**Minutes - CCR-FYI Steering Committee Meeting**

**January 31^st^ , 2008 -- Thursday, 11:00AM - 12:00PM**

**By Christian Capitini -- Bethesda interim secretary &**

**Gonzalo de la Rosa -- Frederick secretary**

-   Joint meeting at Gaithersburg ATC, Rm 142

1.  **Call to order -- Attendance**

    a.  Christian Capitini, Orla Casey, Swati Choksi, Gonzalo de la
        Rosa, Jordan Irvin, Kristen Jacobsen, Maria Manzoni, Ewy Mathee,
        Tom Paul, Margeret Pratt, Brid Ryan, Arti Santhanam, Paul
        Schaughency, Jennifer Shen, Julie Torruellas-Garcia, Edward
        Wright, Karen Wylie, Krista Zanetti and Jonathan Wiest.

2.  **Absences**

    a.  **Excused -** Maja Bumke-Scheer, Tim Chan, Veronica Hall,
        Jonathan Jacobs, Michal Legiewicz, Selinda Orr, Poonam Tewary
        and Michaela Wenderler.

    b.  **Inexcused --** Rosalyn Baker, Jason Cheng, Sarah Daniels, Qin
        Haiyin, Peyman Khalichi, Maarten Leerkes, Marta Pasek, Hatem
        Sabaawy, Ram Savan and Qiou Wei.

3.  **Approval of November minutes**

    a.  Approved without revision

4.  **FelCom Report (Jennifer Shen):**

    a.  FelCom (<http://felcom.od.nih.gov/>) - check out the website for
        updates.

    b.  Annual National Postdoctoral Association survey: Take the survey
        at www.nationalpostdoc.org by Feb. 8^th^.

    c.  OITE Trainee Advisory Committee: OITE is looking for Postdoc
        volunteers (clinical, visiting and IRTA/CRTAs) to serve on the
        committee. Contact Dr. Patricia Sokolove at
        sokolovp@mail.nih.gov for more information.

5.  **Scientific Committee (Christian, Gonzalo, Poonam, Jordan):**

    a.  Christian, Gonzalo and Krista are meeting to redesign the FYI
        survey, which ballooned into an oversized postdoc fact finder
        last year. After obtaining some general thoughts (separate
        colloquium survey from general FYI survey, distinguish postdoc
        from postbacc sections better, etc), we decided to create a
        draft based on older surveys and reduce the number of open-ended
        questions and use more multiple choice. Plan to send out draft
        to the steering committee by Feb. 19^th^ for review.

    b.  PI retreat - 3rd of January (Jordan and Arti): We prepared a
        poster with the data compiled by the scientific subcommittee,
        however interest was very low. We need to prepare a talk in the
        future where they will reach a broader audience. To achieve
        this, from now on, survey results should be tallied and analyzed
        by no later than 4 months after the end of the colloquium.

6.  **Newsletter (Arti):**

    a.  December 2007 newsletter to be uploaded on the website.

    b.  Call for articles -- Tom will write about the career symposium,
        Jennifer will put an announcement for the FARE awards and
        somebody should contribute a short blurb about the colloquium as
        soon as it ends.

7.  **Orientation (Frederick) (Kristen/Julia):**

    a.  Monthly group orientation (run by the ARC) has been cancelled in
        Frederick. Proposal for FYI SC welcome lunch. Kristen and Julia
        will be organizing and work with AOs to get names of new
        fellows, and then schedule lunches.

8.  **Report for January Social (Krista):**

    a.  Approximately 12 CCR-FYI members, family, and friends met at
        Bowl America in Gaithersburg on January 26 from 4 - 6:20 PM. We
        had 3 lanes reserved, so we were able to have adults bowl in two
        lanes with the children bowling together in a separate lane.
        From there, 4 of us went to Dogfish Head Ale House for dinner at
        6:30 PM and were met by 3 others who did not attend bowling.

    b.  We agreed for the next event to be at Dave and Busters at White
        Flint Mall for Feb 23^rd^. Details to follow.

9.  **By-Law Modifications (Krista, Ewy, Jordan):**

    a.  All changes were voted upon and approved by hand count. The
        by-laws will be updated on the website.

10. **Bethesda Seminar Series (Thomas, Ryan, Ewy):**

    a.  We discussed ideas to start the Bethesda postdoc seminar series
        with the goal of improving fellows presentation skills in
        preparation for meeting seminars and job talks. We were hoping
        to utilize the retreat as a mechanism to publicize the seminar
        series and then start up the series sometime in mid-March.

    b.  The retreat subcommittee should mention the seminar series
        during the retreat and perhaps include an advertising page in
        the retreat folder.

    c.  Jonathan mentioned the idea of Scott Morgan giving the first
        talk with an in-depth talk about improving speaking skills.

