Rocky Mountain Neurosurgical Society 

Winter Executive Meeting Minutes

December 7, 2025

The meeting was called to order by RMNS President John Clough at 1005. The meeting was held virtually with the following members present: John Clough, Erik Parker, Joel MacDonald, Shervin Rahimpour, Justin Davis, Ben Shofty, and Jessie Tarnow.

Brad Duhon provided connections to Jenny Alcebo, a travel advisor and room block specialist, who can potentially help with future meeting planning. Jenny was able to join the meeting to discuss her services. Jenny is able to assist planning of all aspects of the RMNS meeting, including the meeting rooms, room block, as well as social events. Her company has partnerships with hotels all over the world, but can work with any hotel. She is able to help negotiate contracts with hotels as well. Dr. MacDonald expressed concern over the recent troubles with booking a site greater than a year out and Jenny did agree that this has been a more common trend the past few years. Dr. MacDonald expressed concern about using a travel planner and hotels adding these costs back into room rates, etc. Jenny indicated that this would not occur and her fee is small and obtained directly from the hotel and will not impact the meeting costs. Jenny is located in Palm Beach, Florida, not in the Rocky Mountain Region, which could present difficulty with arranging meetings, calls, etc. due to the time difference. There was also a discussion about having Jenny present at the meeting to ensure everything runs smoothly. Her current business is done remotely, so this would need to be discussed further. There was a group discussion after Jenny’s presentation and it was agreed to utilize Jenny for the next meeting as a trial run. 

Report of the President: Dr. Clough has secured three speakers for the 2026 meeting; Dr. Paul Camarata, Dr. Greg Thompson and Dr. Pete Konrad. Dr. Thompson will be a repeat speaker (2017 meeting), but all members present felt this was not a concern and there have been repeat speakers at prior meetings as well. Dr. Clough is pushing for more support from Medtronic and felt that having Dr. Konrad there as a functional specialist would help in that aspect. He is also reaching out to prior KU alumni, to try and boost membership and involvement with RMNS. 

Report of the Vice President: Dr. Rahimpour plans to utilize the same vendor list from the 2025 meeting as a starting point for the 2026 meeting. He felt the location of the 2026 meeting will not provide as many limitations on travel for vendors and feels there will be great involvement this year. He inquired about requests from vendors last year to receive podium time for presentations at the meeting. This was discussed by the board members and options for having a vendor sponsored talk during coffee breaks or breakfast was suggested. It was also suggested that if not enough talks were received for the normal meeting times, time could be carved out from the schedule to allow for a vendor talk/presentation. This option will be explored further for the 2026 meeting, making sure to adhere to CME guidelines as well. Board members discussed having several companies already interested in sponsoring the 2026 meeting and this information will be shared with Dr. Rahimpour. A gold sponsor was not achieved last year, and that will be a goal for the 2026 meeting. 

Report of the Secretary: Dr. Clough and Jessie Tarnow have been filling in the role of the secretary this year as no appointment was made. The save the date flier is ready to go and will be updated and dispersed once the final details for the 2026 meeting are set. A new secretary appointment will need to be determined for next year. The old records of the secretary were also discussed. There are several boxes with records from 1988 to 2018 present. It was recommended that these records be purged and digitized to save cost on shipping and storing these records in the future. 

Report of the Website Administrator/Historian: Dr. MacDonald has been maintaining the RMNS website with the historical details of the society for the last 5-6 years now. The hard book has not been updated due to this. He is contemplating what to do with the book, as it is becoming very costly and a chore to ship to the meetings. 

Report of the Treasurer: Dr. MacDonald has now transferred over all accounts to his name. He has utilized Quicken recently, as Quickbooks has been cumbersome with reporting and record keeping. He has deleted excess users and this has allowed the subscription to be downgraded from $75/month to $38/month. There are approximately 23 members with past dues, close to $20,000 in unpaid dues currently. Notices for dues collections will be sent soon. The overall financial summary is up $12,600 net for the year. A few additional profitable meetings are needed to provide more cushion in the account before allowing the winter meeting to be in person again. Additional costs for the year will be $7500 for CME and $2000 for insurance costs. Dr. Davis indicated that taxes are filed through Nov. 2024 and Dr. MacDonald will work with the accountant to start processing the 2025 taxes. 

