Section Representative Report - National Meeting
Illinois Section of AAPT
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Syracuse, New York

Ann Brandon

Randy Peterson called the meeting to order at 6:35 pm. Randy passed around two sign in sheets. One of them contained the usual request for presiders at Seattle, the other had questions about the last Section meeting.

The minutes of the Anchorage, Alaska meeting were approved as corrected.

Valerie Evans passed out 3-Ring Binders to each Section Rep. The Binders contain everything a Section Rep ever wanted to know, as well as everything AAPT knows about the Section. In the back is an envelope of Member recruitment materials, as well as forms for requesting mailing labels, and “The Box” for Section meetings.

Randy detailed the Responsibilities of Section Representatives.
  1.  Attend the Section Officers Exchange and Section Representatives meetings at the Summer and Winter meetings.
  2.  Attend the Council meeting at the Winter meeting.
  3.  Communicate the current section officers list to AAPT. email to memb@aapt.org
  4.  Send in a yearly report on the activities of the Section. This can be in the form of a report to the Section News of the
            Announcer.
Note: Your section must have sent in the current officers list and a report of activities for you to get reimbursement for the Winter meeting.

Alan Gibson detailed benefits to the Sections from AAPT.
  1.  There are grants of up to $500 per topic for Section meetings on Teacher Prep, State Standards and Teacher Certification.
  2.  There is a budget for National officers to come to section meetings.
  3.  Publications will have a new High School document by fall as well as a NEW TEACHER manual. They should both be
       available in print, and on comPadre ( in “The Physics Front”). The NEW TEACHER manual will include lesson plans, how to
       do, and where to find information.

Randy introduced Bernie Khoury, the AAPT Executive Officer. Bernie announced that Toufic Hakim will be the new Executive Officer beginning in September. Toufic has a BA and PhD in Physics. He has been the head of Undergraduate Research of APS and responsible for increasing the research activities in his university.

Bernie will continue to work as Executive Officer emeritus for 1 year. His focus will be in four areas.
  1.  A systemic fund raising effort to endow the National Awards. We spend about $50,000 per year on these,
            including the meeting expenses of the winners and the awards themselves.
  2.  Physics for All – Every student should be exposed to Physics.
  3.  with Toufic Hakim to work more closely with the Sections.
  4.  with Toufic and the area committees to set priorities for the Association.

Randy introduced Marie Elena Khoury from the AAPT office. Marie Elena reported on the International Physics Olympiad in Singapore. Our five students received 4 Gold and 1 Silver medal. Overall we were 2nd in the world! (China was 1st) More than 8000 students entered the Physics Bowl. The top student also participated in the International Olympiad and received a Gold medal for Canada. His teacher attended the PTRA activities last week. Both of them will be here this week.

New Business:

Ken Heller, AAPT President, presented a draft of Criteria for selecting future meeting sites. Discussion included: Family friendly sites are more important for summer meetings. What is a hub? We need to define it more specifically. Will we repeat locations? Do we have data for past meetings to support these criteria? We have numbers data, not quality data. What is the minimum # of local help needed for a site to be selected? Are these criteria written in stone? Must a site fulfill all of the criteria to be selected? Is the problem equal at Summer and Winter meetings?

Ken: It seems to be more the location than Summer/Winter.

Bernie: These criteria are driven by the desire to have more people at the meetings.

Ken: What is the value of membership in AAPT? If it is only the journal – we have a problem as journals go electronic. We need to increase value for members. We want the meetings to be of value to more members.

Randy: We have several joint meetings scheduled in the future. Seattle will be joint with the AAS( the Astronomical Society). We will join the AAAS in Feb 2009 in Chicago, and the APS in Feb 2010 in DC.

Randy introduced Warren Hein. Warren referred to the Handbook given to the Section Reps.
 1. “The Box” form is IIIc.
 2. Mailing labels do not include those who have opted out of mail from AAPT. The office is looking for a reference to the AAPT web site so that “no mail” could be more fully explained before members opt for “no mail”.
 3. The membership recruitment envelope includes a 6 month free membership form for new members. This membership is only open to members of the Sections who have never been members of AAPT. The 6 month free membership would include an electronic subscription to one journal. The 6 months would be followed by a 1 year ½ price membership, and then full price.
 4. AAPT is willing to host local section list serves, as long as the section can provide a local editor. AAPT could automatically add new national members to our list serve.
 5. Tax exempt status: 501C3 There is a way for a local AAPT section to take advantage of the National’s tax exempt status. Contact the office for details.

Alan Gibson, Lila Adair, Steve Iona, Harvey Leff, Bernie Khoury and Karen Johnston presented a report of the June 2006 Planning Retreat. Karen thanked everyone who emailed a response before the retreat.
Steve: This was a different kind of retreat. It was to raise questions, not establish the path to be taken.
Alan: How do we make sure we provide service to those we represent?
The major outcome of the retreat is an Action Planning Group to develop short term, medium term and long term plans for AAPT.

Randy: Nominating Committee. Two or our Section Reps Nominating Committee members are no longer section reps. Paul Robinson, NCal-Nevada, is the only remaining member. We need 2 new committee members. Larry Bader (Ohio) and Steve Iona(Colorado-Wyoming) were nominated, and seconded. Nominations were closed. They were elected by acclamation.

John Fitzgibbons moved “We thank Bernie Khoury for his 16 years of service to AAPT”. It was seconded, and passed.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 pm.

Submitted by Ann Brandon, Secretary