Volume 7, Number 1
September 2009

Inside Insights

By Scott Vance INMM Vice President E-mail:savance@tva.gov

I hope that all of you reading this column had the opportunity to attend this year’s Annual Meeting, our 50th, in Tucson.  If you did not have the opportunity, consider yourself one of the few – we had a phenomenal attendance and broke all previous records for the number of participants and papers presented.  Congratulations and thanks are due to Charles Pietri and his Technical Program Committee for putting together such a great program – and to all of you who presented your latest work. 
In addition to a record number of technical presentations, the 50th Annual Meeting also gave us the opportunity to recognize a number of individuals who have been instrumental to INMM’s success over the years.  Watch for your next issue of the Journal of Nuclear Materials Management to have more details on this year’s meeting.  We hope to continue the trend and have even more of you attend next year’s Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Md. USA. 

In the Saturday prior to the Annual Meeting.  While the Executive Committee meets three times throughout the year, the meeting immediately prior to the Annual Meeting is always the most informative, as many of our international members are able to attend and report on their local chapters.  This year was no exception, with most of our regional chapters represented.  In addition, several of the chairs of student chapters were funded to attend the meeting this year and were at the Executive Committee meeting.  It was good to get an update from a large portion of our membership.

During the meeting, those present reviewed the activities and finances of INMM.  Not only are the regional chapters and technical divisions active in their respective areas, but the organization continues to be on solid financial ground, in spite of worries over the effect of the general economy on the Institute.

Promoting INMM
 A couple of exciting developments that were discussed at the meeting include an agreement between INMM and EBSCO Publishing that will result in the inclusion of the JNMM and previous Annual Meeting Proceedings in EBSCO’s online database.  This means that when someone searches the Internet for publications dealing with nuclear materials management, INMM will appear as a solid resource. 
The Executive Committee believes that this recognition is essential to the growth of INMM, and we are glad to see this.  In addition, Annual Meeting proceedings are being loaded onto the INMM Web site for members’ use.  So, you will soon be able to go on the members-only portion of the Web site and search for that paper that you remember from the Annual Meeting.  Again, the Executive Committee is excited to see this progressing.

Linked In
In case you haven’t heard, INMM is now “linked in.” LinkedIn is a social networking site that many professional organizations have begun to use to keep members informed of events. While the INMM community is certainly in its infancy, the Executive Committee encourages our members to join if they are interested. WE have created an INMM Linked In group. You can find a link on INMM’s home page.

Strategic Planning
The Executive Committee continues to engage in Strategic Planning, and time was spent at the meeting discussing the next steps in this process.  As you may know, subcommittees have been formed to gather information on specific areas.  The goal of this effort is to ensure that INMM continues to reflect the entire scope of nuclear materials management and does so in a manner that encourages the dissemination of best practices in every aspect of the field.  If you have any thoughts on how INMM could be better organized or better represent the type of work that you do, we would love to hear from you.

Membership Renewal
As a final note, remember that INMM’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30.  That means that we are about to begin the 2010 renewal process, and I encourage you to renew early to reduce our need to send out numerous renewal notices.  Online renewal is easy and takes only a few minutes – and also allows for you to confirm your contact information to ensure that we have the latest.  Thanks for your help.