In attendance: Allen Pope, Gerlis Fugmann, Mariette Wheeler, Suhas Shetye, Angelika Renner, Yulia Zaika

On the 27 September, the ExCom of the 2010/2011-term met for the last time before the transition. It was a pleasure to start the call with the introduction of 8 new council members  who used the opportunity to present themselves and ask questions. The ExCom was also pleased to welcome back the council members of the 2010/2011-term who expressed their interest to stay on for the next term, and we are looking forward to work with this new, energetic, and with almost 40 members largest ever APECS council!

The results of the web posting competition were evaluated and it was decided to give the 1st prize to Jenny Fisher who topped the list with amazing 126 contributions to the APECS website in the past half year! The 2nd prize goes to Ciara Sebastian. Congratulations to both and many thanks for your great work! The competition will be started again soon, so stay tuned and keep posting!

In Attendance: Allen Pope, Geli Renner, Gerlis Fugman, Jenny Baeseman, Mariëtte Wheeler, Suhas Shetye

The 2010-2011 ExCom got a chance to have its second meeting of our term. The meeting focused on making sure all ExCom members are getting up to speed on current and upcoming APECS activities and what the regularly occurring responsibilities of ExCom members are. All current working groups have been paired up with ExCom members. We are in the process of pairing up Council members with the ExCom, too. In the coming weeks, ExCom members will be developing our priorities for the coming year. As always, feel free to contact us to ask questions about APECS or tell us where you want the organization to go!

In Attendance: Jenny/Allen/Gerlis/Geli/Mariëtte/Suhas

The Excom will all be gathering in Cambridge, England on 12 to 15 November for an in-person meeting. The final travel arrangements for the meeting was discussed.

All Excom members have been hard at work on the website, recruiting new members, networking with their assigned Council members and planning events.

During the meeting, we all worked together on finalising the Excom priorities for 2010–2011. We specifically focused on:

• potential ways of advertising
• report/s for funders
• potential peer-reviewed papers on APECS activities and successes
• benefits from partnerships with other organisations
• the website
• responsibilities towards working groups

We will be, amongst other things, discussing the strategic plan for APECS for the coming years in Cambridge.

Present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Gerlis Fugmann, Jenny Baeseman, Mariëtte Wheeler, Suhas Shetye

The APECS Executive Committee 2010/2011 met for the first time in person last weekend at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, UK. As a warm up, we discussed how to move the research activities of APECS forward with a potential restructuring within the Council to streamline the process and make things less complicated. We also approved a new Working Group on sediment budgets. After finalising the list of priorities for the 2010/2011 ExCom, we distributed the associated tasks to accomplish these goals. The strategic plan for APECS for the next few years is almost finalised and we will work in the coming months on its implementation. To attract new members, we have to continue advertising and will thus further develop our advertising strategy and look into the potential of APECS merchandise. Look out for those lapel pins!

Jenny will tackle the huge job of writing down our institutional knowledge to make any future transitions easier. Continuing with the theme of writing, there will be a concentrated effort to produce APECS publications in scientific peer-reviewed journals. We also created a rather long wish list of improvements for the website.

We were also very fortunate to be joined by some APECS mentors. On Sunday, Paul and Julie Berkman met up with us to discuss potential contributions to Antarctica Day (1st December). On Monday, we visited the British Antarctic Survey where Alan Rodger greeted us with a very thought provoking discussion on how to positively communicate climate change as well as the possible impacts of climate change in the polar regions on the residents in the tropical regions. Cynan Ellis-Evans and Nicola Munro updated us on UK Arctic activities and provided advice on international opportunities. They also emphasised the need for collaborative research work among various countries in the Polar regions to utilise resources better and avoid duplication. In the afternoon, we met with Mike Sparrow and Renuka Badhe at the SCAR office to discuss collaborations for 2011.

The weekend was incredibly helpful to get to know each other better, to discuss our ideas and the work and challenges for this year’s ExCom, and of course to celebrate Jenny’s birthday! Many thanks go to the South African National Antarctic Programme (through the South African National Research Foundation), the National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean Research (NCAOR) India and the Norwegian Polar Institute who contributed financially and made the travels possible, SCAR for a very nice dinner and their continuing support, the British Antarctic Survey for an insightful Monday morning, and the Scott Polar Research Institute for the use of their facilities.

The APECS Executive Committee had an online call using Skype on 30 November 2010. We discussed ongoing activities such as the Arctic Frontiers Conference, Webinars, Workshop for IUGG, UKPN Science Communication workshop, Symposium on Ice Sheets, and ASSW workshop. We also approved a new Funding Bodies Working Group. We discussed our advertising strategy to attract new members and the list of items that should be included in our advertising package. We also agreed to purchase an ACY Mailing component for the APECS website to build automated newsletters. In addition, we discussed the APECS 2-year Annual Report and paper writing work on APECS events and achievements.