  1. Current Account Balances
    1. Wells Fargo $33,099 ($41,308.00)
  2. Membership Dues
    1. 69 Active and 2 Associate Member(s) (69 and 2)
    2. 23 Members 3+ years behind in dues (23)
    3. 32 Members Paid Dues (31)
      1. 2025 dues collected $5,275
    4. Unpaid Dues $19,525 (Includes past years unpaid dues)
    5. 2026 Notices to be sent.
  3. 2025 Annual Meeting
    1. Attendees
      1. 15 Members (15)
      2. 7 Non-members (2)
      3. 0 Residents (9)
      4. 2 Allied Health Professionals (5)
      5. 13 Exhibitors (14)
    2. Meeting Financials
      1. Revenue: $96,5615.33 ($96,041.50)
      2. Expenses: $72,078.48 ($106,873.94)
      3. Net: $24,436.85 (-$10,832.44)
    3. Overall Financials
      1. January 2025 $41,308.00
      2. December 2025 $33,099
      3. Net $27,290.97
      4. $10,000 paid towards 2026 meeting
  1. Miscellaneous
    1. AANS NREF Funding
      1. $2500 annually x10 years (Paid 2017-2022 )
        1. This has been suspended
    2. Non-profit Corporation Status:
      1. Filed in Texas in 1974
      2. Reinstated in 2021
      3. Periodic Report Filing “A nonprofit corporation is required by law to file an informational report not more than once every four years upon request by the secretary of state.”
        1. Filed in 2025. Will be due again 2029
    3. Liability Insurance
      1. USLI (United States Liability Insurance Company)
        1. Annual Premium $1,726 paid for 2025
    4. Taxes
      1. Taxes filed for 2024 fiscal year

Report of the Membership Committee: Dr. Aoun, Dr. Asfahani and Dr. Sramek were appointed to the committee this year, but were not present at the meeting. Dr. Asfahani has recently resigned from the committee. Dr. Davis will reach out to him for follow up on this and recommend he stay involved with the group, even if he does not want to serve on the board or a committee. 

2026 Meeting/Local Arrangements Report: Dr. Parker reports that planning is going well already for the 2026 meeting at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Park City, Utah. Construction is complete at the hotel, but there is ongoing construction around the area. Dr. MacDonald has visited the hotel twice, once in the summer and again a few weeks ago. He gave great remarks for the hotel, restaurants, kids area, pool and meeting spaces. Room rates will be $309/single and $330/3 people. Upgrades to a 1 bedroom suite are available. No activity arrangements have been made yet and options for a gondola dinner ride or event at High West Distillery were discussed. Options will be explored soon and if financially feasible, it was recommended to book an event. The current room block is set for 65 rooms (Saturday to Monday) and 45 rooms (Tuesday). The hotel will allow 20% loss on room blocks. The location for the president’s dinner was also discussed and whether to keep the dinner onsite or offsite. If the dinner was offsite, this would incur additional fees for shuttles/transportation. Options were discussed and will be explored further. Golf venues were also discussed and Dr. MacDonald will look into venues in Heber or Park City. Pickleball/Tennis was also discussed and it was agreed that this activity could be skipped this year to allow for an open afternoon for attendees. There is a lake across the street from the hotel with boat rentals, mountain biking in the region and other activities for attendees to enjoy on their own. There is a kids club at the hotel that is very nice and can be utilized for group activities as well. 

Report of the Scientific Program: Dr. Shofty has kindly stepped up to fill this position after Dr. Grandhi resigned. The role of the position was discussed today and Dr. Shofty felt he would be able to get good support from the academic programs. He will start reaching out to his contacts to get early involvement going. The abstract center will continue to be utilized this year. Reimbursement for residents was again discussed. Last year, residents received $100 for presenting, along with prizes to the abstract winners. No residents attended last year’s meeting in person and it was again discussed to push for in person resident attendance. Waiving the resident registration fee was recommended as most programs are no longer reimbursing residents for meeting attendance. 

CME Report: Allie Whipple was unable to attend the meeting, but did send information prior to the meeting indicating that she has reached out to the CNS contact 3 times, without a response. She will keep trying to reach the CNS to get the 2026 meeting rolling. Dr. MacDonald also indicated that he has a contact as well and can assist Allie if needed. 

Future Sites: Sites for the 2027 meeting were discussed and the top three options were Whistler, Kelowna and Steamboat. The meeting will be held 6/12/2027-6/16/2027. We will send this information to Jenny Alcebo and have her start putting together options for the meeting to be presented to the executive committee for a final decision. 

Old/New Business: The need for new members was discussed and all members will continue to work towards encouraging new member involvement. The bylaws of the group have not been revised in 30 years and it was recommended that this be considered in the future. Reorganizing the structure of the committees and positions was also discussed. It was agreed that having the winter meeting in December instead of January has helped get the ball rolling for the 2026 meeting and was been felt to be beneficial. 

A motion was made to adjourn the meeting at 1206 and agreed upon unanimously.