Meeting Notes

The ExCom had another meeting on 12 March 2015 with Jenn, JS, Heather, Ruth, Tristy and Gerlis in atttendance On the agenda were discussions of plans for Directorate funding after the current funding period ends at the end of 2016. We also discussed current funding applications that we are involved in and brainstormed potential future funding calls to apply to.  The second agenda item was an update regarding the plans for the APECS World Summit. The event is coming together nicely and the organizers were happy about additional funding that was approved. About 60 people will currently come together and we will open up more spaces for other APECS members if they bring their own funding. An announcement will be send out in the next week to the APECS membership. For the rest of the call, the ExCom discussed the process of the agreements with our National Committees. And of course a reminder to fill out the APECS Review survey as part of the APECS organizational review!

The annual term transition is an exciting period for APECS! On September 29th, the Excom held its transition call, where the out going excom members pass on their advice and reflection to the newly elected excom members who will be taking on excom responsibilities for the next term. The new excom got right down to business to elect a president, discuss work flow strategies, and determine when and where to hold the 2 day in-person meeting. The whole excom meets only once a year, typically early in the term, to create a strategic plan and discuss project priorities for the year- and most importantly get to know each other!

A huge thank you for the hard work and dedication to 2013- 2014 excom: Christie Logvinova, Frigga Kruse, Russell Fielding, Jean-Sebastian Moore, Iglinka Trifonova

Leading APECS for the 2014-2015 term are: Jean-Sebastian Moore as predident; Tristy Vick-Majors, Ruth Hindshaw, Heather Mariash, and Ivan Dubinenkov as vice presidents. Meet the new Excom here. Bringing years of experience, Jennifer Provencher and Yulia Zaika will continue to mentor the new team as ex-officos. 

Another Excom term is coming to its successful conclusion! On September 24, 2014, we had our last Skype call. Our agenda was headed by making decisions regarding the composition of the Council for the next term. The vote on new Excom and Council members is taking place this week, and the results will be announced next week. Meanwhile, the outgoing Excom provided updates on a few current and upcoming APECS activities and discussed any transitional items that needed to be passed on to our new leaders. A closing reflection on the term of 2014/15 was on the whole very positive. Your outgoing Excom has enjoyed the steep learning and would like to give our heartfelt thanks to everyone involved with the countless APECS activities of last year. If you are as of yet a spectator, do not hesitate to become active and make the most of the APECS experience. We know what we are talking about!

An Excom call took place on May 8, 2014. There were only two agenda items, which nonetheless made for a lively meeting. (i) Gerlis provided a website update. The good news is that the website is stable and posting may happily resume (this item being a case in point). (ii) The Excom decided on several main questions arising from the draft Strategic Plan that will be brought up for discussion at the Council call later in May.

The ExCom had another productive bi-weekly meeting on March 11th, 2014. First of all, we were very happy to welcome the new APECS Council co-chair, Heather Mariash. Heather has been involved in APECS for many years, most importantly as part of the RAC. She is bringing her experience and dedication to the service of the council, and we are looking forward to work with her.

During the meeting we also discussed several new exciting projects and opportunities. First, APECS Brazil, one of our very active national committee, is organizing a career development workshop in September. We are excited that our ExCom President, Christie Logvinova, will be joining them for the workshop to tell them a bit more about APECS. Second, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) is offereing APECS members an amazing opportunity to participate in the writing of a series of documents titled Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic. The ExCom briefly discussed the application process that we will use to select candidates. Keep your eyes open for announcments regarding this cool opportunity soon!

The APECS ExCom had another productive meeting on February 28th, 2014. Major topics dicussed were how the APECS council, the APECS Membership Involvement Committee and the APECS Education and Outreach Committee can engage more members and work better together.

Polar week is also fast approaching with lots going on. You can view what events are being held around the world here, and see a map of the events here. Don't forget the share your own event and launch a virtual balloon for Polar Week, March 15 to 22, 2014!

During the first Skype call since the Excom In-Person meeting in Tromsø in January, we discussed the following items in no particular order: 1) APECS' support of the FOSTER project; 2) the activities of our Council members; 3) the newsletter; 4) the upcoming Polar Week in March; 5) any outstanding tasks from the IP meeting; and 6) general updates from the Excom members.

FOSTER stands for Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research. Their training events are open access, open data, and open science, and they asked for APECS' input into a call for events or activities to be hosted in the second half of 2014. Another call later in this year will look at an opportunity in the first half of 2015.

The Council chair Mika Laiho has been working on the Council's quarterly report and the Excom is looking forward to the results. In the meantime, the Council will advertise for a Council Co-chair as well as a MIC co-chair. In addition, the Council welcomes open applications from any APECS member throughout the year.

The Excom is in favour of issuing the APECS Newsletter on a quarterly basis. Adam Naito is mostly in charge of producing it and a quarterly issue is expected to decrease his workload while increasing its quality.

The Polar Weeks centred around the equinoxes in March and September as well as Antarctica Day on December 1 should be fixed and highly visible features on the APECS calendar. APECS International is represented by the wide an varied activities of the EOC (Education, Outreach and Communication Committee) sub-committee. Furthermore, we try to coordinate our activities firstly with what PEI (Polar Educators International) are doing and with what our many National Committees have planned. APECS also endeavours to reach and encourage enthusiastic individuals, through the MIC (Membership and Involvement Committee) , to become active at their institute or their university.

The minutes from the IP Meeting have now been compiled. The action items will be updated at the next Skype call. Excom members were reminded to brief the group on their activities before each new call. The next call will be on February 28.

