During the LASA Congress in Chicago, Susan Eckstein convoked a meeting of all Section Chairs. Reid Reading and Sandy Klinzing of the LASA Secretariat also were present. At that meeting we spent most of the time discussing a) the Manual on Sections and proposed changes, b) requirements for submitting reports, and c) elections. The following points were the most important:

1. There was much debate regarding the need for flexibility in holding elections and the desire on the part of Section chairs to guarantee democratic process. The manual said elections must be held during the business meeting and only if there is a quorum of members present. Only 2 Sections were able to hold elections during the business meeting.  The part of the Section Manual with instructions for holding Section elections will be amended to allow for greater flexibility. You may be interested to know that there were 4 sections who held elections the same way we did--prior to the LASA Congress--and then discussed results and ratified the election at the Congress. All Section chairs agreed that this was the only way to guarantee a "representative democracy" since many Section members cannot make LASA congresses.

2. LASA has asked that a copy of all communications sent by Section Chairs to members also be sent to LASA. Some chairs--myself included--wondered why the need for "vigilance" but others were not bothered. Susan Eckstein said it would be important that LASA know that no Section Chairs spoke "on behalf of" LASA and that LASA wants to know what goes on in Sections in order to better understand the Section structure and function.  I mentioned that SVS future business might be conducted through the Discussion Forum in the future and that sending copies would not be possible. This led to a discussion of different ways of communicating with members, with email being the most popular. My description of our WebPage and listserver was a big hit and other Section chairs wanted more information on how we (Margaret Martin) put the WebPage together.

3. We discussed the dues structure. LASA requested that all Sections adopt a "no rebate" policy whereby $3 of dues will go to LASA and the remainder to the Section's account. There was much discussion over money and why LASA gets $3. LASA representatives provided information on administrative costs.  Some Sections opt to give rebates to students and members who live in Latin America. SVS has not done this (the old VenNet interest group did) and I agreed that we would not do this for the coming 18 months. Any future changes will be up to the new SVS Committee of Officers. 4. LASA pointed out that membership renewals begin in January and that Section chairs need to notify members of this fact. Members must pay dues for each calendar year, not simply the year they register for the LASA congresses. 5. The number of sessions that a Section is allotted for a Congress will be determined by the number of members that Section has one month following the last LASA Congress. This is a true advantage since membership enrollments usually are highest at that point (some people join LASA when they register for the Congress). According to membership one month after the Chicago congress, for the next Congress we likely will have a right to 2 sessions.

This was about it for the business discussed. There were approximately 14 Section Chairs and Co-chairs present.

 Cathy