May 5, 2004
Eight members attended a meeting of the NERCDG Governing
Board, following our Spring Training Meeting today at the RIT-INN, Rochester,
NY.
Comments on Today’s Spring Training Meeting
About 100 people attended today’s training meeting.
A few traveled some distance, one from Waterloo and two from Corning.
Attendees liked the broader topics, as opposed to the specific focus
usually presented.
NERM, October 2004
Dwight Tshudy and Robin Sheppard will each be representing
NERCDG by chairing a NERM session on chromatography. We hope to sponsor four invited keynote speakers on Tuesday,
November 2. The entire meeting runs
from October 31 to November 3. General papers are also invited and those on
chromatography will be directed to the NERCDG sessions.
X. Michael Liu will also be chairing a session on polymer analysis.
For more details and directions for submitting abstracts, visit the ACS
site, www.nerm2004.org.
Spring 2005 Meeting
Our initial thoughts for the Spring 2005 NERCDG meeting envision a full day training session consisting of two topics presented concurrently. One topic should be mass spectrometry. The presentations should cover both fundamental and advanced aspects of the subjects.
May 2, 2003
Seven members attended a meeting of the NERCDG Governing Board this morning at the Best Western, Batavia, NY.
Treasurer
Robin DiFrancesco was reelected to a new 3-year term as treasurer.
Spring Training Session
Prior to today's meeting, the Board decided, via an exchange of emails, to forgo presentation of a training session this Spring. Shortly thereafter, Hans Schmitthenner, at Kodak, informed us that a course on GC and GC/MS was to be presented at Kodak by Dr. Koni Grob on June 6th. Hans made arrangements for NERCDG members to register for this course free of charge. A detailed announcement will already have been sent by email to all NERCDG members by the time you read these minutes. Information is also available on our home page.
Fall General Meeting
The Fall 2003 general meeting will be held in mid-October in Rochester. Topics are still under discussion, but may include presentations on GLP or Part 11. A format of up to four 50-minute talks, as well as shorter, 20 - 30 minute, presentations, along with discussion sessions are planned. Other topics being considered include environmental and surface analysis, gradient polymer elution analysis (GPEC) and flow injection polymer analysis (FIPA). Student posters will be solicited and a cash award will be given for the best poster, as determined by a vote of attendees.
History of NERCDG Awards
Walter Conway summarized the awards that have been presented by our group.
These began in 1981 with the Distinguished Chromatographer Award, given annually
to seven local chromatographers. A National Chromatography Award was introduced
in1989 and presented through 1997 to six internationally distinguished
chromatographers who also delivered the featured talk at our general meeting.
Decline of local industry and lack of sufficient funding curtailed presentation
of this award after 1997. In1991 an Award of Merit for Outstanding Service (AMOS
Award) to NERCDG was also introduced and presented on two occasions.
All of these awards consisted of an elaborate plaque except the National Award,
which also included an honorarium.
Status of the Governing Board
Ways to make our Board more efficient and diverse were discussed. New membership from more local industries is always welcome. Sharing a technical presentation through the generosity of a local company (Kodak) is a new experience for us and may represent a mechanism to broaden the availability of advanced technical training for our membership. The Board is exploring the possibility of similar ventures with other local companies.
Teleconference
The Board expects to supplement its formal meetings with a teleconference to be held in early June.
November 8, 2002
Seven members attended a meeting of the NERCDG Governing
Board this morning at the Best Western, Batavia, NY.
The October 8, 2002 general meeting ,in Buffalo, was
focused on mass spectrometry. There
were about 100 attendees, including 29 vendor representatives. In addition to the oral presentations, 14 posters were
presented of which 8 were from students. Credit
card registration, introduced at this meeting, was employed by over 20
attendees. Attendees voted for the
best student poster and an award of $ 50 was presented to Anthony Dolan of Dr.
Troy Wood’s group at UB. Student
participation is encouraged at our meetings and presenters (not co-authors) are
given free registration.
Preliminary plans for our Spring 2003 Training Session, probably to be held in May 2003, were discussed. The focus is to be on various types of quality control (FDA-GLP, ISO-9000, etc.). The format is still under discussion, but may involve some simultaneous as well as sequential sessions. This will allow attendees with particular interests to select a combination from the day’s sessions which reflects their company’s interests.
