Present:
Oliver Kappe (OK), Ferenc Darvas (FD), Mark Bradley (MB), Hubert Gstach (HG), and Morten Meldal (MM), Anna-Maria Papini (AP) and Takashi Takahashi (TT), Thomas Hoeg-Jensen (THJ), Andreas Marzinzik (AM), Lieven Meerpool (LM), Johan van der Eycken (JVDE), Jonathan Ellman (JE), Mike Davis (MD), Jörg Rademan (JR)

• Ferenc Darvas was elected as referee

• Members of the board were welcomed and registered. A particular welcome to the new international opted members TT, JE. In this connection it was decided to also invite Scott Miller (SM) to become an opted member of the Board.

• Minutes of the last board meeting in Budapest were approved without changes.

• The chairman reported the activities since the last meeting including the intermediate board meeting in Hungary and the attempt to arrange a teaching course in Florence.

• The secretary reported on the discussions from the meeting in Budapest and described the situation of the subcommittees of the society. These had generally not performed according to expectations except for the publication committee with QCS journal and OK, the training committee with Gyorgy Dorman and the standardization committee with Robert Ferenczi.

• The Treasurer reported no major financial changes of the Society funds. The accumulative funds constitute 320,336 DDK and in addition to this 70% of the profits of Eurocombi-3. It was decided to close the online payment service to save the expenses.

• The web-master had no additional comments except that the Homepage is well functioning and that members and board members was urged to use the facility.

• The changes of the statutes of the Society to become a truly international organization were presented and discussed. Changing the name from ESCS to SCS for "Society of combinatorial sciences" was suggested and accepted after some discussion, with stress to extend the Society’s activity to the whole world. The subtitle "A forum for enabling and high throughput technologies", giving a clear message to the community on the Society’s commitment to the drug discovery and development was also accepted. MM has initiated legal steps for changing the statutes and the Society name accordingly.

The changes also include:
• No preferred nationalities in the future
• Proper credentials within the field is a requirement for board positions and is accessed by the Exec Board
• There can be maximum 4 Board Members from any country
• There will be a total of 20-25 Board Members
• There will be no requirement for a ratio of academic/industrial representatives on the Board
• There will be 5 Exec Board members and the Editor of QCS is participating in Exec Board meetings

• The executive board and JCCF should look into the possibility for a closer collaboration of JCCF and SCS.

• The fact that SCS should have a rolling board and exec board of max 8 years duration was discussed. It was resolved that there has to be suitable and willing candidates for the exec board that can secure the survival of the society, however the process of replacement should be initiated to take full effect in the period 2007 - 2009 and a complete change of original board members from the foundation of the society in 1999 should be in place in 2009 when the interim period and the first 8 years of the society is up. There is a call for interested new board members and coming new board members to express an interest, and propose their candidature for election for the exec board positions.

• The membership of the Society is free from 2006 and all participants in Eurocombi-3 have agreed to become members against payment of 1 Euro when registering to the meeting.

• From 2006 free subscription to QCS is terminated according to the agreement with Wiley-VCH, but members will probably be offered a free 3 months online subscription in the first quarter of 2006.

• The online payment services have been closed. Future income for the Society will be exclusively through arrangement of the biannual meeting, through Journal revenues according to the agreement with Wiley-VCH and through Sponsorships. The society greatly acknowledges the sponsorships by Polymer Laboratories and Chemical Computing Group towards the SCS award and the poster and presentation awards, respectively.

• The results of the ballot at the meeting are enclosed. It is a pleasure to welcome the new board members for a productive period of SCS until the next election in 2009. It is clear that almost all members of the board should be exchanged at the next election and steps to prepare this should be taken in due course by the Chairman. Election of the executive board is being prepared. The Executive Board is willing for re-election except for the treasurer Hubert Gstasch who has requested a replacement. The executive board call for candidates to this position and as well as candidates for other Exec Board positions to arrange election amongst the board members of a new executive board. The election will be supervised by the committee elected at the Budapest meeting (MM, MB, FD).The current candidates are:

Chairman MM
Secretary FD
Webmaster MB
Treasurer: (HG) seeking replacement candidate
QCS Editor OK (not for election).
In addition, a new exec member (responsible for Public Relations) is going to be elected.

EUROCOMBI-4
• AP presented the meeting venue: Divisione Formazione Superiore, Guilio Douchet, S.G.A.-S.A.A.M. Viale dell’Aeronautica 14-50144, Florence.
• Concerning EuroCombi-4, the Board accepted AP as organizer, together with the venue and timing of the conference.
• The Exec Board will support and monitor the process of the meeting arrangement.

On behalf of the Board of SCS as approved by the Exec Board,

Valby 2006,

Morten Meldal, Chairman