CNPS Organization Meeting
CNPS Organization Meeting
As announced on the CNPS website and by email, CNPS members were invited to a CNPS Fuze organization meeting on 11/12/16. A quick review of some of the items discussed at that meeting are shown below. A link to a recording of the meeting will be available later.
Video Conferences To Restart
Follow on organizational meetings will occur once a month (on the 2nd Saturday). Franklin Hu has volunteered to help set up other Saturday videoconferences which will either feature a science presentation or an interactive science chat by attendees on a selected topic – stay tuned for details. Contact Franklin <franklinhu@yahoo.com> if you can assist him.
Last Summer’s 2016 CNPS Conference
– Doubled the attendance from 2015
– Great papers and new authors
– Presentations by CNPS members on their new books
– Most presentations are online; go to CNPS Facebook page and scroll down a bit
– Conference was broadcast live by Facebook Live
2017 CNPS Conference
The conference will be in Vancouver, BC. You can begin submitting 2017 Proceedings papers. ShareLatex greatly helped creating the 2016 Proceedings. Some problems encountered by authors addressed for 2017.
Volunteers Needed
The Conference and other activities need volunteers to help. David De Hilster is doing most of the work by himself with some help from me. Contact us if you are willing to help – there are many areas where help is needed. Our effectiveness in bringing about change is dependent on building the CNPS into a strong organization.
Working
– CNPS blogs are working. They are indexed and searchable across the Internet and draw visitors to the CNPS and show an active CNPS site. CNPS members can create their own blog entries by doing the following: 1) Go to the CNPS website and Login; 2) In the upper left hand corner of the Home Page, put the cursor over “My Sites” (Note: don’t click); 3) Your name should appear below with a right arrow, put the cursor over the right arrow and the entry “New Post” should appear, click it to enter a new blog entry.
Note: There are informal email threads with large distribution lists that are quite active, BUT they are not working in the sense that all info gets lost and is invisible to people not on the list. Also, many recipients are bombarded by emails they have no interest in.
– The whiteboards near the top of the CNPS Home Page are effective in selling the CNPS and critical thinking.
– Our Facebook page brings “outsiders” to the CNPS website. David also posts MEMEs on other Facebook pages with a link to the CNPS website – you can do the same. For examples of MEMEs, go to the CNPS Home Page and note the large graphics with pithy sayings near the top of the page but under the whiteboard items– you can copy and use them to point people to the CNPS site.
Membership Drive
– We have about 250 members and are growing. However, we need to have an ongoing membership drive. Start developing a list of prospective members.
– Also, check to make sure your membership dues are paid up.
Written by Nick Percival
I have already produced my papers (in Latex) and presentations (Power Point) for the conference, a total of five papers, so I would be available to help out in some way either during the conference or before. As I am in Maryland, anything before would have to be done remotely, but I plan to attend the whole conference with my wife. As soon as the dates are set, let me know. I’m still working full-time (not retired) so any pre-conference support time would have to factor that in.