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GRAND HYATT

WASHINGTON, DC

After a continental breakfast, the steering committee meeting was called to order at

7:00 AM by the Secretary-General, Guenter Grethe, with a welcome to all attendees, who are listed at the end of the minutes.

The minutes of the previous meeting held in San Francisco were approved as presented by Graham Swift who replaced Anna Wilson as secretary-treasurer after that meeting.

Anna Wilson presented her final treasurer’s report showing a balance of $8288.21, which did not include the late bills that have not yet come in from the Spring Meeting in San Francisco. Anna will close out these final payments and transfer the books to Graham Swift early in 2001.

The B. Tech. web page is on line, thanks to Andy Berks, and all were encouraged to visit the site. It will be a source of the minutes of this and all future meetings, the treasurer’s report and the agenda for the next meeting. Andy will investigate the reason that the minutes, etc. from the previous meeting, San Francisco, were not displayed.

Guenter gave a report on the guidelines for the formation, operation, and dissolution of Secretariats. This was included in a handout to everyone present. A copy can be made available to anyone who is interested and missed the meeting. Some key points were:

• Secretariat has programming rights not just coordination.
• Division sponsored program may be done within that division.
• Division gets attendee allocations from co-sponsoring within Secretariat.
• Divisions can get more space by cosponsoring.

Guenter discussed the next programming for San Diego, in the spring of 2001. He is organizing a symposium "Biotechnology Information: Bioinformatics, Receptors, and Combinatorial Chemistry". He has wide ACS support with 13 of 18 divisions participating in the program. A complete listing is on the web page. At the time of the meeting, no decision had been taken on the use of plenary lecturers.

The meeting in 2002 will be in Boston in the fall rather than Orlando in the spring because of the better location of the former for the theme "Biotechnology for a Sustainable Environment". Dave Kaplan, Graham Swift, Steve Goodwin, and Allan Russell are the organizers. Dave is the lead organizer and will attend the P2C2 meeting in 2001. Plans are just getting underway and a more detailed report will be presented in San Diego.

Planning for 2003 in the spring in New Orleans is underway and, after much discussion, the subject of the program was tentatively set as "Biotechnology in the Service of Health". Sharon Vercellotti will be the program chair and is looking for co-chairs. Sharon is based in New Orleans and is president-elect of the Small Chemical Businesses Division (SCHB) of the ACS. Graham Swift will send out notification of the meeting to all the member divisions of the Secretariat.

The 2004 ACS meetings are in Anaheim in the spring and Philadelphia in the fall. In the discussions on the location for the Secretariat’s programming, Philadelphia came out slightly ahead but no firm decision was taken at this meeting. We will revisit and decide at the San Diego meeting. Potential topics aired included pharmaceuticals, Bioinformatics, marine biotechnology, and genomics and proteonomics.

Sharon Shoemaker gave a brief summary of her experiences with her programming in San Francisco:

• Separates are good for the program.
• Separates must be better planned to include all information and themes of program as well as program.
• Plenaries are probably worth video recording and ACS is looking into this.
• Location of the meeting rooms is critical for success—close to sponsoring divisions.
• Do not add programs late-early planning better.
• Pay attention to interaction with ACS programming.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 AM.

Respectfully,

Graham Swift

Secretary-Treasurer

Attendees:

Andrew Berks (CINF), William Greenlee (MEDI), Fred Heineken (BIOT), Lisa Nash (PETR), Graham Swift (PMSE), Michael Trehy (ENVR), Kathryn Uhrich (POLY), Kevin Edgar(CELL), William Woodruff (BIOT), Sharon Vercellotti (SCHB), Stan Hall (ORGN), Julie Smist (CHED)