Jane White-Lewis opened the meeting at 4:15 with the agenda.  The first activity was a raffle of three donated prizes.

1)  Minutes of 1996 Membership Meeting: A motion was made and seconded, to accept the minutes as posted.  The motion passed.

2) Nomination and Election of Board Members:  Before collecting the ballots for the 1997 election of the Board of Directors, Kelly discussed the nomination and election process.  He explained the process for seeking nominations a year ahead.  The nominations committee reduces it to a slate of 8 to 10 members which goes to vote by the Board to reduce to five.  The five are then voted on by the general ASD membership at this General Membership Meeting.  The ballots were then collected.

3) Recognition of Outgoing Board Members: Jane recognized the officers and Board members presiding over the meeting and thanked the outgoing Board members Helen Carter, Monique Lortie-Lussier, Joanne Rochon, Sybe Terwee, and George Baylor for their service to ASD.

4) Outgoing Presidents Address [Johanna King]: Johanna talked about our increasing membership (which now stands at 785), and stated that we really need around 1,200 members to feel in a stable position and cover the financial costs associated with our educational and outreach activity.  She indicated that overall we are financially "in the black", however for this year we will be "in the red" due in part to our commitments at the Central Office.  She indicated that we do not want to raise money by increasing dues but rather by increasing members, so she called for all members to "talk ASD up" to friends.  She indicated that as an organization we are doing well, mentioning our educational activities, Dream Time and the Journal Dreaming.

Deirdre thanked Johanna for all the contributions that she had made to the organization and presented her with a plaque of appreciation for her service.

5) Conference 1997 Acknowledgments:  Shirl Coburn (committee chair for the 1996 Conference) thanked Robert Gongloff for organizing this conference stating that "no one could really appreciate what it is like to put on a conference like this unless they have walked in these shoes."   Robert was given a round of applause by the members and was presented with a gift of a live tree for his contribution.  He indicated that it has been a joy for him and a pleasure to have everybody here.  Richard Russo (program co-chair for the 1996 conference) echoed what Shirl said adding that he knows all too well what is involved in planning such a conference.  He thanked George Baylor for putting the program together this year.  Jane White-Lewis then recognized, and presented a gift of appreciation, to Joanne Rochon who did so much for the conference and helped in so many ways, particularly with bringing in the Arts.

6) Election Results [Kelly Bulkeley]: Kelly announced the newly elected Board members: Kathryn Belicki, Edward Bruce Bynum, Monique Lortie-Lussier, Joanne Rochon, and Dale Westbrook.  The officers announced for 1997 were Kelly Bulkeley as President, Patty Garfield as President Elect, Bob Hoss to continue as Secretary, and Helen Carter as the new Treasurer.  Jane gave appreciation to Nancy Gazells for all her contributions as past Treasurer and also recognized Helen Carter for all she has done for this organization since her joining in 1986.

7) Committees:  Jane announced the committees and asked that members take an interest in joining these committees.  At that point the representatives from each committee gave a brief description of what their committee is involved in.

7a) Arts Committee [Joanne Rochon]:  Joanne Rochon indicated that the arts exhibition at the annual conference is the main event for the Arts Committee.  She identified Fariba as the West Coast co -chair.  She indicated that we are looking for new ways to expand the Arts Committee.

7b) Conference Planning [Shirl Coburn]: Shirl indicated that this committee is involved in site selection, host and program chair selection.  She discussed planning over a 5-year span of time, and the international presence of the conferences.  She announced that next year we will be in Hawaii followed by Santa Cruz the year after that then Washington DC for the year 2000.

7c) Education [Kelly Bulkeley]: Kelly indicated that this committee is interested and involved in outreach, in developing curricula for educational activities and developing small publications.

7d) Electronic Communication [Jane Gackenbach]: Jane indicated that the ASD web site is at Grant Mac Ewen University in Edmonton, and announced that we have had 30,000 hits to the site to date.  She asked for any plans and ideas that members might have for the Web site.  She talked a bit about some of the purposes of the web site.  In that light she discussed the passing of Alan Moffitt and the use of the bulletin board for people to enter their memories about Alan so that we can write an obituary about Alan that reflects our collective feelings.

7e) Ethics [Carol Warner]: Carol discussed the writing of the ASD ethics statement and how we tried to include the diversity and culture issues, as well as giving guidelines for ethical dreamwork as well as for linking on the web site. The generation of general guidelines to send out to workshop presenters is a proposed activity of this committee. One of the ethics focal issues is trying to get enough information on proposed workshops to the point where we can determine before hand what it will be like.  She called for help and suggestions in how to handle this, perhaps procedures that would adequately describe the approach.

7f) Finance & Funding [Nancy Gazells]: Nancy described the efforts needed to raise additional funds for specific ASD activities and growing needs that the Central Office has in serving our members and those requesting assistance.  She requested help from anyone that has experience in fund raising or investment.

7g) Journal [Don Kuiken]: Don indicated that the Journal Dreaming is the ASD outlet for professional publication.  It has had a predominance of psychological material in the past and now there is a desire to broaden the scope to anthropology, philosophy and such.  The plan for next year is an issue on psychobiology in dreams and in the future a history in dream studies.  He discussed the introduction of a new format, a "brief report" section for researchers to provide a briefer form of reporting on research.

7h) Membership [Carlos Smith]: Carlos indicated that we are looking to increase student membership and in getting the ASD members involved in recruiting.  He is looking for ideas for gaining membership.  Increasing membership is one way to keep the dues down, citing that we have not increased them for over 6 years.

7i) Dream Time [Alan Siegel]: Alan indicated that the ASD newsletter has been renamed Dream Time and announced the move to a new magazine format.  He stated that we always need help in preparing Dream Time and thanked some of the regular contributors.  Any help on public relations and advertising was welcomed as well.  He announced a December children's issue and a Clinical issue in the spring.  He also mentioned the Continuing Education activity and called for suggestions in these areas.

7j) Nomination [Deirdre Barrett]: Deirdre disused the nominations procedure and indicated that we would like to raise the question again to members as to its sufficiency.  She called for suggestions. She also called for nominations to be provided to the committee for future elections.

7k) Regional Meetings [Rita Dwyer]: Rita indicated the goal of the meetings were to promote awareness and to stimulate and maintain membership.  She listed some of the locations we have had these meetings and indicated that we like to do one before a conference so as to build interest before hand.  She called for help from those with ideas, or who would like to sponsor any of the many formats that this sort of meeting could take.

7l) Research Committee [Ernest Hartmann]: He called for suggestions from members on what we might do in the way of further research activities.

8) Internet Communications: Alan Siegel and David Gordon talked about a more efficient way of communicating with members, for example using an Internet mailing system called "list serve" as a means for mass communication and mailings and communications.  David asked that anyone that is interested should contact him after the meeting.

Jane urged everyone to seek out a committee that they wish to join or support.  The committee groups met for about 20 minutes.  Jane White-Lewis adjourned the meeting at 5:30 PM