Minutes of the ISBA Board Meeting, Benidorm, Spain, June 2, 2006

In attendance: Alan Gelfand, Jim Zidek, Peter Green, Brad Carlin, Kerrie Mengersen, Sylvia Richardson, Val Johnson, Wes Johnson, Bruno Sanso, Peter Muller, Merlise Clyde, Fernando Quintana, Marilena Barbieri, Steve MacEachern, Dave Higdon

1. Bruno Sanso presented the ISBA revenue report. Revenue was clearly affected by the 3 year membership cycle and the 2-year cycle of world meetings. The prize funds were also presented. General discussion ensued regarding the budget.

2. Alan Gelfand brought up the need to elect the ISBA nominating committee. It was decided that a list of names would be collected before the end of the meeting. We agreed Alan, Sylvia Richardson, and Peter Green would choose the committee from this list.

3. Discussion of ISBA world meeting locations for 2008 and beyond. Possible locations for the 2008 world meeting are Australia (Hamilton Island), Hawaii (Waikiki), and Vancouver. A concern that was brought up was the cost to members for attending and there was some general fear that the cost may limit attendance of students and young faculty. No resolution was made and it was decided to bring up the issue at the members meeting later that afternoon.

4. It was announced that there will be a special session in honor of Arnold Zellner in January '07 SBIES meeting in St Louis.

5. It was announced that 48 travel awards were given for the Valencia 2006 meeting. There were 80 applicants.

6. The upkeep of Bayes' grave site was discussed. A corporate sponsor has been identified who is interested in funding the refurbishing of the grave site. It was decided that ISBA will present the sponsor with proposal (with costs) for cleaning up Bayes' grave site, as well as neighboring sites. It was also decided that ISBA would pay for the yearly upkeep of the site. It was also proposed to put the option to donate to the upkeep of Bayes' grave site on the membership web page.

7. Brad Carlin was announced as the new editor-in-chief for Bayesian Analysis.

8. Mike Evans has served long and well as web master for ISBA. We proposed showing Mike our appreciation; we also decided we to identify his successor as soon as possible.

9. Awards committee. It was proposed that ISBA assign a committee to manage the ISBA prizes, rules, money, and bylaws. This will require that the ISBA constitution be amended to allow this.

10. Membership. ISBA typically sponsors conferences by supplying free memberships so that $25 is netted for each new member. The number of new members for the Valencia 2006 workshop is expected to be around 200. It was asked if we should spell out the details of getting money from workshops we co- sponsor. It was also asked if we should assign a person in ISBA to deal with welcoming new members.