July 31st

31 July 2014
EC Call

Attending:

Agenda

• EOL Meeting Highlights (Second hand from Martin)
• Update on CONABIO meeting (Martin)
• Planning for membership renewals (Martin)
• Upcoming meetings list (Martin)
• Strategic Planning Update (Martin)
• Global Updates (Connie): Global call set for Aug 28, IA visited South Africa and Kenya; Jirka grant submitted, on agenda for CETAF in October in Vienna, Nancy spoke with Dr. Najib at the EOL meeting: not a lot of biodiversity lit. in Bib Alex so not a lot to harmonize but will continue technical work and keeping a copy of BHL there and continue to discuss Arabic language page turners.
• Technical Update (William)

On Call:
Martin, Nancy, Susan, William, Connie

Nancy attended the EOL exec committee meeting over two days. They have Money for next year with many proposals to consider - $7000,000 funded for over a two year period. They have reducing expenses with reduced staffing -- down to 10 from 16. Nathan is leaving but gave a talk discussing his vision to become more of a service organization by opening up the code for others to build on. Chritiane Samper concerned that (as is) Conservation community does not see the benefits of EOL. They will meet in January in Mexico City wtih CONABIO to discuss governance -- They seem to be moving towards a BHL model. Nancy gave a presentation (helped by WIlliams 1 pagers on the BHL projects). Service to the Biodiversity Community. will be the focus moving forward.

Discussion on how to get BHL Mexico going --using the BHL SIngapore Model. May be a funding opportunity there via CONABIO.

PLanning membership renewal call to help budget planning -- Execs will be assigned to follow-up with Members.

Upcoming meeting list -- Martin prepared a document which should be added to to help increase BHL presence at various meetings.
Upcoming meetings list

Strategic planning update-- create a public facing set of goals as well as the goals that meet our mission (and match budget). i.e our strategic tactics tied with our financial capabilities. outlining the value to molecular biology as well as natural history and using date mining to assist more cutting edge research.

Global update -- Connie to participate in Global call on August 27. to discuss strategic plan to harmonize BHL and BHL Europe.
IA to visit SA (Kenya); Juri submited and 10 million grant to Czech government to biodiversity which should benefit BHL Europe. BHL also on agenda for CETAAF in Vienna. BHL Eygpt does not have much biodiversity content to harmonize - No recent news from China.
Other tech news from William-- some problems with the infrastructure-- looking for user requirements for semantic functionality in the BHL portal and currently gathering info on how to proceed. Other TAG action items?