December, 1999 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No.8 
Physical presence at SCAMIT’s monthly or 
bimonthly meetings is clearly not an option for 
most members. There has been a major effort 
from members in the San Francisco Bay area to 
come to our meetings in Southern California, 
and this is a wonderful development. But it is 
difficult for them to plan in advance, and even 
less possible for others of our more scattered 
members to be present. This makes 
communication through the NL (and 
SCAMIT’s on-line presence) of increasing 
importance to our more and more diffuse 
membership. 
The secretary (and others who assist her with 
minutes) and editor will continue to try to 
provide “virtual” attendance by reporting in 
detail the activities of the meetings, but we 
cannot speak for those not in attendance. We 
strongly encourage distant members to voice 
via e-mail or letter (or phone or fax) the 
comments, questions, problems, and concerns 
they were not able to express at a meeting. 
Previously unconsidered problems are also of 
interest and are solicited of the members. We 
also solicit the involvement of non-members 
who find something in the NL or on the 
Website interesting, provocative, or just plain 
wrong. Your comments are welcomed as well. 
We have enjoyed the support of several 
different commercial, governmental and 
academic agencies. In the early years we 
approached oil companies who were engaged 
in exploration off California’s coast and were 
interested in promoting taxonomy for both 
altruistic and business motives, for financial 
support. Financial grants were received from 
several firms, allowing us to function (paying 
expenses for printing and distribution of the 
Newsletter) and permitting the beginnings of 
our publications support activities. Later, an 
opportunity arose to pool our expertise in 
production of a listing of marine benthic 
invertebrates (the first SCAMIT list) for EPA in 
support of their oversight of marine discharges 
in Region 9. This resulted in SCAMIT 
receiving a monetary grant which allowed us to 
expand our publications support, and become 
more adventurous in NL production. It also 
provided the capital which allowed our 
transition onto the WWW by giving us the 
means to purchase ISP services, a bit of 
software, and our domain name. This major 
increase in the SCAMIT coffers was arranged 
by SCCWRP, a longtime proponent and 
staunch supporter of our organization. We are 
still functioning in the black because of this 
grant, even though membership dues have not 
covered costs for many years. Our non-profit 
status helps, but our monetary reserves are 
dwindling. We need to explore other outside 
funding options in the new millennium [Editors 
opinion - if yours differs please express it for 
inclusion in a later NL], or face the prospect of 
increasing dues to an unprecedented (and 
unacceptable) level. 
Our policy of financially supporting production 
of papers describing our fauna in the peer- 
reviewed literature has been modestly 
successful. SCAMIT has partially financed the 
preparation or publication of 14 contributions 
over the years, and has even had a species 
named after it (Pinnixa scamit of Martin & 
Zmarzly 1994). Journal costs have been rising 
rapidly, the availability of page-cost-free 
publication dwindling, and the size of 
SCAMIT publication grants increasing. If this 
program is to continue and expand we will 
need to funnel more funds into our coffers for 
distribution in our Publications Support mode. 
SCAMIT has had friends in many places. We 
lost one strong supporter with the death of Dr. 
J. L. Barnard in 1991. He had offered 
unwavering support for us from our earliest 
days through a series of workshops, and in a 
number of other ways. We have had similar 
support in smaller doses from Dr. J. D. 
Thomas, Dr. P. Scott, Dr. F. G. Hochberg, Dr. 
J. H. McLean, Dr J. W. Martin, Dr. R. Brusca, 
Dr. E. L. Bousfield, Dr. D. J. Reish, Dr. J. 
Blake, Dr. M. Wicksten, Dr. L. Watling, and 
Dr. C. Staude, all of whom have been involved 
in workshops conducted by SCAMIT over the 
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