Category: Society

2020 NZPPS Annual General Meeting

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The 2020 NZPPS Annual General Meeting was held on 2 September at Lincoln University and simultaneously via Zoom. Fourteen members attended in person and a further 17 members participated online. This was the first time that the Society has held an AGM in such a format and it worked well. Online attendees typed their comments online and these were read out by the President. The President, Treasurer, Editor and Web-Editor each presented a report.

All these reports are available online at: https://nzpps.org/events/annual-general-meeting-2020/  The meeting lasted 1 hour and was followed by afternoon tea for attendees at Lincoln.

The following members stood for election as Officers of the Society and all were returned unopposed:

President:         Mike Cripps
Vice President: Hayley Ridgway
Treasurer:         Jason Smith
Editor:               Ruth Falshaw
Secretary:         Jenny Taylor
Committee:       Rebecca Fisher; Joy Tyson; Dale Neill; Claire Mills; Vanessa Cotterill; and Soonie Chng

Eirian Jones is the Immediate Past President.

Gareth Hill has been co-opted onto the Committee as the Web Editor and the Treasurer recommended that the current auditors Owen McLeod & Co. be used again in 2021.

The Executive Committee extends a warm welcome to new members Rebecca Fisher and Soonie Chng and is pleased to retain the expertise of existing members.

Rebecca has been a member of the NZPPS since 2006 and has been an active member of the Society – contributing to forums and presenting at conference. Rebecca is the Crop Protection Manager at Market Access Solutionz, based in Wellington.  Her expertise lies in the area of crop protection regulation.  Rebecca works with grower groups on crop protection strategy development, registration of new products and EPA reassessments. Rebecca is also the Executive Manager for NZ Citrus Growers and serves as a Director on the board of AGCARM Inc. (Agricultural Compounds and Animal Remedy Manufacturers). Her strengths lie in engagement of a wide range of stakeholders across plant protection industries – from growers to government regulators and would bring a fresh and dynamic perspective to the committee. Rebecca has sound governance experience and an obvious passion for plant protection.

Soonie is a plant pathologist at the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited. Soonie’s research expertise is in arable and vegetable pathology, with a primary focus on the management of both airborne and soil-borne diseases, such as cereal rusts and root rots. She works closely with the New Zealand arable and vegetable cropping industries and collaborates with international peers on management of major crop diseases. Soonie was a committee member for New Zealand Women in Science in 2018, hence she understand the responsibilities and the dynamic energy required as a NZPPS committee member and she is keen to contribute towards a society so relevant to her field of interest.

Changes to Journal and Conference

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At the August 2019 AGM, members voted to make substantial changes to the way in which the annual conference and journal are operated, with the following three motions being carried:

1.  Authors of papers published in the journal are not required to present their work at the Society’s annual conference, and presenters at the conference are not required to publish their work in the journal.

2.  The journal will be published in freely accessible online format only.

3.  At least one author must be a member of the NZPPS and authors of accepted papers will be required to pay a publication fee to cover cost of layout & publication.

So what does this mean in reality?

Conference:

  • People wanting to present a talk or a poster at the conference will need to submit an abstract using the online form which will be available at https://nzpps.org/abstracts. The deadline for abstracts in 2020 is 15 March.
  • Abstracts will be reviewed by the Executive Committee and successful candidates will be informed by 8 May.
  • Abstracts will be collated into an Abstract booklet. Printed copies of this booklet will be available at the conference and an online version will be published after the conference.
  • Authors of papers accepted by New Zealand Plant Protection will be automatically eligible for a presentation at the conference if they wish.

Journal:

  • At least one author must be a member of the NZPPS.
  • Authors no longer need to submit an abstract to the journal ahead of their manuscript.
  • Authors can submit manuscripts at any time of the year.
  • Poster abstracts will no longer be published in the journal.
  • There are no longer any page charges. Instead, in 2020, authors will be required to pay an article processing fee of NZ$420 +GST if their manuscript is accepted. Where the first author is a student currently enrolled at a New Zealand tertiary education institution, the fee will be NZ$350 +GST.
  • Papers will not be published until the correct fee has been paid.
  • Each paper will be published online at https://journal.nzpps.org with page numbers and a unique doi once it is ready.

What you need to do:

  1. Write your 300-word abstract and submit it at https://nzpps.org/abstracts by 15 March 2020
  2. Download the New Zealand Plant Protection manuscript template, write your paper and submit it to the Journal as soon as it is ready.

Also, please remember to:

  • cite all relevant NZPP papers in any manuscript you write for any journal; and
  • share the link or doi (not the pdf) of each of your NZPP papers with colleagues, on ResearchGate and on other websites.

Feel free to contact NZPPS Secretary Jenny Taylor at secretary@nzpps.org if you have any questions.

Dr Eirian Jones & Dr Ruth Falshaw

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