The APECS Excom in-person meeting (Tromsø, Norway; January 17-18, 2014) did more than it said on the tin: it not only provided the five of us with a chance to finally meet in person; we were also joined by our Director and our three ex-officio members!

After having spent a first industrious day at the University of Tromsø, we were kindly hosted by the Director of the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project Jenny Baeseman and her family on the second day. Add any number of visitors, and it was a full-house indeed. Thank you, Jenny!

True to form, our agenda was equally packed. We carefully evaluated various ongoing APECS activities: what was going well and what was in need of adjustments. A look at our Council, our sub-committees, and our working groups showed that we are on top of our priorities for 2013/14. Thanks to the hard work of the previous ExCom to secure funding for the directorate, we even dared to say that our workload was overseeable – even enjoyable!

Pressing matters that are now being tackled are the APECS Strategic Plan 2014-17 as well as the relationship of APECS International with its National Committees and their respective partners. Such matters serve to remind us that as we grow as an organisation, new and exciting situations continuously arise. We are proud of our National Committees and we hope that long-lasting and fruitful partnerships will come out of it.

On that note, our ExCom meeting also provided the chance for several side-meetings with some of our APECS partner organisations: Jenny Baeseman of said Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project discussed which direction our cooperation could take; and Charles Fierz, President of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) is very much looking forward to a collaboration that will motivate more early-career alpine scientists to join APECS and benefit from the membership. Furthermore, we met with representatives from the University of the Arctic (UArctic), with whom we share our field schools and graduate programs catalogue and whose student ambassadors very much look forward to some joint events in the near future.

Thanks to the in-person meeting, your APECS Excom feels confident and invigorated and cannot wait to engage on the tasks of a 'cool' 2014.

The APCES Executive Committee had another busy meeting on December 16th 2013.

One important item on the agenda was the discussion of proposals that APECS is submitting as part of the proposal call for the Third International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP III). This is an important opportunity for APECS to be present at a conference where the future directions of Arctic research will be discussed. Most important will be a workshop that APECS wants to organize as part of the conference to increase the involvement of early career researchers.

We also discussed the new look of our monthly Newsletter! Thanks to Adam and Anton for working on this beuatiful design.

Finally, we discussed the involvment of APECS members is many conferences and events all over the world (Arctic Frontiers in Tromso in 2014, the Economist Arctic Summit in London in 2014, ArcticNet in Halifax in 2013, etc.)!

The APECS ExCom had another meeting on December 4th, 2013. Many items were covered including some up coming grant proposals (i.e. the Norden Project). One topic that has been much discussed amongst the ExCom lately has been the groeth of numerous National Committees.

Although several national committees are long established and very active (i.e. the UKPN) others are relatively newly formed (i.e. APECS Bulgaria). Similarly, some National Committees are quite small in numbers with less than 30 members (i.e. APECS Portugal), other groups number in the hundreds with leadrship boards of 20+ people (i.e. APECS Canada). While many national committees are fully functional under a informal leadership structure (i.e. APECS US NorthEast) others are moving towards highly structured formalization as recognised independent organizations (i.e. APECS France), which allows them to apply for external funding. And some countries have joined together to create more regional groups (i.e. APECS Benelux - Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg). With all this diversity the APECS leadership is working hard to make sure that all the different groups are supported and connected with APECS International.

The ExCom 2013-2014 met online for the second time this term on November 6, 2013. The main item on the agenda was the APECS 2013-2014 Priorities document. In a mammoth two-and-a-half-hour effort, President Christie Logvinova (Wood) led us through the list of priorities and we diligently discussed and adjusted the strategies to accomplish these.

Some major points of discussion were the nurture and expansion of our partnerships with other institutions and organisations; the encouragement of community website use and website development; and the support of current Workings Groups and the formation of new ones.

The new ExCom for the 2013-2014 term met for the first official meeting on October 18th, 2013. Discussions invovled getting everyone up to date on the current working groups, open council positions, and the upcoming first council call of the year.

A major discussion point was also how APECS handles being asked to sign on to letters, petitions, movements etc by other groups. The APECS leadership agreed that for APECS to sign on to any form of support the wording and context must be in line with our own organization and membership values. Our leadership will continue to uphold the integrity and respect with which APECS was founded upon and continues to act in accordance with.

We again thank Bredbåndsfylket for their continuted support of us and the GoToMeeting system.

On October 3rd, 2013 APECS entered yet another new term with the handing over of the APECS leadership from one ExCom to another. Both the outgoing and in the incoming ExComs gathered on the GoToMeeting system to talk about lessons learned, projects underway and plans for the future.

The outgoing ExCom shared their experiences on the ExCom. Many talked about the great experiences being on the ExCom brought to them. The new ExCom also had lots of questions, especially with regards to time management, work flow strategies, and how to handle the flow of emails that ExCom members experience.

Once all questions for the outgoing ExCom were addressed the ourgoing members left the call and the incoming members got down to business. A new president was elected. The priorities for the year were discussed. Plan are already underway for in an inperson meeting, but as always there is never enough time to cover everything so council and chair position details were scheduled for another call to happen the following week. Stay tuned here for more details!

The APECS ExCom held a meeting on July 17, 2013. Although attendance was small the ExCom made sure that the group was staying up to date on all tasks at hand, even during the slow northern summer period. Ongoing website issues and finalizing the hiring of the new director were top discussion points.

Also, the upcoming APECS ExCom elections for next year were discussed. We hope to see many applications in the coming weeks, and look forward to another great election season in September!

