1. The annual business meeting of the members of the Behavior Genetics Association, a corporation not for profit, duly organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Illinois, United States of America, was convened in the Barclay/Gilford rooms of the Coast Plaza Suite Hotel, Vancouver, Canada at 4:10 pm on the 6th day of July 1999.
   Those attending constituted a committee as a whole, and signed a record sheet indicating their attendance at the meeting. President Henderson opened the meeting. A moment of silence was held for David W. Fulker, who has had a profound influence and has been a great inspiration to the field of Behavior Genetics.
2. Upon motion duly moved, seconded and carried, the minutes of the 1998 Behavior Genetics Association business meeting were approved as written.
3. The secretary's report was given. By provision of the by-laws of the Association, the Secretary is instructed to submit by mail ballot to the full membership of the Association the names of those nominated to be candidates for offices becoming vacant. This was done, with the notice that ballots were to be returned for tabulation by February 10, 1999. Election to office requires a plurality of those members voting with ties to be broken by lot. Tabulation of the votes received resulted in the election of John Hewitt as President-Elect, Pamela Madden as Treasurer and Jennifer Harris as Member-at-Large for Members outside North America. Upon motion duly moved, seconded and carried, the election results were accepted. Written notification to members of election results, as required by the by-laws, is fulfilled via these minutes furnished to all members. Accordingly, the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Behavior Genetics Association at the close of the meeting will be:
   Richard Rose, President
   John Hewitt, President-Elect
   Norman Henderson, Past-President
   Hermine Maes, Secretary
   Pam Madden, Treasurer
   Deborah Finkel, Member-at-Large
   Irwin Waldman, Member-at-Large
   Jennifer Harris, Member-at-Large
   Upon motion duly moved, seconded and carried, the Secretary's Report was approved as submitted by Secretary Hermine Maes.
4. The Treasurer's report was submitted by Matt McGue (see attached). The treasurer reported a break even in the financial status of the society. Although the Income-Expenses shows a positive balance over $16,000, the '99 subscriptions to Plenum ($9,000) and the editor of the journal ($7500) still have to be paid. The dues of $1000 paid to the Federation for Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences in 1998 cover the membership for 1999 as well. It is expected that new dues will have to be paid in 2000. This federation, which receives bipartisan support, represents hundred's of organizations by lobbying in Congress to improve chances of funding for behavioral sciences.
5. The Membership report was also submitted by Matt McGue. 67% of members are current on dues, an improvement over last year due to the efforts to track people down by email, which has resulted in both more members paying dues and resigning from the Association. The treasurer reported that the active membership roster consisted of 424 members, of whom 305 are Full members, 94 are Associate members, and 25 are Retired members. This represents a net loss to the society of 47 members since the previous business meeting in 1998, with 27 new members and 74 members who were dropped from the active roster for non-dues payment. 308 of the members reside in North America, and 116 reside in other continents. Upon motion duly moved, seconded and carried, the Treasurer's report was approved as submitted.
6. The local host report was given by Kerry Jang. There were a total of 122 registrants at the meeting, of which 83 pre-registered and 35 registered on site. The budget for the meeting amounted to slightly over $23,000 and a small profit is forecasted.
   President Henderson expressed thanks for the superb meeting that Kerry had organized.
7. The program committee report was given by Dick Rose. A total of 108 presentations were made at the meeting, including 36 posters, 72 oral presentations including symposium talks. In addition, there were 3 invited addresses, 2 of which were part of a special joint half-day session with ISSID, and a number of discussants for the symposia and invited talks.
8. President Henderson reported that the Executive Committee, in its constitutional role as a nomination committee, was nominating the following members for the offices indicated:
   President-Elect: Dorret Boomsma and Matt McGue
   Member-at-Large (Associate Members): Carol Prescott and Stephanie Schmitz.
   President Henderson asked if there were nominations from the floor. Members were reminded that nominations from the floor required the support of five members in good standing. There being none, upon motion duly moved, seconded, and carried, nominations were closed. The Secretary was instructed to submit the slate of nominees to the membership by mail ballot.