If topics in the area of quality control and compliance are of interest to you, please contact Robin at rda@acsu.buffalo.edu with your suggestions regarding specific topics and possible speakers. The speakers may be from within your company, or from service organizations. Please do this as soon as possible so that we can incorporate it into our discussions. The governing board plans to discuss meeting plans further by teleconference in December 2002.
Plans will be posted on this website as they develop.
May 9, 2002
Following our
Spring Training Course on May 9, twelve board members attended a meeting of the
NERCDG Governing Board at the RIT Inn & Conference Center, Rochester, NY.
Today’s session on Separation Technology for Proteomics, presented by
Tin Wehr of LC Resources, was attended by 28 people.
Because he anticipates leaving the area, Ed Dietz resigned
as treasurer. Robin DiFrancesco was
subsequently elected to the office. The
board commended Ed Dietz for his efficient and dedicated service as treasurer.
The Treasurer, in addition to bookkeeping and financial
management, has previously handled contracts and coordination of meeting
arrangements with participating vendors. Hans
Schmitthenner has volunteered to assume these duties.
Rather than have a single individual coordinate future
Spring Training Sessions, they will be arranged by two new individuals each
year. This will diversify the
considerable effort required to plan and schedule these meetings.
A General Meeting will be held in Buffalo in late October, 2002. Considerable emphasis will be placed on mass spectrometry and LC/MS. Because of rising costs, especially food, it will be necessary to slightly raise registration and vendor fees. Presenters of talks or posters are exempt from the registration fee. Students who are not presenters are not exempt, but should be aware that scholarship aid can be requested prior to the meeting. Details of the meeting will appear on our website as they develop.
The next Spring Training Session will also be held in Buffalo in late April 2003. Watch our website for details.
September 28, 2001
Ten members attended a meeting of the NERCDG Governing Board this morning at the Best Western, Batavia NY. The board plans to meet again immediately following the Spring Training Course in May 2002.
Fall 2001 General Meeting
Final plans were discussed for our General Meeting to be held October 17 at the Rochester Holidome. At least 16 vendors will exhibit and we look forward to very good attendance. Attendance should be encouraged by the offer of free enrollment to those who attended our Spring Training course in May. Five talks will be presented: Mass Spec. of Contact Lens Materials by Peter Maziarz, Preparative Chromatography by Hans Schmitthenner, Capillary Electrophoresis by Luis Colon, LC/MS by Marty Ruszaj and Lab on a Chip Technology by Jack Henion. At least 5 posters will also be presented. Following lunch, the group will assemble as small informal discussion groups. A discussion leader will be provided. Tentative topics include: Millenium Users Forum, Electronic Data Tracking, LC/MS and possibly a group on capillary GC. The annual election of governing board members will also be held. Board members serve a 3-year term and about one–third of the group is elected each year. Anyone interested in serving on the governing board should contact us. An email via our website will suffice. A highlight of this year’s meeting will be a drawing for a valuable gift.
Spring 2002 Training Course
Plans for our Spring Training Course are underway. Previous courses have included HPLC, GLC, GC column technology and LC/MS. Future topics being considered include Headspace GC, New Enhancements to GC and Sample Introduction. Possibilities also include covering two topics, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The course will probably be in May, 2002 in Rochester.
May 2, 2001
Fifteen members attended a meeting of the NERCDG Governing Board at the Four Points Sheraton in Cheektowaga, NY. The meeting was held over dinner, after conclusion of the Spring Training Session.
The full day Spring Training Session, on May 2, was conducted by Dr. Merlin Bicking, president of ACCTA, Inc. It covered all modern aspects of sample preparation for chromatography. The session was attended by 36 people. Each received a certificate of participation and also free registration for our general meeting next Fall.
Elizabeth Szczesniak was elected as the new president of NERCDG to succeed Tammi Flannery who will continue serving on the board.
Our General Meeting , on October 25, last Fall, featured Dr. Milton Lee of Brigham Young University, who spoke on Increasing Speed in Capillary Separations Techniques. The meeting was attended by 40 members and 40 vendor representatives.
In keeping with our Fall and Spring meeting schedule, plans are underway for a General Meeting to be held in October, 2001, in Rochester. A call for papers will be sent out as soon as the site and date are fixed.