The Executive Committee met to discuss last updates as well as upcoming matters. ExCom agreed on a comprehensive web-site upgrade to be done in the next few weeks, which will increase its functionality and speed. Soon after that, APECS will undertake an advertising campaign to update polar community (through mailing lists such as Cryolist, ArcticInfo, and APECS network of members and mentors) on numerous great activities that are happening within APECS. This will be accomplished in line with a development of a new section "Where are they now?" for the APECS web-site. With this new idea we will highlight successful stories of past APECS leaders and active members. ExCom got back to an idea of arranging a special issue on Polar Education and Outreach to be published in 2014, which will be elaborated soon. Potential synergies between APECS and INTERACT were discussed and considered to be promising. Ideas for a joint APECS-EGEA-PYRN workshop on Svalbard in spring 2014 are in the air so if you are interested in its planning and organizing, please contact ExCom for further details.

The ExCom met again this month to discuss upcoming matters. The upcoming Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) meeting and workshop in Poland were a highlight of the meeting as we are getting ready for a few great events. The ExCom is also focusing efforts on increasing the speed of the website, and making sure it is functional. We know that the website plays a key role in how our members comunicate and learn about events, so we want to make sure that it is running optimally. Plans are also underway for planning upcoming events, so if you are attending a conference in the coming months, make sure to include an APECS panel or meetup in your schedule.

The APECS Executive Committee held our most recent meeting on 31 January, 2013 at 20:00 GMT. Attendees included Alexey Pavlov, Allen Pope, Christie Logvinova (Wood), Gerlis Fugmann, Heather Mariash, Ines Tavernier, Jennifer Provencher, Penny Wagner, Sanna Majaneva, and Yulia Zaika. The recent Council reports were discussed, and we look forward to continued enthusiasm and action from the Council; the final report was recently published. Yulia moved forward plans for a new APECS Store. Proposals to fund new initiatives and the Directorate were discussed. Not currently funded is the career development webinar series, and the ExCom is looking into solutions to continue this program to best serve APECS members. The ExCom finished up by considering some of APECS' current partnerships and partner events to best bring opportunities and resources to APECS members.

The APECS ExCom met for the first time in 2013 on January 2013. As we move into the new year the ExCom is working on some exciting granting proposals and ideas that we hope will bring even more great resouces and projects to our members and partners. Keep tuned to hear more about the upcoming projects. The ExCom is also planning for upcoming events at workshops and conferences, so if you are planning on attending any meetings don't forget that an APECS event is a great way to connect with others in the your, and meet new people!

The APECS ExCom had their last meeting of the year on December 19, 2012. Upcoming meetings were discussed with Arctic Frontiers, the Arctic Science Summit Week and the AMAP Ocean Acidification meeting all coming up in the New Year. The ExCom also discussed ongoing maintenance of the website, databases and the plan of turning APECS webinars into podcasts. Look for these in the New Year!

The new APECS Executive Committee got together on the 9th of October to formally elect the President (Penelope Wagner) and discuss other matters. In addition to setting the wheels in motion for the 2012-2013 term, ExCom members also discussed upcoming in-person meeting plans, new applicants to the Council, partnership and joint activities with AMAP, CliC and CAFF and other arising issues. We congratulate Penelope and look forward to attacking our now more concrete tasks.

The ExCom met again on September 19th. Although the group was a little reduced due to family emergencies, it was a very productive call. The 2011-2012 ExCom has had a lot on their plates this year, and there is still a lot that we want to get done before we hand over the reigns to the next ExCom! Discussion points included future support of the Directorate in Tromsø, collaboration with the High North Academy on webinars and website resources, a developing application to a seat on the Arctic Council, extension of various agreements that provide support for the APECS website and APECS webinars, APECS letters of support to collaborator projects, planning of a few future APECS events, and of course getting the wheels in motion to make sure that the imminent transition goes smoothly.

As always, we encourage all those interested in the Council and ExCom to let us know, and we will be happy to include you in our discussions and meetings when possible. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, you can always reach us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The recent Executive Committee meeting (held 8 May, 2012) followed up on many in-person discussions at the Montreal IPY 2012 conference. As the first meeting which included our newly-appointed Director, Alexey Pavlov, much of the discussion focused on the all-important topic of transitioning over this role. We talked about everything from managing email lists and workflow to managing budgets and developing Memorada of Understanding. Alexey is enthusiastic in taking on the Directorship, and while currently dedicated to fulfilling his research role, is looking forward to moving to Tromsø in early June.

Projects that the ExCom is currently working include an APECS Merchandise store, developing a 5-year strategic plan with our new Director, supporting upcoming APECS events (in Portland, Lahti, Fairbanks, and more!), and formalizing our video sharing policy.

As always, if you have any comments or questions for the ExCom, please do email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Jennifer Provencher, Gerlis Fugmann, Luís Guilherme Resende de Assis, Inga May, Julia Schmale, Tosca Ballerini, Yulia Zaika

APECS ExCom met together again on the 14th of March via Skype to discuss some of the strategic issues. Council and RAC Co-Chairs joined the Call to make great inputs and discuss particular points. ExCom has discussed autumn APECS activities and plans for career development webinars and virtual poster sessions with our partners - High North Academy and Fram Center based in Tromso. Some particular issues on how to use our new webconferencing system effectively rose lately due to growing number of APECS online events. We agreed to use the Google Doc - https://docs.google.com/a/apecs.is/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmryhLHk-YERdHBHTUtWc1FlTUtENGRFZWdSZWRZaWc#gid=0 to keep track of our events and make sure that we have more detailed instructions for all our members to avoid any concurrent meetings. Julia Schmale presented the idea to work on Encyclopedia of Antarctica. ExCom decided to announce this opportunity to the entire APECS membership and follow up with individual members. Current Council activity as it follows from mid-term Council Report shows that almost all Council members are very active and enthhusiastic but some of them decided to step down from the Council. In the mid of March the mid-term elections for RAC chairs will be organized.
APECS ExCom is working on longterm Strategic Plan for APECS activities and it was decided to have this plan as one of the points of agenda for the upcoming Council Meeting in Montreal this April. All the contributions from APECS members are very welcome.

