As stated in the charter for the Survey Research Methods Section (SRMS), the annual business meeting shall be held in connection with the annual meeting of the American Statistical Association. The business meeting is open to all section members and will be held August 7 at 6 p.m. in the convention center, Room CC-516c.

For those who have attended past business meetings, you should expect the same jolly good time. Here are some topics you can expect to be included on the agenda:

• Introduction of current and incoming officers
• Update on current SRMS activities
• Announcement of student paper and student travel award winners
• Updates from SRMS officers, including the SRMS treasurer and education officer
• Overview of SRMS involvement at JSM 2013, including the sponsored sessions, roundtables, and Continuing Education courses
• Preliminary discussions of JSM 2014 plans
• Updates and requests for input from the Council of Sections representatives
• New business

In addition, light refreshments will be provided. Questions may be directed to SRMS Chair Jill Montaquila at JillMontaquila@westat.com.

The section is the main sponsor of more than 40 sessions, including five invited sessions, 18 topic-contributed sessions, 16 contributed sessions, one contributed poster session, and two SPEED sessions. When you consider the sponsorship of all these sessions, it translates into one or two SRMS-sponsored sessions per available time slot throughout the conference.

The SRMS-sponsored sessions, in their entirety, provide information about topics covering the full survey cycle, from sampling strategies for the rare and hard-to-reach population to coding, editing, and other post–data collection processing to inference and variance estimation with complex survey data.

For those attendees interested in learning more about sampling frames and sample design–related topics, SRMS will sponsor a session on sampling using indirect and nonstandard frame information. If you are more interested in the operational side of surveys, you should consider attending the session on data collection using responsive design and mixed modes. If your area of interest centers on the steps taken to derive the survey estimates, you will have many sessions competing for your attention, including sessions on advances in missing data imputation, small-area estimation, and weighting and estimation of complex survey data. Whereas, if you are more interested in the process to disseminate survey data and survey estimates, the session on disclosure avoidance for tabular data is one you should try to attend.

On the other hand, if your preference is to attend sessions that cover a range of issues for one survey, there are multiple options, including a session on current research and evaluation topics in the American Community Survey (ACS), a session on a survey that uses the ACS as a sampling frame, and a session on the Survey of Consumer Finances.

Finally, if you want to try something entirely new, you should try one of the two SPEED sessions SRMS is sponsoring. A SPEED session will consist of 20 oral presentations of approximately five minutes, with a 10-minute break after the first set of 10 talks. These short oral presentations will be followed by a poster session later that day. The SPEED session topics are statistical challenges with measurement, complex design, and missing data parts 1 and 2. Both SPEED sessions will take place August 7, the first at 8:30 a.m. and the second at 10:30 a.m.

For a full listing of all SRMS-sponsored sessions, visit the JSM 2013 online program. Go to the “search by sponsor” dropdown menu and click on Section on Survey Research Methods.