Tuesday, March 31 at 11:00 EST

SG and LG members:

Paul Albert, Ann Beynon,  Robert Cartolano, Mike Conlon,   Tom Cramer,  Anna Guillaumet, Doug Hahn, Christian Hauschke,  Dong Joon (DJ) Lee,   Steven McCauley, Virginia (Ginny) Pannabecker,  hannah sommers, Julia Trimmer,Alex Viggio,  (star) Terrie Wheeler

LYRASIS:

Laurie Gemmill Arp , Robert Miller, Michele Mennielli

Regrets:

Paul Albert,Federico Ferrario

Not in attendance: Doug Joon, Tom Cramer, Robert Cartolano

(star) = note taker

Connection Information

Note new Zoom account information.

Preparation

Meeting Minutes

Introduction of Anthony Helm, who will replace Steve McCauley on the VIVO LG representing Brown University.  All in meeting introduced themselves.

March 3, 2020 meeting minutes acknowledged on the wiki page

  1. Discuss draft FY 2021 budget – Hannah and everyone, 25 minutes 

Hannah:  Met with Lyrasis staff to get details/confirmation of the VIVO budget.  Last week David Wilcox provided updated membership forecast at 180,000 (lower than earlier forecasts).  Budget balanced in the black to $358.00 by eliminating all travel for FY21.  Also adjusted down in office supplies, AWS charges.  Original goals were maintaining balanced budget and cultivating our reserve again.  We do have a member prospect with Humbolt University of Berlin, Germany. 

Michele - They are a large German Universities, received one of the largest funding projects in Germany, scope is as an excellence university (one of eight).  Project is to enhance research and funding over five years is significant.  Included VIVO membership in project, and expect that this is expected to be released in June, 2020.  Part of responding to this grant is a very large commitment, but they still expect to join by June. 

Christian – pandemic is having ramifications, but they expect this to still be a commitment.

Robert – recommend that projects not “sandbag” budget. Robert says that if Humbolt is known to expect to join eventually, we may want to include their membership in May budget.

Laurie – can we estimate where the world is now, and then in late April, early May adjust it accordingly.

Hannah – will approve budget as presented today, and then circle back to review budget again in April or May. 

Julia – sounds like a good plan.  Do we need to vote, or can we just agree?  No calls for a vote.

Hannah – current budget includes incremental salary increases for Lyrasis staff.

Doug – agree with budget – seems like appropriate funds

Anna – agree with budget

Mike – prefer a best guess budget rather than a balanced budget, budget does not seem realistic

Ann – does not feel strongly either way regarding conservative budget or including Humbolt; could include Humbolt, but budget has tenuous margin, and we should prepare for possible cancellations.  If anyone is thinking about cancelling, we should know this well in advance, so we are not surprised like we were last year.

Christian – agree that we should include Humbolt University money, or else without travel we cannot gain new members.  Question regards Lyrasis overhead costs.  Can we compare what we had before the merger? 

Mike: wild fluctuations over the year. Duraspace was trying to get to 30% expenditures for overhead.  This is the same with the Lyrasis budget. 

Christian: Since this is about the same, I agree with the budget, this is OK.

Mike: would like to see an actual FY20 as compared to this coming year’s budget.

Christian: Would like a rough understanding of where the developments are going, and where the changes in the budget are.  For example, if we have a number of personal expenditures in one year, how is this reflected in the subsequent year.

Robert: Usually will show a three year view.  At the end of the day, Lyrasis costs will be lower than Duraspace, as costs spread across more projects.  Robert’s CFO can work with VIVO Project to see how costs are lower overall.  Can also provide opportunity and compare various technical projects, and their spend for development per project, and where their growth is. 

Anthony – Have we done a SWOT analysis?  Very impressed with Brown’s installation. What are we competing against in the environment to identify strengths and limitations against what is already available in the marketplace.

Steve – Anthony a smart guy, we are leaving you in good hands.  Agrees that budget looks good at the current, conservative level.

Ginny – likes the conservative budget, looking forward to adjusting the budget if we are able to do this.  Would like to see the last year’s budget.  Thank you for all the work done on the budget.

Alex – nothing to add; agree with concerns and comments.  Supports the current conservative budget given the current situation.

Laurie – travel would be pivotal.  Not including Humbolt now (during pandemic) makes sense. Hopeful for more clarity in next month or so, when things go back to somewhat more normal.

Hannah – Welcome more clarity, and would like to add Humbolt in the next month.  We don’t know what the full impact of the pandemic will be on the membership yet.

Julia – Mixed responses, some would like to add Humbolt and some would not.  Since we should have more clarity in the next meeting, we can review the budget again and then we can vote in the April 28thmeeting. 

Mike – when must we vote?

Julia – we had planned to vote today, but given the pandemic situation, and its uncertainty, we have been given a bit of a reprieve.

Laurie and Robert – if put this draft budget into Lyrasis process, we can then make adjustments that will appear as a variance next month.  Recommend that we offer Lyrasis this budget as a start to work with, acknowledging changes can be made in the next month.

Julia – move agenda item for next conference forward, and have Christian talk about VIVO Annual Meeting.

2.   Virtual VIVO conference - Christian, 5 minutes

Christian – Have done an ontology conference online, and we could do the same for VIVO!  We could have two half days in late June to keep concentration up and in Europe and South America.  We could have different tracks where we talk about different topics.  Technical infrastructure available within this group. We would need a team to do this. Program chair and team to take this seriously and get this underway.  End of document has guidelines to virtual conferences.   

Mike - Virtual CNI conference, Metabolomics focused on lightning talks to share what was important.

Ann – Would the annual conference, if held virtually, be free or charge?

Christian – Thinking of making this free.  Most inclusive VIVO Conference we have ever had!

Hannah – would love to see this happen in this fiscal year so we could have lessons learned.

Julia – Mike or Christian – would one of you be willing to send out a call for a conference team?

Christian – very time limited due to pandemic with teaching responsibilities, so he is not available

Mike – can call meetings, has more time available, will put out a call

Julia – out of time; will send other updates via e-mail

Meeting adjourned at 11:58am

Items to carry over:

  1. Plans for the draft MOU - Julia, 5 minutes
  2. Operational tasks for VIVO – Julia and Anna, 15 minutes
  3. Reporting status from task force and interest groups – Julia, 5 minutes
  4. Generating news for VIVO – Julia, 5 minutes
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