As always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

And just to remind you - any of the APECS members are welcome to participate in ExCom Calls.

As young researchers, we are constantly thinking about the next step in our careers, and the recent ExCom meeting focused on the future of APECS on many timescales. In the near future, we are making sure that everything is running smoothly in the planning of upcoming APECS events (like IPY 2012 in Montreal, a workshop at the SCAR conference in Portland, and an APECS Norge Board Meeting) as well as progress in the website realignment project. Slightly more into the future, we addressed plans for current grant proposals APECS has submitted to support activities like webinars and the virtual poster session. And further into the future, with a new Director in mind, the ExCom has started to make progress on putting together an APECS Strategic Plan for the upcoming years. The ExCom was also especially happy to have RAC Chair Julia Schmale join the call and provide some wonderful insight and advice.

As always, if you have any input/comments/questions/concerns for the ExCom or want to get more involved with APECS, please do contact us.

ExCom Meeting Details:
27 February, 2012 at 1700 GMT
Hosted on Skype

Attendees:
Allen Pope (note-taker), Angelika Renner, Jenny Baeseman, Julia Schmale, Yulia Zaika, and Gerlis Fugmann (except when discussing director interviews)

Apologies:
Jennifer Provencher
Luis Guillerme de Assis on leave of absence

Present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Jennifer Provencher, Jenny Baeseman (Director), Luís Guilherme Resende de Assis, and Yulia Zaika (President)

The APECS Executive Committee 2011/2012 met for the first time in person two weeks ago in the city of Tromsø. The ExCom heads up APECS through leading action, strategy, and decision-making within APECS. Accordingly, the meeting days focused on planning for the upcoming APECS Director transition period as well as the future growth of APECS. This included many discussions about institutional knowledge transfer, hiring schedules, job descriptions, costs to be incurred, strategic plans, and many other administrative considerations. It might not all sound like an exciting job, but it was good experience for the ExCom members and hopefully will ensure smooth sailing for the rest of APECS in the coming years. And the Northern lights a few nights didn't hurt either!

While in Tromsø, the ExCom also took the opportunity to meet with local partners and advisors including the Arctic Council Secretariat, University of Tromsø administrators, Norwegian Polar Institute, ARCTOS, IASC, the High North Academy, and the APECS Norge Board of Directors. Look out for more collaborations with these folks in the future!

Moving into 2012, the ExCom is really excited that we all got the chance to meet in person! The main takeaway from the meeting is that we want to do all we can to make sure that APECS continues to move both move forwards and innovate. APECS has earned itself a worldwide reputation as THE organization for young polar researchers, and the ExCom will make sure we do all we can to sustain APECS.

In the coming weeks and months we will be posting the resulting job description, policies, and strategy documents and you will see the ideas we came up with turn into action. As always, if you have questions, comments, or want to get involved, just Contact Us!

On 15 December, the APECS Directorate and the ExCom had another online meeting via GoToMeeting system to discuss a number of important issues and test new webconferencing tool.

General gudelines and points about hosts of Directorate, Jenny's leave, the director transition process, financial status and strategy of the organization were discussed. A lot of exciting stuff to be done during the upcoming ExCom In-person Meeting in January in Tromsø: APECS budget, strategic plan, future activities; a lot of important people to meet. January will start with training sessions on GoToWebinar system with VPS, Council and MIC/RAC Chairs.

Present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Jenny Baeseman, Luis Guilherme de Assis, Yulia Zaika
On 29 November, the APECS Directorate and the ExCom had another online skype meeting to discuss the progress of our organization and a number of important details. We have been looking into a new webinar conferencing tool as the agreement with the University of Canterbury is running out – and we are happy to report that we will be using – GoToWebinar for the next year thanks to an in-kind contribution from Bredbandsfylket based in Tromsø, Norway. GoToWebinar is rated as one of the best systems there is currently, and we are sure this will be great for us. We would like to thank Daniela Liggett and the University of Canterbury for letting us use their Adobe Connect system for so many great meetings. To revitalize Education and Outreach Committee we are planning to organize first EOC Call in January and update the mailing list (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). As APECS is growing really fast and now more than 3000 members, we are planning to develop a strategic plan for 5 years which will include main goals, objectives, timelines, financial statements and bullet points for advancing APECS over the next few years. This strategic plan will also include a renewal of the Directorate, currently hosted by the University of Tromsø and that Norwegian Polar Institute until Dec. 2012 On another note, we have been discussing the potential to create an APECS Mentor award and an APECS Educational and Outreach Award to honor the achievements of so many great people. A lot of exciting stuff to be done during the planning and preparing for ExCom In-person meeting in January in Tromsø, Norway and look for more fun things coming your way in regards to the IPY From Knowledge to Action Conference in Montreal this April – including the APECS 5 year Anniversary party!!!

present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Gerlis Fugmann, Jennifer Provencher, Jenny Baeseman, Luis Guilherme de Assis, Tosca Ballerini, Yulia Zaika

It's busy times for APECS and the ExCom, and there was a lot to discuss during the call on 31 October. Again, council co-chair Tosca was able to join and reported back from her chat with the newest council applicant. We are happy to report that the ExCom approved the application and we welcome Pablo Nicolás Núñez Pölcher to the council! During this process we also discovered an unexpected passion of our fabulous director Jenny B for Argentinian purses...

Tackling some organisational issues, the current working groups and potential solutions for our online conferencing system were discussed.

