data is held by the MBA and curated phenomenally well, led by Dan Lear, and now includes the massive dataset of the CPR Survey. A key event earlier in the year had been the merger of SAHFOS into the MBA, increasing the organisation by a third and Professor Wilson welcomed the CPR Survey as it is now known. Professor Wilson informed the meeting he felt privileged to become Director of the MBA and a large part of the work over the last 7½ months had included the development of an Institutional Strategy entitled Pathway to 150 Years of the MBA. The MBA is an entrepreneurial organisation and this will continue. The vision is for a cross-cutting message on modernisation and a focus on the cutting edge research using all the modern tools. In essence, an organisation driven by cutting-edge, curiosity-driven marine biology research underpinned by world-class (1) Learned Society (2) Education and (3) (long term) Data Services. The Director ended his talk by outlining the opportunity that has been presented for significant refurbishment to the MBA. This is in the form of a Marine Microbiome Centre of Excellence and alongside a significant grant from NERC, MBA Council has agreed to let him move forward with the planning of a larger project up to £10m 2 including a Business Plan for presentation to Council in April. The Infrastructure Group is working with Burwell Architects and the timescale will depend on how successful the fundraising is but will likely take at least 2-3 years. Mr Chris George asked what is being done within the science community regarding climate change. In response Professor Wilson said that whilst marine plastics is very much in the forefront at present, environmental change is a core part of the MBA’s Strategy seeking solutions to the impact and climate change has indeed not been forgotten. The message is still getting across through advice to the Government by Members, educational programmes and the work we do with Young Marine Biologists all give strength to what the Association does. The Chair pointed out that an electronic copy of the Annual Report 2017-18 had been made available to Members and hard copies were available at the meeting. The format has changed and extra help has gone into doing this and it is likely to change again next year. The adoption of the Annual Report 2017-18 was proposed by Mr Bob Mills, seconded by Dr Keith Hiscock, and agreed unanimously by a show of hands. 3. Financial Report. The Balance Sheet and Statement of Income and Expenditure for 1st April 2016 to 31st March 2017. The final audited accounts had been circulated electronically prior to the meeting on 5 November 2018 and hard copies were available at the meeting. Mrs Pam Tuckett, Bishop Fleming Auditor, gave an overview of the financial activities incorporating income and expenditure account and the balance sheet. The income has increased by £630k, mainly under the charitable activities, a large element of which is grant income, and a large part of this is the NERC merger grant.