Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

- It was unanimously agreed that Rich Erdman should succeed Larry Katz as the group's chairperson for the 2007 meeting. He would work together with Ian Hart to draw up next year's agenda. - Ian Hart explained the background and the reason for designating the group as an official advisory committee and thanked Rubie Mize for help in officially establishing the group as NEAC 1000. The committee reviewed the Statement of Issues & Justification and agreed that nothing further needed to be added. - There was some discussion as to whether NEAC 1000 should be changed to NEAC 002 to highlight the similarity with the Southern Region advisory committee (SAC 002) and the North Central Region advisory committee (NCAC 002). It was agreed that I. Hart should investigate that possibility. - There was some discussion on the question of whether the committee should review and make comments on projects which were approaching their end dates and/or new projects. L. Miller thought that had been part of the advisory committee's remit in the past, but was abandoned on direction of NERA. I. Hart said he would investigate the background to that situation. The consensus of the group was that we should review new and/or revised projects. This would provide additional justification for the meetings. - Larry Katz informed the committee that the Mid-Atlantic Consortium was now known as the Food Systems Consortium. He described many of its activities and distributed a document outlining these in detail. He emphasized the need to preserve the availability of the image gallery particularly after funding is reduced. - The meeting concluded with a lengthy round table discussion of the activities of the different departments in the different institutions.