During this term, it is more vital than ever for the ExCom to work on new funding for the directorate, and to this end, the in-person meeting will take place in Tromsø, Norway, on 18-20 January 2012. Until then and in preparation for the meeting, the ExCom is updating and starting to work their way through the list of priorities for the 2011/2012 term.

Attendance: Allen, Geli, Gerlis, Jennipro, Jenny B, Luis, Tosca, & Yulia

The ExCom met on 19 October via skype, and we are happy to report that we are getting to our feet and assigning tasks for the near future and the upcoming rest of the year. Happily, Council Co-Chair Tosca Ballerini was able to attend, too, and can carry back a bit of what an ExCom call is like to the Council. We addressed the scheduling of an upcoming in-person meeting (it's important that the ExCom get to know each other as well as possible, as well as see where our Director works in Tromsø!). The ExCom is also working on spreading the word about APECS (in a partner newsletter as well as an email to newly starting students), we are addressing a potential issue with our online meeting system, and continue to advocate for all active APECS members to be web-proactive. It's going to be a busy year!

present: Allen Pope, Angelika Renner, Gerlis Fugmann, Jennifer Provencher, Jenny Baeseman, Luis Guilherme de Assis, Mariette Wheeler, Suhas Shetye, Yulia Zaika

October is handover time in the APECS leadership and so the outgoing and the incoming ExCom met for a transition call on the 04 October. The old ExCom members shared their best advice and recommendations (communication is key and don't forget to have fun!), and the new ExCom people got a chance to get to know each other and ask their most urgent questions. After that, the key point of the call was the election of the new president for the 2011-2012 term and our congratulations go to Yulia Zaika from Russia who will lead us through the year!

The new ExCom is now busy figuring out how to best work together and coordinate efforts, and gets started on the jobs waiting for them. So stay tuned to hear more from us soon, and as usual, any questions, comments or suggestions, email us as This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.!

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!

We will now get ready for the transition to the new ExCom. The new folks will get started with the transition call on the 4th October. With two of the "old" folks and three new and highly motivated people, this will be another great year for APECS - give them all your support and as always, if there are any questions, suggestions, or comments, get in touch via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.!

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

Guests: Yulia Zaika, Rebeca Guardiola

The APECS ExCom had their meeting at the end of July. The first order of business was to consider some recent council applications – you can read about the new members on the Council page. We also discussed endorsement of an Open Access workshop and the Cool Speakers list. The Polar Graduate Programmes database has been successful in helping young researchers as seen from the thank you emails received by Jenny – but we can always use your help in adding more information! As Allen will be on fieldwork for 3 weeks in August-September, Mariëtte Wheeler will be the acting President in Allen's absence.

As always, please contact the ExCom with any news, suggestions, questions, or points for discussion – and make sure to consider applying for next year's ExCom too!

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

Guests: Silje-Kritin Jensen, Yulia Zaika

After a longer break, due to fieldwork activities and conferences the ExCom had a meeting again on June 30, joined by the Council chair and the co-chair of the Organizational Development Committee (ODC). All ExCom members had been busy with various projects in the last few weeks. Here are just a few of the exciting activities that the ExCom members are involved in right now: helping the various APECS working groups in moving forward (Climate Change Answers WG, Funding Resources WG, Field Sites WG); a successful panel and workshop at ICASS VII in Akureyri, Iceland; planning for early career researcher activities at the IPY 2012 Conference in Montreal; activities with APECS India like a exhibition of photographs and an initiative to guide young researchers during their dissertation in NCAOR; planning the activities for the Young Scientists Forum and other activities at Arctic Frontiers 2012; and of course various other activities, reports and day to day tasks that help moving our organization forward!

In addition, Allen is working with Ben Beall, who had in the last three years lead the making of the monthly APECS newsletter, on the still-new newsletter format. If you have any feedback on the newsletter, please let the ExCom know!

The ExCom also discussed with the Council chair the results of the Council vote on the changes to the Rules of Procedure. In total 27 Council members voted yes, and 7 did not take part in the vote. We also discussed ways how to encourage more Council members to join the Council calls. As we noticed attendance in the calls is dropping, so we discussed options to change that e.g. reduce the frequency of the calls and have only four full Council calls a year? All Council members are encouraged to give feedback on what you think will increase attendance in the Council calls. All interested APECS members are also invited to join the Council calls! Another discussion point was to remind the Council members to pick which sub-committee they want to be part of, as the involvement in both might be too time consuming.

The APECS Conference Travel Funds Contest launched in February was another agenda item on the ExCom call. All active contributors to the APECS website within 6 months will be entered in a draw to win €500 towards travel or conferences fees to attend your next conference! The ExCom is keeping track of the postings and discussed if this increased the amounts of posts on the APECS website.

The ExCom also discussed how to proceed with the funding brochure. It is ready to print, and we will start sending it out in the next few weeks. Thanks to the Council members who provided feedback and who contributed addresses to the publicity list! We also discussed the reorganization of the partner and sponsor page on the APECS website.

The upcoming ExCom election in September was also discussed and a procedure and timeline was agreed on. The Council chair will coordinate the elections this year. As we want to encourage Council members that want to get more involved, to run for the ExCom for the 2011-2012 term, we discussed that ExCom meetings will now be open to all interested Council members, so just wait for the announcements and let us know if you want to join!

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!

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!

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!

