Minutes of the 2004 IPS Board meeting held in Barcelona, Spain on the 29^th June

Present: Mike Wall (President), David Henson (Sec), Paulo Brusini, Fritz Dannheim, David Garway-Heath, Enrico Gondolfo, Francisco Goni, Merce Guarro, Ron Harwerth, Aiko Iwase, Chris Johnson, Choto Matsumoto, Uli Sheifer, Yoshi Yamazaki, Linda Zangwill, Mario Zulauf.

Apologies: Anders Heijl, Richard Mills, Pamela Sample.

1.      2002 minutes: The 2002 minutes from the board meeting in Stratford, UK, were approved with minor changes.

2.      Matters arising; None.

3.      Secretary's report: A full report was circulated prior to the meeting.

a.      Membership. The IPS has 156 members, an increase in 12 since the last meeting. There are 79 former members held ‘in arrears’, 20 of these have proved to be uncontactable. The deaths of 2 Honorary Members (Drs Harms and Matsuo) were noted and tributes are to be presented at the meeting.

b.      2002 Proceedings. 65 papers were accepted and published by Kugler in ‘Perimetry Update 2002/2003’.  This was distributed to all paid up members in April 2004.

c.      2004 meeting. 61 abstracts were submitted for presentation at the 2004 meeting. All were accepted but 4 were subsequently withdrawn leaving a total of 57 (35/22) papers/posters.  A number of proposals were discussed with respect to increasing the number of submissions including Board members adding links to the IPS website from their departmental web sites and the circulation of details of keynote presentations.  FG reported that the perimetric courses linked to the meeting were a great success and helped to promote the IPS with 200-250 people attending.  CJ reported that the success of these courses would be dependent upon the meeting location. MW suggested that, in future, the decision about extent and number of courses linked to the IPS meeting should be made by the local host taking into account the local needs for such courses. US reported that the Barcelona meeting was relatively expensive for delegates and that in future budget hotel information should be circulated along with that of the more expensive hotels. There was extensive discussion about the structure of the Barcelona meeting. The slightly longer paper presentation times were appreciated but there was concern about the perceived downgrading of posters in relationship to papers.  MW suggested that the mix of posters and papers within each session may not be ideal and that, at the next meeting, a pure poster session could be trialed.

d.      Travel grants. 4 grants of $500 were awarded, 3 were taken up. It was agreed that at future meetings the value of the award would be increased with a new vetting procedure to ensure theawards go to excellent young researchers.

4.      Treasurer’s Report: A full report was circulated prior to the meeting.

a.      The report was presented by MW. At 31/5/2002 the balance was $20,402, this increased marginally to $24,918 at 31/5/2004.

b.      MG presented a balance sheet for the Barcelona meeting which showed a surplus of approximately 12K Euros.

5.         Standards Committee Report:

a.      Pam Sample emailed a revised IPS Standards document and Glossary.  Visual Function perimetry has not been included. It was fele that this would be better placed in the ‘History of Perimetry’ section of the IPS web site.

b.      The Board discussed an amendment to the Standards report that gives the minimum information that should be included in research publications. This followed on from the work done by the Assoc for International Glaucoma Soc consensus group.

c.      MW suggested that the current document should be placed on the web site.

d.      US suggested that the term ‘Standards’ should be replaced by ‘Recommendations’ as ‘Standards’ gives requirements whereas we wish to give guidelines.

e.      US agreed to send corrections to current standards document to MW by end of July 2004 prior to placing the document on IPS web site.

6.         Composition of the Board:

a.      A report from Patrice Henson was presented by DH to try and clarify the situation with respect to the different groups and their membership.

b.      Many of the groups were considered redundant and rarely met or reported to the Board.

c.      Proposed to continue with a Standards group and to rationalize all other groups into an Education group.  The Standards and Education groups to have 2 sub groups (perimetry & imaging).

d.      Head of Standards committee to be PS, MW to contact PS and confirm. LZ to be chair of Imaging standards.

e.      Education group to have European and Japanese chairs. FG for Europe, AI to give name for Japan.

f.        MW felt that it was important that the new groups liaise with other groups e.g. NAPS (CJ), Int Neuro Ophthal Soc (US), Japanese Glaucoma Soc (YK), S American Glau Soc, Int Glaucoma Soc (Erik Greve), Vision & Driving Soc (EG), Visual Rehabilitation Soc (Ron Schuchard).

7.      Increasing membership

a.      Discussed under 3

8.      Publication of Proceedings:

a.      MW summarized papers from RM and AH regarding the proposal to switch from a publication of the IPS proceedings in book form by Kugler Publications to an arrangement with Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavia in which peer reviewed papers/posters presented at the IPS meeting will be published in the journal. The proposal includes: all members getting both paper copies and electronic access to the journal; 2 members of the IPS board joining the Acta Editorial Board and Acta promoting the IPS, by announcing the next IPS meeting and publishing abstracts.  The Board accepted the proposal and will be seeking support from sponsors.

9.         Future IPS meetings.

a.      The introduction of Keynote speakers and satellite meetings had already been discussed under 3.

10. Staging visual field defects

a.      PB presented a paper on the staging of visual field defects and a proposal for the IPS to set up a group to develop staging methods.

b.      FD proposed that this was part of the Standards group remit.

c.      MW proposed that the Standards committee investigate this and report back to the Board.

11. IPS Web site

a.      The IPS web site has undergone a re-design which has been successfully completed by Patricia Duffel who continues to perform an admirable job of updating the web site.

b.      History section is in development by MW but needs submissions from PS, Algis Vingys and DH.

c.      CJ suggested a reading list to be placed on the web site. CJ will start off.

12. Venue of next meeting

a.      CJ suggested Portland, Oregon, for the 2006 meeting with Shaban Demirel being responsible for a lot of the local arrangements. A DVD of Portland was presented with a proposal that the meeting be held in July or late June 2006.

b.      Proposal was accepted.

c.      MW proposed that Japan be considered for the 2008 meeting after a proposal by AI, YY, and CM.  AI, YY and CM were asked to prepare a presentation for the 2006 meeting.

13. AOB

a.      Dick Mills retiring as Treasurer, replaced by US with 2 year overlap to ensure smooth transition.

b.      RM to be nominated as Member at Large.

c.      CJ to be nominated as Vice President.

d.      FG to attend meetings as Chair of Education Group.

e.      PS to attend meetings as Chair of the Standards group.

f.        PB to be re-nominated as Member at Large.

g.      RH suggested that dues notices should be sent out earlier.

h.      CJ suggested trying to increase representation from Australia. LZ suggested that this could be achieved through the Standards and Education groups.

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