9. Norm Henderson reported as Executive Editor of Behavior Genetics. He reported that the journal continued to receive approximately 65 submissions per year, with a rejection rate of approximately 20%, plus voluntary withdrawals following reviewer commentary. The journal does not follow the policy of rejecting papers and inviting resubmission, a process which tends to inflate rejection rates. Kluwer has purchased Plenum Publishing, but the old 'Plenum' staff still handles the journal. At present the publisher adds a total of approximately four months to the publication turn around time. The new editor suggested changes in the review/publication process. An email of the abstract (and article if available) is sent to potential reviewers and electronic reviews as attachments are used to speed up the review process. Short papers and book reviews are reinstated. Ideas for special issues can be submitted by email; proposals should include an outline and list of authors.
10. Sheri Berenbaum reported as chair of the Publications and Communications committee. The committee recommended Norman Henderson as the new editor of Behavior Genetics to succeed David Fulker. Henderson reported that the number of Editors has increased from six to eleven. Mike Miller and George Vogler have resigned and were thanked for their efforts. The new list of Editors includes Sheri Berenbaum, Dorret Boomsma, Stacey Cherny, Peter Driscoll, Bruce Dudek, Lee Ehrman, Steven Maxson, Peter McGuffin, Michael Neale, Carol Prescott and Jeanne Wehner. The Editorial Advisory board has also been increased slightly to include about 50 people.
11. Larry Rudiger reported representing James Hudziak as local host for the 'BGA2K' meeting , to be held June 28- July 1, 2000 at the Radisson Hotel in Burlington, Vermont. Negotiations with medical and pharmaceutical companies are taking place for a one day Pre-conference meeting on 'Behavior Genetics and Medicine' on June 28. BGA will organize a 3-day program of scientific sessions on June 29-30 and July 1. A preliminary webpage will be available soon and announced on BGAnet.
12. Offers to host future meetings have been received from London/Cambridge/Oxford (Thalia Eley, Robert Plomin, Lon Cardon), to be organized in conjunction with the International Twin Congress in 2001. The president will check with Ron Johnson regarding the status of the Hawai offer.
13. There were no reports from other committees.
14. The Executive committee proposed four motions, which were posted at the beginning of the meeting (see attachment). Each of the motions was read aloud by the president and discussed and voted on by the membership. The motions were:
    1. That the responsibilities of the Publications and Communications Committee will be assumed by the members of the Executive Committee. After discussion by the membership, upon motion duly moved, seconded and carried, the motion was approved by a 39-9 vote.
    2. That the dues for Full Members increase from $55 to $60 for the year 2000, and that the dues for Associate Members do not increase from their present cost of $30. There being no objection from the membership, upon motion duly moved, seconded and carried, the motion was approved unanimously.
    3. That the responsibilities of the Membership Committee will be assumed by the members of the Executive Committee with the Treasurer acting as chair. After discussion by the membership, upon motion duly moved, seconded and carried, the motion was approved by 47 - 1 vote.
    4. To establish the annual 'David Fulker Award' for the best paper in Behavior Genetics, in the form of an amount of $500 and a nice bottle of wine. The award will be judged by the Editorial Advisory Board of Behavior Genetics and a citation will be made in the journal. The award shall be given at the 2000 meeting for the first time. John DeFries proposed an amendment to increase the incentive from $500 to $1000. After discussion by the membership, the amendment to the motion was approved by 47-1. There being no objection from the membership, the amended motion was approved unanimously.
15. Other Business.
    • Don Nash announced that the meeting of the Biological Science Section of the AAAS are to be held in San Francisco in 2001, in Boston in 2002 and in Denver in 2003. Symposium proposal for the 2001 meeting should be ready in 2000.
    • The president thanked the outgoing members of the Executive Committee: Nick Martin who served as president for 2 years, Matt McGue as Treasurer and Nancy Pedersen as Member-at-Large for member outside North America for their outstanding efforts. He also thanked Mike Miller for his efforts maintaining the BGA webpage, Jeff Lessem for his help with the electronic abstract submission and Stephanie Schmitz as assistant to the editor of Behavior Genetics.

Note from the Secretary: At the Association Banquet, the Thompson Award for the best presentation by an associate member was made to Danielle M Dick, for her paper 'Longitudinal analysis of genetic and environmental influences on drinking across late adolescence' and Danielle Posthuma, for her paper 'Association between apoE genotype, apoE levels, and cognitive performance' and the Dobzhansky award for Outstanding contributions to the field of Behavior Genetics was given to Lindon J. Eaves.