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

present: Alex Taylor, Allen Pope, Daniela Ligett, Gerlis Fugmann, Angelika Renner, Mariette Wheeler, Suhas Shetye, Jenny Baeseman, Kate Sinclair (joined later)

This was the transition call for the old and the new ExCom with both present and a lot to discuss. After a quick introduction round, the old ExCom gave some advice to the new people (have fun!). They also presented their ongoing duties that will have to be redistributed amongst the new ExCom members. The duties and tasks from a revised priority list of ongoing projects will be assigned to people over the next couple of weeks and during the next ExCom call. The old ExCom left after this, and we proceeded to electing the new APECS president. The vote went unanimously to Allen, congratulations!

The ExCom will meet in person on the weekend 12-15 November. Location is still to be decided, but likely Cambridge, UK, or Tromsø, Norway. Allen gave his speech on what he sees as priorities for the new ExCom to work on, namely the strategic plan for APECS, continued and improved communication within the organisation and with partner organisations, and strengthening of science and research activities within APECS.

Jenny had a wealth of comments and recommendations and suggested a press release on the transition to the new ExCom and council that has taken place the day after the IPY IPO closed.

In attendance: Allen Pope, Daniela Liggett, Francisco Fernandoy, Gerlis Fugman

As much of the ExCom has been unavailable due to fieldwork, conferences, and an earthquake in New Zealand, this was a quick call. Discussion focused on making sure plans are in place for smoothly transitioning to the 2010-2011 ExCom and Council. Just a quick reminder that applications for the 2010-2011 Council will close on 15 September, and we encourage interest from ALL APECS members. We are also developing an APECS Strategy Plan, but this is still in early development stages. The next ExCom meeting will be at the end of September, shortly after the next Council Call.

In attendance: Allen Pope, Daniela Liggett, Gerlis Fugman, Jenny Baeseman, and Kate Sinclair

After a bit of a hiatus due to fieldwork and a busy summer conference schedule, the ExCom finally got back to some important business. We discussed the success of APECS activities at the SCAR conference in Buenos Aires and the many promising connections made there for APECS individuals and the organization as a whole. On that note, we are moving closer to an MoU with IASSA and SHARE. In addition, the ExCom made some progress concerning APECS future strategic plans and mindful of the fact that the current committee's term is coming to a close resolved to have a Strategic Plan done by the time they leave such that the next ExCom can use it to move forward. We look forward to the next Council meeting (a busy one) which will include hearing from candidates for the next ExCom as well as some working group updates.

Present: Alex Taylor, Daniela Liggett, Francisco Fernendoy, Gerlis Fugman, Jenny Baeseman, Allen Pope, & Kate Sinclair (briefly)

The APECS Executive Committee met most recently on 12 July 2010 at 8am GMT. Pushing beyond the 4th IPY, the meeting largely revolved around considering future funding strategies for APECS. A draft of a funding prospectus was considered and edits were discussed, especially concerning the division in returns for various levels of sponsorship (individual, first tier & second tier). A variety of other points were also considered, including involvement at the upcoming SCAR meeting, IASC and ESF grants for future workshops, and the call for applications for the upcoming APECS ExCom elections.

In attendance: Alex Taylor, Daniela Liggett, Jenny Baeseman, Gerlis Fugmann, Kate Sinclair, Allen Pope and Francisco Fernandoy.

This was the first call post-Oslo and lot of issues were discussed. The first words were to comment on our great experiences from Oslo and how great it was to meet the APECS members in persons. The next newsletter will be dedicated to pictures and report on the various APECS activities in Oslo. Big applause for Jenny, Alex, Hugues and all the people involved in the organization of this event.
After this point, the call started with the discussion of the up-coming Ex-Com elections. This year elections will be coordinated by Daniela, call for applications will by launched soon. The next point on the agenda was to discuss the on-going funding and strategic plan for the APECS sustainability. Our sponsoring strategies and documentation were largely discussed and over the next weeks some of the ideas will collected into an official document. A draft prospectus on the funding strategy written by Kate was presented and will be worked on by the rest of the Ex-Com member during the next two weeks. We discussed several options on what potential funders will receive for their contributions. Allen, for example, suggested having an exclusive part of the website to promote our partners and sponsors, as well as to have some features in the website´s front page.
We also discussed several new proposals for working groups (microbial ecology working group, APECS magazine) that we received.
New APECS activities are in their way! At least three panels are being organized: Jose Xavier and others are organizing a discussion panel in Buenos Aires during the SCAR OSC. UKPN is going to hold a workshop in remote sensing and the next panel in Chile is starting to take form for October of this year.

In Attendance: Silje (for the first part), Jenny, Gerlis, Kate, Francisco, Alex
The call started with Silje, the newest APECS council member introducing herself to the Excom, and discussed her ideas for APECS over the next year.

After Silje left the call, the Excom moved on with their agenda. The IPY report is now complete and will be available in Oslo, and will be sent to the council members along with the council and Excom summaries. The new advertising materials for Oslo are also now finished, and Alex will coordinate the printing with the company in Oslo. Jenny will put up the new advertising material on the APECS website.

The Excom have decided to invite Stina, a former APECS council member, and Lassi, who has informally been part of the advisory committee, to both formally join the APECS advisory committee. Gerlis will send them an invitation letter shortly.

The Excom discussed the Internal Evaluations Committee document, and the thourght of adding a note on the website, or amending the council charter to include behaviour. They decided for the mean time to just put the Internal Evaluations Committee to a Council vote. Alex will post the document on the website, and email the council.

The MoUs with UArctic and IAI are on track to be signed in Oslo, the one with IASSA and SHARE is also on track to be signed shortly also. Given these new partnerships, a question was raised on which logos we now need to include on all advertising and website. We might want to consider only using logos of funders, which we will discuss at the Excom meeting in Oslo.

Marcos Tonnelli from Brazil can no longer attend the SSG Geoscience meeting, so Francisco will now take on this role, and will work with Stefan to see if he wishes to remain the official APECS rep.