11. **January 2008 Colloquium Update (Tim, Jonathan J. Savan, Selinda)**

The registration deadline was on Jan 25^th^, 2008 and there are 337
registered participants. As well, we have a total of 194 submitted
abstracts, of which 175 were judged last month and a compiled list of
top rated abstracts for each category determined. The breakdown of the
number of oral and poster judging are shown in Table 1. Presenters for
oral presentations have already been contacted. Several SC members were
placed on this list and contacted if they were interested in doing an
oral presentation; however those that were placed for posters were left
on the list but since SC members are ineligible to win the travel award,
the next abstract was placed to take up the spot. The top 80 list is
finalized (87 if we include SC members) and sent back to Julia Poms. A
special thanks goes out to all 33 judges who volunteered for abstract
judging!!

Table 1: Abstract categories and number of eligible abstracts

  -------------- -------------- ----------------- ----------------- -----------------
  **Category**   **Abstract     **Judging                           
                 Numbers**      Eligibility**                       

                                **Oral                              **Poster
                                Presentations**                     Presentations**

  PVC            29             5                                   7

  CCMECP         35             5                                   10

  MCB I/II       48             10                                  10

  STGT           15             3                 \*shared with GPB 5

  GPB            10             2                 \*shared with     3
                                                  STGT              

  IG             22             5                                   5

  CTR            16             5                                   5

                 175            35                                  45
  -------------- -------------- ----------------- ----------------- -----------------

Volunteers have also been sought for session moderators and both oral
and poster judges for each category. If Tim has not already contacted
you and you are interested, send Tim an email soon.

Keynote speakers were recently notified who the moderators are for their
sessions and it is up to the moderators to initiate contact with these
individuals to answer questions, find out about their travel plans and
greet them at the event. Keynote moderators for the keynote
presentations are listed below:

Dr. Carlo Croce -- Ram Savan and Jennifer Shen

Dr. John Schiller -- Tim Chan and Michal Legiewicz

Dr. Stefanie Vogel -- Selinda Orr and Jill Ford

Dr. Patricia Steeg -- Arti Santhanam and Veronica Hall

Outstanding Postdoc -- Swati Choksi and Veronica Hall

Workshop moderators are also initiating or keeping in contact with their
panelists. Their tasks are to introduce the panelists to each other and
determine the format such as the questions that they would like covered
by the various panelists. The moderators of the workshops are:

Grant Writing -- Gonzalo and Poonam

Setting up a new lab -- Gonzalo and Christian

Interviewing/Negotiation -- Maria and Michala

Academia/Institute/Industry -- Arti and Thomas

Scientific Management -- Jonathan and Julie

International Career Opportunities -- Andy and Maja

Ram Savan has been keeping in contact with various organizations for the
career fair. There are several confirmed exhibitors for the career fair.
At the moment, they include Invitrogen, Discovery Logic, Dendreon Corp,
Canadian Embassy/CIHR, French Embassy, AAAS, Genetech, Pfizer, Contact
Singapore, DIS, Tech Transfer, Extramural Grants, ARC, NPA/Felcom,
NCI\'s Office of Science Planning and Assessment, Lockheed Martin
Corporation. Some of these companies are still getting their paper work
in order or are asking for more time.

Also currently doing CV uploading through the website. All of the CVs
will be edited first by Palladian prior to being sent to Steve Gallison
for critiquing and to the participating companies. Savan will be making
more email announcements as the deadline has been set for Feb 12/08.
However, spread the word around your own lab/branch about CV uploading.

Selinda obtained feedback from the SC about meals and trinket options.
Selinda and Julia Poms are currently working on a draft menu and seeking
more opinions from the SC. Attempting to get more vegetarian options
that are more than just vegetables! The decided trinket for this year
are laser pointers. They have been ordered and should arrive in several
weeks. The logo used for the laser pointer is shown below:

Next colloquium planning meeting (the final one before the event) is
scheduled for Feb 12^th^/08 at Friscos in Frederick starting at 6:30 PM.

12. **Other -- Workshop organizer advice**

    a.  It was suggested that workshop moderators talk with the
        panelists now, and have them share ideas with each other to
        minimize overlap of main points. Adhere to a strict time limit
        and allow time for discussion.

    b.  Give the moderators your cell phone number

    c.  Consider a pre-workshop "meet and greet"

    d.  If they plan to stay for meals, ask them if they want to be a
        mentor

    e.  We debated standing up to signal 5 minutes are left, practice is
        debatable since speakers do what they want anyway.