The New Orleans Meeting was quite the SUCCESS! We are seeing increased attendance in person as well as virtually.  (The Social was Great - Thanks Russ!)

Here are some updates from the Council Meeting:

The Council passed updates to the Standing Rules to clarify a number of issues.  The important one relates to the issue of Membership and the new Dues & Benefits categories that allow for the community associates.  These passed.  Thus, it should remove some of the confusion around the membership and services that the Society provides.  Here is a link to the schedule of dues and benefits - Member Benefits - American Chemical Society (acs.org) It details what is provided as part of your dues package.

There was a discussion about the name change for the BIOL division.  MEDI was opposed to the change - but it did pass.  The BIOL division is now the Division of Biochemistry and Chemical Biology.

Council approved an amendment to the distribution formula for Division Funding, and this will allow a greater amount of funding to be distributed to the Divisions.

The Auburn Local Section is now the East Alabama/West Georgia Local Section.

The two candidates approved by Council for the Presidential Election are Rigoberto Hernandez and Laura Sremaniak.  There is at least one petition candidate that will be on the ballot and it is currently anticipated that there will be another one prior to the petition deadline.

Candidates for District 1 Director will be Katherine Lee and Matthew Grandbois.

Candidates for District V Director will be Lisa Balbes, Mark Cesa, and Silvia Jurisson.

Candidates for the International District Director will be David Wu and Hoo-Ling Lee

There was no special discussion at this meeting - as there will be an experiment between meetings for a discussion.  I am going to be working on the subcommittee that will be developing the format for that discussion.

There is a petition for consideration at the next council on International Representation on the Council.  This was presented at the various Caucuses and there was a lot of discussion.  The Committee on Divisional Activities (DAC) has currently voted to oppose the petition when it comes up for vote in the Fall - however, more information is coming out related to the petition and while DAC  is not opposed to international representation - it is currently not comfortable with the current proposal. There has been progress on this front during the meeting and it is still up for discussion.

Please let me know of any issues or concerns or if there is something that I can help you with.