IASC has put out a call for workshop proposals- deadlines of 31 August and 31 December. We discussed potentially putting forward another IMPETUS workshop in 2011 in St. Petersburg.

We were hoping to have a feature from SPRI in the newsletter in June, but will be postponed until August. July will feature activities from the Oslo conference and Francisco will provide photos and information to Ben for June's newsletter.

The call ended with the Excom has putting off discussing APECS sustainability and using Project Fork to manage our files until after Oslo. Gerlis noted she is working on the Marta Muse Prize nomination for Jose.

In attendance: Jenny Baeseman, Gerlis Fugmann, Kate Sinclair, Alex Taylor, Daniela Liggett, Allen Pope
The first item for discussion was the great activity from the Council. We appreciate the effort that Council members put into compiling their reports for us, and the achievements of the Council this year are really impressive. All Council activities have now been compiled into one document that highlights the activities since the beginning of the 2009-2010 term. We would like to post this on the APECS website, but will first send it to the Council for approval.

We also discussed ways for the ExCom to continue improving its communication and 2-way exchange of information with the Council. We are considering asking the Council to nominate a representative to attend ExCom calls so that they can report back to Council on our activities and bring any questions/concerns directly to us during our bi-weekly skype chats. We are also looking into systems that will enable us to organise and manage organisational documents more efficiently, because this will also help us to share information with the Council and members quickly and effectively. Both the Council points system and communication strategies will be added to the agenda for discussion on the next Council call.

The APECS Sponsorship Plan was also discussed at length. We have now received feedback from many Council members on the initial draft of this plan and are putting together budget information and a draft APECS prospectus. This prospectus will be a 2-3 page glossy document that will briefly highlight core APECS activities. This will enable funders to see exactly what types of tangible projects their money can contribute to. There will be more work done on this in the next couple of months in terms of coming up with a timeline and strategy, and we will keep the Council posted on the progress on this front.

The Oslo meeting is now coming up very rapidly, and plans are coming together for the Council meeting in Oslo. We still need to confirm the agenda and venue, but we'll definitely be in contact very shortly about this. Also, Allen and Bruno have been working very hard on putting together APECS's publicity materials to be launched in Oslo. These will consist of a variety of APECS banners, flyers, brochures and posters. In addition, we are finalising an APECS IPY Report (~50 pages) that summarises all of APECS's activities over the past 3 years. This will also be printed and presented at the Oslo Open Science conference. Of course, a number of APECS posters will also be presented by many of our enthusiastic and hard working members. Allen/Bruno have nearly finished designing a template for these so that all of the APECS poster presentations have a consistent look at the conference.

In attendance: Jenny Baeseman, Daniela Liggett, Gerlis Fugmann, Alex Taylor, Francisco Fernandoy, Allen Pope (Council rep), Kate Sinclair.

Jenny provided the ExCom with a written update about all of the activities leading up to the IPY meeting in Oslo. The planning for Oslo is coming along well, and they are still finalising many details for APECS events at the meeting. We are also writing a series of APECS IPY reports that will be presented in Oslo. Jenny was also in Antalya, Turkey last week for a meeting on creating a European Young Academy. It was a chance to share some of the lessons we have learned from the success of APECS with these other people. A final report from the meeting will be available in a few weeks.

The ExCom are also in the process of finalizing a procedure for the APECS Internal Evaluations Committee. This will consist of APECS Ex Officio Council members, who will be responsible for resolving any grievances that arise within the organisation. Once we have finalised the draft procedure, this will be sent to the Council for comment.

There is much momentum surrounding the establishment of APECS working groups and quite a few great proposals have been submitted. We discussed the scope of the Field Site Initiative at some length and hope to initiate this project in coming weeks. Allen Pope has also been working hard on the web content for the Field Schools project and we are still gathering material for this, but it should be all online soon.

The ExCom also discussed the Council points system, and all Council members will be receiving more information about this shortly. We all agreed that building a qualitative component into the points system is a good idea (this was raised at the last Council call). This qualitative information can then be converted into bonus points. The ExCom agreed that every 3 months each Council member should send in a paragraph outlining their activities. This will be combined with points gained from other activities (such as posting news items, jobs etc) to come up with an overall record of everyone's great efforts. This is a way of identifying and, if need be, removing inactive Council members, but more importantly, will also serve as a way of mentoring and supporting people to branch into new activities. We also discussed the possibility of using this 'review system' to reward active APECS members by contributing financially to their participation in international APECS activities at conferences.

Other business discussed on the call included a new MoU which is being finalised with IAI and UArctic. We are also in discussion with SHARE and IASSA about establishing an MoU. In addition, Gerlis is attending the first IPY 2012 Steering Committee meeting in Oslo this weekend and will keep us posted on those discussions. Lastly, we are wrapping up the APECS design competition, and had some fantastic submissions. Winners will be announced very shortly!

In attendance: Alex Taylor, Daniela Liggett, Francisco Fernandoy, Jenny Baeseman, Kate Sinclair
Apologies received from Gerlis Fugmann

The ExCom officially welcomed Francisco back "in the office" after his field season in Antarctica. Francisco updated the ExCom about the field school that took place at Bellingshausen Station in January 2010. He reported that the summer school went well but also that there was some scope for improvement in the future, particularly with respect to better planning of the scientific programme. He expressed gratitude to the Polar Birds research group from the University of Jena who were working on King George Island at the time the field school took place and who integrated field school participants in their field work. A blog about the field school was kept by one of the participants and is available at http://lindsayontheice.wordpress.com/.

