Board of Directors

The AquaNet Board of Directors met in St. John's, NF on June 27.

Jack Taylor, Executive Director for the Office of the Commissioner for Aquaculture Development, was sent as an observer to the Board Meeting as Yves Bastien could not attend.

With the large number of proposed projects under the Animal Production (AP) Theme, the Board of Directors ratified the appointment of Dr. Joe Brown from Memorial University as a Theme Leader to share the responsibilities of the AP Theme with Dr. George Iwama.

Dr. Ray Gosine was accepted by the Board of Directors to represent the Network Investigators until the AquaNet Annual General Meeting (AGM) in 2001. Ray is an electrical engineer with the Centre for Cold Ocean Research Engineering at Memorial.

The Board ratified Dr. Bill Driedzic as Scientific Director until the 2002 AGM and Joan Atkinson as Network Manager until the 2001 AGM and the four Theme Leaders until the AGM in 2002.

Research Management Committee

The Research Management Committee (RMC) was appointed by the Board until the AquaNet AGM in 2002.

The RMC met in Waterloo, ON on July 10-11 to review the 31 initial AquaNet research proposals. Their recommendations will be discussed at the August 3 Board of Directors Meeting in Toronto, ON. It is anticipated that the Network Researchers will be notified on August 9 of the Board's decisions.

Education Committee

The Education Committee (EC) was approved by the Board until the AquaNet AGM in 2002.

AquaNet Budget

The Network Global Budget was approved with $9.89 million of the $14.4 million allocated to AquaNet Research. Funds were allocated until March 2003 to the Education Committee ($900,000), for new Research Initiatives ($300,000) and to Core Facilities ($450,000). Over 80% of AquaNet funds are designated for research and education. The Board will re-visit and re-fine the budget annually.

Network Agreement

Comments were received on the Network Agreement from various Network Institutions and the Networks of Centres of Excellence. These were discussed by the Board in St. John's and will be examined again at the Toronto meeting.

AquaNet Annual General Meeting

AquaNet is required to hold an Annual General Meeting. From comments made by the Principle Investigators at their May meeting in Halifax, NS, the Board tentatively scheduled the AquaNet AGM to occur during the 2001 Aquaculture Association of Canada (AAC) Conference. AAC is the largest annual aquaculture conference held in Canada. They will be meeting in Halifax from May 5-9, 2001. While the attendees at the AquaNet AGM may not have substantive research results for the AGM, it is believed that the AquaNet community would benefit greatly from interacting with the AAC delegates from industry, government and academia.

AquaNet Official Announcement

On Tuesday, July 18, AquaNet joined the other 17 networks in the NCE program. In an outdoor ceremony at the Ocean Sciences Centre, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NF, the official announcement was made by:

Amongst the 60 others that attended the opening were Dr. Jean-Claude Gavrel (Director of the Networks of Centres of Excellence), the Honourable Judy Foote (Minister of Education for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador), Drs. Kevin Keough and Ray Gosine who are on the AquaNet Board of Directors and Jack Taylor from the Office of the Commissioner for Aquaculture Development.

Photos and video clip (warning: 20Mb download).

Michael Riehl
Communications Officer