MINUTES OF MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Minutes from the Arctic Ungulate Society Network meeting 10.05.2023, Anchorage
Participants:
Kyle Joly, USA (chair)
Anna Skarin, Sweden (secretary)
Steeve Côté, Canada
Vemund Jaren, Norway (retiring representative)
Brage Bremset Hansen, Norway (new representative)
Christine Cuyler, Greenland (retiring representative)
Mathilde Le Moullec, Greenland (new representative)
Timothy Fullman, USA (organizing committee AUC 2023)

Bruce Forbes, Finland (could not join the meeting)
Iceland - no representative
1. The chair opens the meeting and suggests agenda
2. Agenda was set to following:
3. Select the new president for the next four years’ period.
4. Select place for the next AUC.
5. Steve Côté elected as new president with full support.
6. Bruce Forbes, Finland could not participate in the meeting but gave information before the meeting that Finland can host the next AUC in 4 years’ time. The committee decided that next conference will be held in Rovaniemi, Finland in 2027. Bruce Forbes (Arctic Centre), Kirsi Muttoranta (Lapland University of Applied Sciences) and Jouko Kumpula (LUKE) will be responsible for the conference.
Continued discussion
• Steve will contact Birgitta to get access to the webpage. Steve will see to that there will be a new webpage with a little bit more information. For example, something on each country, links to the research community in each country.
• Steve will initiate a yearly newsletter or news page at the www.arcticungulate.org as a way to spread information on what is going on in the research communities connected to AUS.
• The question was raised about having a representative for Denmark, but Denmark is fine with having Mathilde Le Moullec, Greenland as representative for Denmark.
• We have to make sure that Iceland is represented in the group for the next conference.
• Discussion on the CARMA-network how will that proceed? CARMA and Mux-net together. CARMA does not include semi-domesticated reindeer so it is not exactly the same network group as the AUS but it could be organized under the umbrella of AUS.
• Discussed possibilities that AUS to some extent could influence the content of the conference, for example suggest keynote speakers at the conference.
• Suggestion of creating a scholarship for young scholars in the future in the name of Anne Gunn, for example using funding that is left from the conference organization.

EARLIER MEETINGS

Minutes from the Arctic Ungulate Society Network meeting 14.8.2019, Jokkmokk
Participants:
Kristin Augustsdottir, Iceland
Vemund Jaren, Norway
Marina Kholodova, Russia
Steeve Cóté, Canada
Christine Cuyler, Greenland
Birgitta Åhman, Sweden (chair)
Timothy Fullman, USA (for Kyle Joly)
Kirsi Muuttoranta, Finland (secretary)

1) The chair opens the meeting and suggests agenda
2) Agenda was set to following:
3) Select the new president for the next four years’ period. Birgitta Åhman was selected to the new president with full support.
4) Select the place for the next AUC. Russia and USA indicated their willingness to be the next organizer.
In USA the place would be Alaska, where the conference would be organized parallel with Caribou conference in 2022. We should make the AUC a half year earlier when using this option, yet the parallel conferences will benefit from each other, and AUC would get more spread to the caribou focused audience.
In Russia there were two options: Arkhangelsk and Krasnoyarsk. The first one lies close to White Sea, in the European part of Russia on a rich area with lots of sponsors. The latter is in the central Siberia.
As for the time of the year: in MOX meeting it was told that the indigenous people would prefer May or late November. September and October are tricky.
The representatives from Russia and US will check their possibilities and write a suggestion how they would organize the conference. The committee will circulate it and make the decision before Christmas.
5) Birgitta Åhman closed the meeting.

The Executive Committee of the Arctic Ungulate Society met in Yellowknife, 24. August 2011, with the following delegates:

Norway: A. S. Blix (President) , asb000@uit.no ; Sweden: B. Åhman, birgitta.ahman@slu.se ; Finland: M. Nieminen, mauri.nieminen@rktl.fi ; Denmark: Not present; Greenland: C. Cuyler, chris.cuyler@natur.gl ; Canada: J. Adamczewski, Jan-Adamczewski@gov.nt.ca ; USA: P. Barboza, psbarboza@alaska.edu ; Russia: Did not show.

The meeting was called to order at 17:20 h.

AGENDA

Item 1: Editorial changes of the Statutes
The following editorial changes of the Statutes were unanimously approved:
§ 2. The last sentence was deleted.
§ 3. The Executive Committee shall, in a closed meeting on the day before the closing of each AUC elect a President for a period of four years, and by simple ….. (the rest unchanged).
The amended Statutes are appended to the minutes.

Item 2: The next organizer of the AUC-2015.
The Executive Committee unanimously accepted an offer from the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research to host the next AUC in Røros, Norway in August 2015 with acclamation.

Item 3: Election of President
The incumbent President for the last 12 years, Professor A.S. Blix wanted to step down, and Professor Birgitta Åhman from Sweden was unanimously elected President.

The Executive committee expressed its gratitude to the Canadian hosts for a well organized conference.

The meeting was closed at 17:40 h.

Arnoldus Schytte Blix
President.