President Heyer called the meeting to order at 10:00 a. m. in the Waldo Schmitt Room, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D. C. Council members and editorial staff present: Wayne Mathis (President-Elect); Stephen Cairns (Secretary); Chad Walter (Treasurer); Mike Carleton, Steve Gotte, Ashley Smythe, Cristian Thompson, Jeff Williams (Elected Council); Bruce Collette (Past-President); and Stephen Gardiner (Editor).

Heyer stated that much of his time as President had been devoted to representing the Society at BioOne conferences, being involved in the dialogue concerning the Alliance Communications Group (ACG) proposal, and in appointing people to serve on committees. On behalf of the Publication Custodian Storrs Olson, Heyer reported a modest sales of back issues of the Proceedings but a respectable sale of the Gabon bulletin (bulletin 12, published in 2006). Heyer then made a plea to the membership for a volunteer to represent the Society in the Washington Academy of Sciences as well as for someone to present a paper in a conference they are organizing in March 2008.

Minutes of the 133rd annual meeting, held on 14 November 2006 and published in Volume 120(1) of the Proceedings, were approved.

The financial audits of the Society for years 2005 and 2006 were then reviewed and accepted.
President Heyer called on Chad Walter for the Treasurer's report. Income from the period 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2006 was $94,158.16, and expenses for the same period were $72,632.63. Total Society assets as of April 15, 2007 were $148,607.75, up from $124,755.09 at the same time in 2006. This increase is due primarily to a 17.4% increase in the value of the Endowment Fund, which resulted from interest and gifts of about $4000. The Society subsidized nearly 22% of page charges in 2006, amounting to $8125. Waived page charges were offset by income from dues, interest, and sales of the Society's inventory publications. The Treasurer's report was accepted, and Wayne Mathis made a motion to thank Treasurer Chad Walter for the 12 years that he has served in this capacity. The motion was passed unanimously.

Editor Stephen Gardiner reported that 2006 was a transitional year in that he started as Editor at about the time that issue 119(2) went to the printer. The transition was very smooth because of the great efforts of the former Editor, Dick Banks. Stephen extended his sincere thanks to Dick Banks for all of his help during his first months as Editor. Two Bulletins were published in 2006 entitled:

Gamba, Gabon: Biodiversity of an Equatorial Rainforest. Alfonso Alonso, Michelle E. Lee, Patrick Campbell, Olivier S. G. Pauwels, and Francisco Dallmeier, editors. 2006. No. 12, 436 pp.

Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Plummers Island, Maryland, by Stanwyn G. Shetler, Sylvia S. Orli, Elizabeth F. Wells, and Marcie Beyersdorfer. 2006. No. 14, 57 pp.

Two additional bulletins, one on The Natural History of Plummers Island, Maryland, Part XXX. The Invertebrate Fauna, and another on fish morphology are now under review, anticipated to be published as bulletins 15 and 16, respectively. Both bulletins are fully funded.
Four issues of the Proceedings were published as follows: issue 1 - 13 manuscripts for 159 pages, issue 2 - 12 manuscripts for 177 pages, issue 3 - 10 manuscripts for 98 pages, and issue 4 - 13 manuscripts for 171 pages. The total number of manuscripts submitted was 47, the total number published 48. The total of published pages was 607. Gardiner distributed a graph showing that the number of manuscript submissions has stabilized over the last three years at about 45 per year, this being about half the number of submissions compared to the last several decades.
The move to full electronic manuscript submission was begun in 2006, authors submitting all components of their manuscripts electronically, either directly via the Internet or by sending the Editor a CD with electronic files. The transition went fairly smoothly. Changing the "Instructions to Authors" on the inside back cover has removed any confusion as to how to submit manuscripts. Most authors are sending them directly via the Internet. We are also conducting 100% of the review process electronically. In several cases, this has substantially accelerated the time from submission of a manuscript to its acceptance, and we will work to improve on this in the future.
The Society finalized its contract with BioOne to have the Proceedings and Bulletins available electronically as part of a collection of publications grouped as BioOne.2. Issue one of the 2007 Proceedings (120(1)) begins the availability, with an archive of the previous two years (volumes 118-119) also being available.

Heyer announced the reformulation of the Membership Committee, the chairman being Flint and members including: Smythe, Gotte, and Banks. Their first charge will be to recruit scientists within the National Museum of Natural History that are not already members.

Heyer reported on behalf of the Finance Committee, stating that the Council had decided on 6 June 2007 to enter into a 5 year co-publishing agreement with Alliance Communications Group (ACG). The agreement would keep membership dues the same but increase institutional subscriptions slightly. ACG would help market the Society publications, manage the author billing, provide the Allen Track system of manuscript accountability, and continue to provide a printed version of the Proceedings to all members. An average of 25% subsidized pages would also be continued. The Council was hopeful that this alliance would reverse the trend of slowly declining membership and make the journal more available to electronic retrieval and perhaps increase the journal's impact factor.

There was no old business to transact. As new business, Stephen Gardiner noted that members will soon be able to access the journals listed in BioOne.2 because they are members of the Biological Society of Washington.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 a.m.

Respectfully Submitted
Stephen D. Cairns
Secretary