Jenny updated the ExCom about recent developments in Norway. APECS has finally been registered as a non-profit organisation in Norway. This also enabled a bank account to be established for APECS.

Preparations for the IPY OSC in Oslo are well under way, but the workload has been so overwhelming especially for the APECS Director that a fixed-term part-time position will be created through the IPY International Programme Office (thank you, Dave Carlson!) to provide administrative and organisational support.

APECS will be present at the SCAR OSC in Buenos Aires, where Francisco and Jose are planning to organise at least one APECS event.
Further updates were provided by Alex on the complaints procedure, by Kate on the IPY final report that is a work in progress, and by Allen on the field schools project. The Council members will be kept informed as these initiatives/projects take shape.
As always, suggestions and feedback from you, the Council members, are always welcome and appreciated.

In attendance: Jenny Baeseman, Erli Costa (for first 10 minutes); Daniela Liggett, Gerlis Fugmann, Allen Pope (Council rep), Kate Sinclair.
In this meeting, we welcomed Allen Pope to the call. Allen has been a very active Council member and has offered to help the ExCom in the busy lead up to the Oslo IPY conference, and has been appointed by the ExCom as an interim ExCom member for the time that Kate is taking maternity leave later this summer.

We began the call by talking with Erli Costa (a Brazilian APECS member) about her Council application. Erli has some great ideas about how she wants to contribute to APECS in Brazil and we unanimously voted to approve her application to the Council. We also received a Council application from Punyasloke Bhadury (India), and although Punyasloke could not make the call (due to fieldwork commitments), we were all very impressed with his application and are happy to vote him onto the APECS Council.

Gerlis gave us an update on the establishment of the Working Group programme. There are now three working group proposals posted on the APECS website with 2 more under development. This initiative will be widely advertised to all APECS members in the next couple of days, and we think that this will be a great opportunity for members to get more involved in APECS.

The ExCom are working on two major reports: An IPY report and an APECS info paper requested by SCAR for the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. The IPY report will be 50-100 pages and is part of APECS' obligations as an IPY project. This will outline all major APECS activities and initiatives over the past 3 years and will be very useful in future months in terms of developing a sustainability plan for APECS and writing an academic paper about the development of the organisation.

We are also in the process of developing an APECS Complaints Committee. This will be composed of neutral Ex Officio APECS Council members, who will implement a formal process whereby anyone within APECS can lodge a complaint. This will be reviewed by the Committee who will make recommendations about the best way to resolve the issue.

APECS is also in the process of nominating two representatives to organizing committee for IPY 2012 in Montreal. Gerlis has kindly offered to join the Steering Committee (it was suggested that our most senior member be assigned to this task similar to procedures in APECS with the two previous IPY conferences) and she will be supported by the Director in this role. Nominations are also open for an APECS member to join a) the Programme Committee (the application process is being managed by the RAC), and b) the Communications (and Outreach) Committee. We have advertised these opportunities to all Council members, but will also open this to all APECS members to increase the pool of nominees before a decision is made on the applications. The deadline for nominating the APECS representatives to these committees is March 12, 2010.

Finally, Jenny and Gerlis have been doing a lot of research into other options for technology to support the Council Calls. The Adobe system is continually improving, but we need a good back-up system for when we do have issues. The best option so far is the Powwownow business plan. There is a one time set up fee and this gives us access to a web conferencing system and a desktop sharing system, which would be very useful for Virtual Poster sessions. Powwownow would also enable us to record conversations and, for the virtual poster session, this means that we can post discussions online at a later date. The ExCom approved the recommendation to go ahead with Powwownow, and Jenny will finalize the contract with them so that we can begin using this for future calls.

Attended by: Alex, Daniela, Gerlis, Jenny and Kate

The meeting started with an update from Kate on the Mentor database. All is going reasonably well and more than 15 mentors have already signed up on the website. To promote the database, the importance of involving the Council members in recruiting mentors had been stressed, and it was agreed that this effort should be increased. Special attention has to be paid to making sure that those mentors, who do not want to have their information displayed on the website, will be recorded on a confidential spreadsheet that can be accessed by the ExCom only.

Gerlis gave an update on the working group proposal. The final draft of the proposal is currently up for voting with the Council. So far, all votes were in favour of the proposal. There will be no annual themes created for the working groups right now to encourage different types of working groups to form. There are a number of working groups already in the planning (field sites, virtual poster session, acronym database and a few others).

Kate is currently working putting together an APECS IPY Summary Report on activities over the past three years. A first draft version of the structure was sent to the ExCom for comments. All ExCom members will contribute to the report. In addition, an Information Paper for the upcoming Antarctic Treaty Consultative meeting (to be presented by SCAR) will be drafted by Daniela to increase the awareness about APECS among Antarctic policy-makers.

We also discussed the current workload of the ExCom. Alex will compile a list of the tasks the current ExCom members have to keep a record of it and to make it more transparent of who is responsible for what. For this purpose the Priorities document of the current ExCom will be updated.

The Canadian IPY organizing team for the IPY-OSC 2012 wants APECS to nominate a qualified member to their Steering Committee. Nominations have to be made by early March. All ExCom members will come up with a short list of potential candidates, who we feel can appropriately represent APECS and balance out the Committee.

The ExCom also discussed new Council applicants. To get a better idea of new applicants and to learn more about their ideas and commitments, the ExCom decided to invite new applicants in the future for an 'interview' during ExCom calls. We will urge new members to introduce themselves at their first Council call.

We discussed the necessity of creating a neutral Complaints Committee within APECS. We hope that this will provide a formal process whereby a complaint can be made about anyone involved in APECS activities. This will then be investigated in a formal manner and resolved as the Committee sees fit.