SSAISB AGM 2002: Minutes

            Minutes of the AISB AGM (Imperial College, April 2002)
            ======================================================

1. Committee Members Present
============================

Eduardo Alonso, Sunny Bains, John Barnden, David Bree, Paul Chung, Simon
Colton, Louise Dennis,  Rudi Lutz, Geraint Wiggins


2. Apologies for Absence (from Committee members)
=================================================

Gill Hayes, Blay Whitby

3. Minutes of Previous AGM
==========================

These were accepted by the meeting

4. Chair's Report
=================

Geraint Wiggins reported that:

- AISB continues to function effectively
- The convention series is now well established and successful

AISB'99 had 225 attendees
AISB'00 had 120 attendees
AISB'01 had 203 attendees

These were all academic and financial successes.

AISB'02 has 150 attendees, and is an academic and (projected) financial
success, many thanks to Jim Cunningham.

The committee aims to continue with the general idea of conventions consisting
of several symposia, linked by a common theme. It also hopes to organise these
events further in advance.

We are still looking for local and convention chairs for AISB'03 and beyond.
Please volunteer!

- AISB now produces the two "new-style"  publications (AISBQ and AISBJ).

Thanks to CASA for their cooperation and leadership in producing these two
publications. They provide good value for money (4 per year for the
newsletter, 2 per year for the journal), especially in light of the fact that
membership fees have only increased by about 5 pounds in the last 5-10 years.

Since AISB'99 AISB has been a registered publisher. The proceedings of the
conventions are now published by AISB, with an ISBN number (and therefore
count in the RAE). The AISBJ is an archival publication.

Please submit papers!

The committee would welcome suggestions from the membership about other
publications we could do, or for other publication types.   For instance, we
could possibly publish refereed proceedings of other workshops.

- In the future the committee aims to:
    -- continue the success of the conventions
    -- Increase the services we offer. At the moment these are primarily
student travel awards, and AISBQ and AISBJ

    -- increase member involvement
    -- increase membership (especially student membership). Please could
anyone who teaches large MSc courses please hand out membership forms.

    -- raise the profile of AI and Cognitive Science in the UK (David Bree is
now our official press and publicity manager).

- Paul Chung has been elected unopposed as treasurer of the Society. Many
thanks to David Bree for his excellent work as treasurer, and his success at
"turning round" the Society's finances..

5. Membership
=============

The membership numbers are holding steady now (they have actually increased
again after dropping previously). There are currently about 445 members.

6. Treasurer's Report
=====================

The main news is that our total reserves now stand at 22880 pounds (up from
15895). Many thanks to Medeni for raising an extra 1000 pounds from newsletter
inserts.

7. AOB
======

It was asked if it might be possible to hold a Summer School for the large PhD
student community. Unfortunately the committee members so no themselves have
time to organise such an event. Volunteers would be welcome however!

It was also pointed out that summer schools do not have to be large general
events. Short courses were another possibility. Possibly it might be a good
idea to reintroduce a "doctoral symposium" for PhD students (with linked
travel grants) into the main AISB convention. It was pointed out that all the
symposia are organised by volunteers. If anyone wants to volunteer to organise
such a symposium they would be welcomed.

It was asked if the Society should be more active about the public
understanding of science. The meeting was again reminded that we now have a
press and publicity officer, part of whose role is to deal with this sort of
issue. It was suggested that AISB could possibly apply to EPSRC for one of
their public understanding of science grants. Geraint replied this was a good
idea, and that the committee had been considering it for sometime. Perhaps now
was the time to revisit this idea.