We were also joined for part of the call by new Council applicant Nikolas Sellheim, as well as Council chair Silje Kristin Jensen. Nikolas agreed to act as an individual and an official representative of the University of the Arctic on the APECS Council. We approved Nikolas Sellheim’s application for joining the council.

In attendance: Allen P, Jenny B, Mariëtte W, Gerlis F, and Suhas S. (Geli R very briefly)

The ExCom met for our last meeting of 2010 on 9 December. Our first discussion centered on proposed changes to the Council charter in order to streamline the complementary activities of the Council and the RAC. ExCom members will make an effort to attend both RAC and Council calls next week to make sure we reach the best solution. We then moved on to updates from working groups, ongoing projects, and Council members. The Council is up to a lot of exciting things, like organizing an APECS Brazil workshop, posting interesting jobs and news items, participating in online outreach calls, sending back photos from fieldwork to classrooms, and putting together workshops at conferences in the USA, Norway, Australia and Korea! Other projects which deserve mention are the active posting of the “Who’s Who in Polar Science” group and the tremendously successful webinars, while the “Climate Change in Multiple Languages” and “Field Sites” groups have been working behind the scenes. Lookout for more from them in the coming year.

Further discussion moved onto edits to making a package to help raise funds for APECS which will be produced in early 2011. If you have a quick quote about how APECS has helped your career, we’d love to hear it.

With that, the ExCom meeting was adjourned. Best wishes to all those travelling during the holiday season and attending AGU!

In attendance: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Gerlis Fugmann, Suhas Shetye, Mariëtte Wheeler, Jenny Baeseman

Guests: Silje-Kristin Jensen, Jennifer Provencher

The ExCom met for its first meeting after the Christmas and New Year break. After some updates regarding the activities of the ExCom members, the discussion focused on the new draft Council Charter. Council members had sent in their comments in the last few weeks and the draft seems to be finalized now. We therefore discussed the timeline for the vote on the draft Council Charter. So watch out Council members for updates!
We also discussed the reports that the Council members had sent in about their recent activities and were very happy about the results. A summary of the reports will be posted on the website to showcase the amazing activities that the Council members are currently involved in and to encourage new members to get active. The ExCom also discussed options for increasing the amount of contributions to the APECS website. Another longer discussion focused on the new advertising and sponsorship strategy for APECS, which the ExCom had been working on recently.
Jennifer Provencher, the project assistant for the International Council for Science (ICSU) funded International Polar Year Education and Outreach Assessment Project that APECS is involved in together with the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), gave us a short update on the project and the current IPY EOC Survey, which you can all follow at http://apecs.is/education-outreach/ipy-outreach-assessment.

In attendance: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Gerlis Fugmann, Mariette Wheeler, Suhas Shetye, Jenny Baeseman

The ExCom met on 7th February 2011 for their second meeting of the year. After some updates regarding the activities of the ExCom members (web updates, moving forwards working groups, events in progress, etc.), the discussion focused on the funding package on which the ExCom had been working on recently. We decided to approach some APECS advisors for their critical comments and feedback.

To increase the amount of contributions to the APECS website we will be announcing a prize rewarding active posting of content. It was decided to put this into action soon - so watch out APECS members for our announcement!

Present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Gerlis Fugman, Mariette Wheeler, Suhas Shetye

For the first time in quite a while, the ExCom met without Jenny since she was still somewhere between Antarctica and Tromsø. Although we definitely missed her input, there was a lot to discuss.

The updates from the ExCom members showed that there is a lot of APECS activity, especially regarding cooperation with our partner organisations, panels and workshops at meetings, work in national committees, and in the APECS Working Groups. If you wonder how to get involved yourself, the Funding Resources WG and the Field Sites WG are looking for members!

We are continuing the work on our fund raising strategy and the strengthening of links to other scientific organisations. There are a lot of exciting ideas for APECS events during 2011 and 2012, so stay tuned for news!

The APECS ExCom recently met again, this time with input from multiple Council and Working Group members as well. We discussed the status of ongoing projects like the field sites group, IPY E&O Assessment, and the exciting new ‘Discipline of the Month’ initiative of the RAC. Other updates include APECS India activities on Earth Day, APECS representation at EGU and an IPD development meeting, and planning for the Montreal 2012 conference. If APECS members are looking for an exciting way to get involved in a dynamic conference, we’ll be looking for people to help with APECS activities at Arctic Frontiers 2012 before too long. As always, contact us with questions, comments, or concerns!