THE 9^TH (AND FINAL) CONFERENCE

 Repeated urgings and informal invitations to hold one of the Annual Conferences in the West had, until now, been declined because funds for travelling grants were so inadequate. The 9^th (and final) Conference was at last held in the West. It marked the official opening of the new Plant Biochemistry Annex to the NRC Prairie Regional Laboratory (PRL) in Saskatoon. NRC increased the Special Activities Award to $3,500 with the extra funds providing 12 travel grants from the central and Atlantic provinces. The Conference, under the chairmanship of Dr. S.A. Brown, was highlighted by a lecture by the Director of PRL, Dr. G.A. Ledingham, a symposium on "Biogenesis and Metabolism of Phenolic Compounds in Plants" organized by Dr. A.C. Neish, and the opening of the Annex by Dr. J.W.T. Spinks, Dean of Graduate Studies, University of Saskatchewan. A draft of the proposed Constitution and By-Laws, with revisions incorporated, had been sent to all prospective members. With it was a letter of intent to join the new society which each person was asked to sign and return by September 30, 1958, or bring to Saskatoon in November if they wished to be included in the list of Founding Members. A copy of the original Constitution and By-Laws is included as Appendix II. It was much easier to describe the Society in those days than it is now!

 The Business Meeting was opened with a tribute to the memory and devoted efforts of G.H. Duff who had died after a short illness on September 28, 1958, one year before his intended retirement. Following his death, his responsibilities as Chairman of the Program Sub-Committee for Physiology of the IX^th International Botanic Congress were assumed by Krotkov (who had just been appointed Head of the Biology Department at Queen’s).

The Society was officially founded on October 27, 1958, by a unanimous vote in favour of the following motion:

"It was moved by Dr. Waygood, seconded by Dr. Siminovitch, that the group assembled found a new society to be known as the Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists and that the proposed Constitution and By-Laws, as presented by the Advisory Committee fo the Annual Research Conferences, together with the amendments thereto, be adopted as the Constitution and By-Laws of the new society."

Both Duff and Krotkov, who had been leaders and strong supporters during the initial and formative conference years, had declined nomination as first President of the Society. All candidates that were nominated had devoted much time, talent and effort to making the Conferences a success and to shaping the new Society which had just been founded to carry on. The first officers elected were:

  President: P.R. Gorham

Vice-President: E.R. Waygood
Secretary Treasurer: D. Siminovitch
Eastern Director: R.O. Bibbey
Western Director: S.A. Brown

 For practical reasons it was decided that the Society would not hold a scientific meeting in 1959 so members could concentrate on attending the IX^th International Botanic Congress in August of that year. The Congress program was nearing completion and included many physiology sessions organized in consultation with leading plant physiologists and biochemists from around the world. The Program Sub-Committee responsible for this had been appointed from the Executive Committee of Canadian Plant Physiologists elected in 1954. It was decided to hold the first Annual Business Meeting of the Society in Montreal in conjunction with the Congress.

A group photograph was taken on the steps of the Murray Memorial Library, University of Saskatchewan (Fig. 2 - key to photograph is in appendix IV) and a List of founding Members was prepared (Appendix III) which served to document the 9^th (and Final) Conference and the founding of the Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists. An invitation from Dorothy Forward to have the Society meet at the University of Toronto in 1960 and have a Duff Memorial Symposium was accepted. The meeting concluded with a motion "that an expression of gratitude of university delegates be sent to Dr. W.H. Cook and the National Research Council for making funds available over a period of years which enabled them to attend the Annual Research Conferences. The success of this series of nine conferences was best illustrated by the formation of the new society which had just taken place."