ABS Board Meeting Minutes, 7 March 2021

Minutes of the American Bamboo Society Board Meeting 7.March 2021

Call to order: 11:00 AM PDT [via Zoom]

Quorum (6 Directors Minimum, 8 Present): Boeraeve, King, Meckes, Comstock, Connor, Saporito, Simmons, Lewis
Directors absent: Banks, McCormick, Edwards, Pierce
Others present: Clever (Advertising), Hollenback, Dan Fox (Mid-States)

(1) Kinder Chambers needs a reference membership list in print. Carole Meckes will send him a printed copy.

(2) Website (especially aMember) Review –
(a) Robert Saporito is working with Kalunthu Vel (“David”) to add features to bamboo.org and make it more editable. Kristen Comstock suggested converting parts into WordPress, and this will be pursued. She thought templates could be useful to create new pages. The current site is with a webhost with limited capacity and Bill Hollenback favors moving the site to a better host, such as where his bambooweb.info is located.
(b) Carole sent an email to 105 former members whose memberships recently expired, and only has received 1 renewal. However, the email was sent only a week ago.
(c) Luc Boeraeve asked all to think of new content for the site once it is freely editable.
(d) Luc reorganized the Technical Committee and appointed these members: Carole Meckes, Kristen Comstock, Bill Hollenback, Robert Saporito, and David King.

(3) Bamboo Map – With enough interest, a useful map could be made of where various bamboo species grow best in the US. The USDA zones only use cold hardiness, and other climate and situational factors (such as humidity and high temperatures) affect where most bamboos will thrive. For instance, moso does not do well in southern Florida or where the humidity is persistently low, even though it is relatively cold-tolerant. Such a map could be a reference for farming bamboo. Bill Hollenback reminded us that some such data has been uploaded to Google Maps and will check the status.

(4) Don Shor, BAMBOO Magazine editor, recently emailed a request for material for the next issue. One possible topic is the effect the recent freeze in Texas had on bamboo plantings there.

(5) ABS Annual Meeting update: Daphne Lewis gave tentative dates for an in-person conference, 30 Sept 2021 through 2 October 2021 (Thursday – Saturday) with Sunday held for optional activities. The SEC is looking at a Perry, GA Holiday Inn (2 hours from Atlanta) as the meeting hotel. Speakers and locations for tours are being worked out.

(6) The World Bamboo Congress in Taiwan has been cancelled and not rescheduled again. The ABS had paid $500 for a sponsorship and one free registration, and it is uncertain whether it will be refunded or applied to the next Congress, whose location has yet to be announced.

(7) INBAR Webinars on Bamboo and Rattan – Luc Boeraeve stated these are available online at https://www.inbar.int/inbar-webinars.

(8) ABS has received some royalty income from EBSCO Publishing (ABS publication sales) as well as donations from Amazon Smile, reported by Carole Meckes.

(9) Next Meetings –
Board: 25 Apr 2021, 11am PDT, 2pm EDT.
Tech Committee: 14 Mar 2021, time TBD.

Adjournment: 12:30PM PDT.