President Daniel Boisclair called the meeting to order at 1722 hrs Friday January 7, 2000 and welcomed attendees.

President Boisclair thanked the particularly long list of those who had contributed to the success of this year's meeting:

Allen Curry, the local arrangements chair, for his organisational skills and his creativity in bringing some new elements to CCFFR: sponsorships, silent auction, raffle, major new contributions to the Clemens Rigler Travel Fund.

Allen’s team of volunteers who took care of everything very efficiently and made for a smooth meeting; particularly the student volunteers for their work on the raffle and silent auction.

The sponsors of the meeting, too numerous to mention in the business meeting but who were listed on the back of the program (see list in Appendix), who added tremendously to the quality of the meeting.

Nigel Lester, program chair, for assembling an excellent program, and all the Session Convenors and presenters for their contributions to the program.

Contributors to the Clemens Rigler Travel Fund :

• new contributors this year, the Cloverleaf Foundation, the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the New Brunswick Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, and Lotek;
• and the stalwarts who continue to support the fund : the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Northeast Division of American Fisheries Society, the Canadian Aquatic Resources Section, Halltech Environmental, and Hoskin Scientific., as well as SCL and CCFFR.

The people who manage the Clemens Rigler Fund :

• Antoine Morin and his selection committee who once again ran a very efficient and fair selection process;
• the Canadian Aquatic Resources Section which manages the fund and ensures that students get their money, particularly Bruce Ward President of CARS and Dave Conley the Treasurer.

Thanks to the efforts of all these people a total of $16,000 was awarded to 50 students this year, the highest amounts ever.

Again great thanks to Chris Taggart for maintaining the CCFFR web site and electronic mailing list. This was the first year CCFFR had run entirely electronically, with no mailouts -- the organisation process has been more efficient and our budget had benefitted by reduced photocopying costs.

Thanks to Society of Canadian Limnologists for continuing to meet in parallel with CCFFR and for their contribution to the Clemens Rigler Fund -- having these two meetings together continues to make for an interesting cross-disciplinary atmosphere.

To the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for continuing to support the CCFFR Secretariat, and particularly to Mary Ajersch, Ronnie Sanford and John Moores and Howard Powles for their work during the year.

 Minutes of the 52nd annual CCFFR business meeting (Edmonton, January 9, 1999) and the Treasurer's Report for the period April 1, 1998 - March 31, 1999 (attached) were distributed to all participants. The minutes were adopted unanimously.

Secretary Treasurer Powles indicated that CCFFR's financial situation remained good. Although the treasury had decreased about $600 during the period reported on, the current year should show an increase thanks to sponsorship of the coffee breaks by J. D. Irving and to reduced photocopying costs.

Secretary Treasurer Powles asked for approval to round registration fees to the nearest dollar in future (eg $60 instead of $59). This was moved by Martin Castonguay, seconded by John Lark and approved unanimously.

Adoption of the Treasurer’s Report was moved by Jim Tait, seconded by John Lark, and approved unanimously.

Program Chair Nigel Lester was complimented for having the CCFFR and SCL programs on the same program this year - an excellent initiative which should continue in future.

The report on operations of the CRTF in 1998/9 was tabled (attached). Thanks to increased donations, to a total of $10,100, and to a substantial carryover of over $2000 from previous years, a total of $12,400 was awarded to 35 students to travel to Edmonton.

Jim Tait moved adoption of the report on the CRTF, seconded by John Lark - carried unanimously.

For 2000 an unprecedented total of $16,000 was awarded to 50 students. Additional donations are still being received ($1000 to date) and will be applied to the CRTF in 2001. All proceeds of the student-organized raffle, auction and T-shirt sales will also be applied to the CRTF. Participants in the meeting expressed particular thanks to the Cloverleal Foundation for their substantial contribution to the CRTF for the 2000 meetings.

President: Pierre Magnan, Université du Québec à Trois Rivières

Program Chair: Michael Fox, Trent University

Local Arrangements: Nick Collins/Don Jackson, University of Toronto

Nominations: John Post, University of Calgary

(reports in 2000)

Michael Fox, Program Chair, reported that he had discussed potential themes for the meeting with a group of colleagues (D. Boisclair, N. Collins, N. Lester, C. Taggart, C. Paszkowski, B. Tonn) and that discussions would continue. Preliminary ideas for themes are :

• life history variations and implications for management of fish;
• evelutionary ecology and fishery management;
• can scientists show that they can predict anything useful for society about aquatic systems ?

Special program items to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences were discussed under « Other Business ».

Nick Collins, local arrangements Co-chair, reported on behalf of Don Jackson and himself that a number of Toronto hotels had been contacted and that these were relatively expensive, eg around $120+ for a room plus a charge for meeting rooms. Inexpensive accommodation might be available for some participants at the University but holding the meeting there was not possible. John Lark offered to look into ways of reducing hotel costs based on experience in Ottawa and this was gratefully accepted.

John Post, Nominations Chair, reported that the following had agreed to serve :

Rick Taylor, University of British Columbia, President

Jim Reist, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Winnipeg, Program Chair

Mike Healey/Scott Hinch, Local Arrangements

Allen Curry, University of New Brunswick, Nominations Chair

(reports in 2001)

The slate of candidates was approved by acclamation.

Scott Hinch reported that preliminary contacts had been made regarding holding the meeting in Vancouver and these would continue.

John Lark offered to organise the 2003 meeting in Ottawa and this was unanimously, and gratefully, accepted.