General discussion at our board meeting considered the challenge of promoting attendance at our General and Training Session meetings in some detail. In the present era of mergers, downsizing and outright shutdowns, we recognize that it is difficult to convince management of the value of time release and registration cost for employees to attend our sessions. We would like to run the meetings free of a registration charge, but since we must contract for a predetermined number of lunches, we must charge a nominal fee to avoid a significant number of no shows, which would drastically increase our cost. Employee time off is a much greater cost to companies and it is important to convince employers of the value to the company of the knowledge and skills learned at our meetings. These meetings are not recreational and are truly study sessions for the attendees and can be justified as providing valuable training, which companies may have difficulty providing in house.
Our next Training Session is being planned for Spring 2002.
The governing board plans to meet again in Fall 2001.
June 30, 2000
Eight members attended a breakfast meeting of the NERCDG Governing Board at the Best Western Inn, Batavia, NY.
Because their professional activities no longer involve chromatography, two long-term members, Bruce Shepardson and Dan Thielen, have left the board. Both have contributed a great deal to our group during their tenure.
The training session on LC method development, which was presented by LC Resources in May, was quite successful with 66 participants.
Our Fall Meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 25, at the Four Points Sheraton on Walden avenue, Cheektowaga. There will be a mailing soon and further information will be posted on our website. We expect to have two invited speakers, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The meeting is expected to focus on LC miniaturization and data handling.
The topic of sample preparation will likely be the focus of our Spring Training Session in 2001.
The board plans to meet again in October.
October 8, 1999
Thirteen members attended a breakfast meeting of the NERCDG Governing Board.
Ben Fuller of Medeva was introduced to meeting attendees. Ben has accepted a position on
the Governing Board.
The LC/MS training course held in Buffalo in the spring of 1999 was reviewed. Attendance
was higher than expected (92). As a bonus for each attendee, coupons were distributed for
free registration to the Fall 1999 meeting. Generally comments were favorable regarding
the course.
A 1999 year- to-date financial statement was submitted for review and accepted.
NERCDG’s financial health remains good.
A lot of discussion focused on the upcoming general Fall 1999 meeting in Rochester.
Registration of attendees and vendors has reached expected levels. We have found that the
NERCDG website was not used by anyone to register even though the number of site hits
jumped following the mailing of the meeting announcement. Lunch is planned from noon to
1:00. Discussion sessions will be held from about 12:45 to 1:30. Discussion group topics
will include: LC/MS; Process Chromatography; Gas Chromatogrpahy; Sample Preparation; and a
TurboChrom users group meeting. After the featured speaker there will be a social hour
sponsor by the vendors.
Planning for events in 2000 was initiated. There will be Spring training in Rochester and
a general meeting in Buffalo. Two topics for training were considered - advanced LC/MS and
sample preparation. For the general meeting, lab-on-a-chip technology was mentioned as a
topic for a featured speaker.
Several items of new business were discussed and formalized. (1) It has been decided that
NERCDG will now charge students $10 for registration, a decrease of $5. (2) As a courtesy,
presenters will have registration fees waived. (3) Scholarships will be made available for
general meetings to retired Governing Board members and unemployed NERCDG scientists upon
appropriate application.
Walt Conway has been elected to another term as Secretary for NERCDG.
Next meeting is tentatively scheduled for about one month prior to the late April or early
May Spring training course.
April 16, 1999
Fifteen members attended a breakfast meeting of the NERCDG Governing Board at the Best Western, Batavia NY.
An LC-MS training session, presented by Dr. Jack Henion, will be held at the Sheraton Buffalo Airport on May 5, 1999. About 70 attendees are expected. Each will receive a certificate of participation. Since we expect to make a profit, each attendee will also receive a voucher good for free registration at our next Fall meeting in Rochester.
Details of the Fall meeting are being planned by our meeting coordinator. The meeting will be Tuesday, October 19, at the Gateway, Rochester. Following our board meeting, a call for papers has been issued with a response date of September 13. The meeting will focus on New HPLC Column Technology.
Organization of our discussion group is being refined with the designation of individuals to fill positions of Meeting Coordinator, Training Coordinator, Communications Coordinator and Elections Coordinator. Job descriptions for each of these positions, in addition to the regular offices of President, Treasurer and Secretary were reviewed. Our board of about 20 people usually meets formally twice a year, but the bulk of the work involved in presenting a Training Session in the Spring and a General Meeting in the Fall of each year is handled by the various coordinators and their committees.
Our board will meet again in September.
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