The possibility of registering for CCFFR by credit card was raised. Given the cost to set this up and the administrative complexity, it was decided that this should not be pursued.

Possible ways of increasing sponsorship for CCFFR were explored. Personal contacts appear to be the best way to initiate sponsorship. Alex Bielak suggested that past lists of CRTF grantees be used as a way to seek sponsorship.

It was agreed that letters of thanks to the meeting’s and the CRTF’s sponsors would be sent.

The question had been raised as to whether a jobs board could be added to the CCFFR site. It was noted that this would require some effort in addition to the considerable effort already going into maintaining the site. John Casselman noted that a $10 associate membership to the Canadian Aquatic Resources Section of American Fisheries Society gave access to the « members-only » website including the AFS jobs board. Chris Taggart noted that the CCFFR email list could be used to send out job announcements.

Moira Ferguson noted that January 2001 would be a special issue of CJFAS to commemorate 100 years of the Journal. Some 25 « Perspectives » had been solicited for this issue. As a further celebration of this event, it was proposed to solicit a « senior » Stevenson lecturer and a « senior » Rigler lecturer, in addition to the usual Stevenson and Rigler lecturers, and have the four talks together at the opening plenary session. The same selection process for Stevenson lecturers would be used as in the past and this might also be used for the Rigler lecturers in 2001. CJFAS would probably pay for travel of the lecturers to the meetings.

The meeting welcomed this initiative. Ferguson indicated that nominations for these lecturers could come from anyone.

John Roff and Moira Ferguson noted that establishing a formal link between CCFFR and CJFAS would lead to mention of CCFFR on each volume of the Journal and the possibility of discount subscriptions for CCFFR members. Such an arrangement is being negotiated with ASLO and may be investigated with SCL.

It was noted that CCFFR did not have official members or a formal structure, so having such a link might be difficult. Allen Curry moved, and Joe Brown seconded that CCFFR should not seek to have a formal structure, and this was carried.

John Lark proposed that future Past President Daniel Boisclair explore the possibility of a link between CJFAS and CCFFR with the National Research Council Press, along with Yves Prairie of SCL.

The question was raised whether Canadian students working in Canadian ecosystems but attending US universities could have access to CRTF funding. There was considerable discussion on this, concluding with the following proposal :

« Clemens Rigler Travel Fund is available to students from Canadian universities, or to students affiliated with Canadian institutions ».

This would appear to cover all the necessary bases; most students interested in funding and studying at US universities would have some affiliation with a Canadian institution (eg the Queen’s Biological Station on Lake Opinicon) and the Fund is considered accessible to non-Canadians studying at Canadian universities.

This proposal was moved by Michael Fox, seconded by Allen Curry, and approved.

The meeting adjourned at 1840 hrs.

The informal pizza buffet replacing the CCFFR-SCL banquet, begun in Edmonton in 1999, was again a success in Fredericton on the evening of January 7, 2000. Under the auspices of MC Kelly Munkittrick an open mike session of vaudevillean acts delighted the participants and a series of valuable artifacts was auctioned and raffled off (thanks to the efforts of the UNB student crew who rounded up the prizes and organized this part of the event, and to a number of generous organisations who donated prizes, listed in Appendix). Acts included :

• Alex Bielak’s heart-rending imitation of an airplane lost in the fog;
• la vasectomie en Belgique par Simon Blais;
• John Gunn’s joke relating a mixup between « celebrate » and something monks have to be;
• a successful Newfoundland fisherman by Chris Hendry;
• the snow goose, the cow and the cat, or 3 rules of bureaucracy, by Kelly Munkittrick;
• a quartet recital of Michel Rivard’s « La complainte du phoque en Alaska » (Martin Castonguay, Simon-Pierre Despatie, Pierre Magnan, Howard Powles);
• the PLP (Perce Powles/John Lark/Howard Powles) trio’s rendition of « The Virgin Sturgeon ».

The latter appeared well on the way to winning the prize of the evening as determined by the applause level measured on the Currymeter but the trio’s encore, « The Fish Farmer’s Song » was so unforgettably embellished by Jason (« right up yer kilt ») Flanagan that he was unanimously awarded the prize.

A limerick competition brought forth efforts by Michelle Gray, Kelly Munkittrick, and Perce Powles/the old farts at the back table, most of them having something to do with Allen Curry.

Raffle and auction winners were announced by Allen C. a variety of really nice prizes was available thanks to the meeting’s sponsors and a number of people went home happy. The sight of Geoff Power carrying off his shredder (to deal with post-retirement paperwork) was particularly gratifying.

In addition to the Sponsors of the Clemens Rigler Travel Fund listed in the minutes, the meeting was much improved by the following, who are gratefully acknowledged :

Labatt Breweries, Appleton Jamaica Rum, Pepsi, and Jost Vineyards for refreshments at the opening social event and elsewhere.

J. D. Irving, Limited for sponsorship of the coffee breaks.

Air Canada for special air travel rates.

Acco Brands

Agra

City of Fredericton

Fundy Park

Hopewell Rocks

Jim Wood

Login Brothers Canada

Nashwaak Outfitters

New Brunswick Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund

Ponderosa Pines Campground

Quartet

Rite in the Rain Company

South Sice Grabba Tabbacca

Staedtler

Studio by the Bay

3M

True North Salmon Company

University of New Brunswick

for refreshments at the meeting events, raffle and auction prizes, and general hospitality.

Many thanks !

H. Powles

Secretary Treasurer