SSAISB AGM 2005: Minutes

                     Minutes for AISB AGM 2005
                     =========================
Location: University of Hertfordshire

Committee members present: John Barnden (Chair), Eduardo Alonso
(Vice-Chair), Patrick Olivier (Treasurer), Louise Dennis (Secretary),
Sunny Bains (Editor AISBQ), Kia Ng (AISB'04 Organiser), Simon Colton
(Public Understanding), Natalio Krasnogor (Publications Officer),
David Bree (Publicity), Dimitar Kazakov, Fiona McNeill

1. Welcome

2. Apologies from Committee members for absence

   Apologies were received from Gary Jones (Membership).

3. Minutes of last AGM

   These were accepted.

4. Requests for Changes to the Agenda.

   There were none.

5. Chair's report.

John Barnden (Chair) welcomed everyone to the meeting, especially
those who were not committee members.

He proposed a formal vote of thanks to Kerstin Dautenhahn and her team
for running such an excellent convention.  There were roughly 285
registrants which was a record and more than 50% of these were
international.

There had been some changes to the committee in the past year: Kia Ng
was leaving following the end of his term as AISB'04 organiser.  John
thanked him once again for his work.  Louise Dennis and Eduardo Alonso
had been re-elected to the committee and Fiona McNeill had been
elected as a new member.  John thanked the committee for their energy
and enthusiasm.

As a result of a recent call for nominations Tony Cohn of the
University of Leeds had been appointed as a Fellow of the Society.

The AISB had also played a role in the nomination process to various
RAE panels.  This included recommending a Psychology observer to the
CS Panel and a nomination to the EE Panel.  The society had also
nominated several industrial and government members to both the CS
sub-panel and the main panel.  He was pleased to report that the chair
of the CS sub-panel was Keith van Rijsbergen (one of the society's
nominations as a panel member).  The society had liaised with the
UKCRC in this process and adopted some of their nominations.

The committee was currently expanding the society's activities in the
areas of Outreach, Public Relations and Understanding and Sponsorship.
Progress here was difficult and slow.  However one result was a new
page on the society web site detailing mechanisms for collaboration
with the AISB.  John urged anyone with appropriate connections to
point organisations towards this "Mutual Benefit" page.

6. Membership numbers
John Barnden (Chair) presented the membership numbers on behalf of
Gary Jones.

   1 Corporate member (Boeing).  

John pointed out that corporate membership fees (300 UKP) would support
at least one student bursaries to a conference.  John urged people to get
companies interested.

   27 Institutional members (libraries) including 2 EU and 7
International institutions. 

   1 Patron 
   0 Benefactors

John urged members to ask senior academics in the field to consider
switching to patron or benefactor membership.

   320 Ordinary Members (265 UK, 35 EU, 19 Int)
   92 Student members
   12 Fellows
   21 Complementary Members

There was a suggestion from the floor that the society institute a
system of departmental representatives to push membership.  The
British Sociological Association does this successfully.  This was
referred to the committee.

A second suggestion from the floor was that the convention
registration should be use to encourage membership.  The committee
pointed out that this was already the case but it was suggested that
the difference should be exaggerated more.  Perhaps people should
automatically become members when they registered.  Patrick Olivier
(Treasurer) was concerned that this would reverse the trend towards
membership payments by Direct Debit.  The matter was once again
referred to the committee.

7. Treasurer's report

Printed accounts were distributed to the meeting.  Patrick Olivier
(Treasurer) reported that the company directors and the society
committee had ratified these accounts.

The accounts showed a small loss budgeted for 2005 in comparison to a
surplus in 2004.

8. AISBQ Editor's report

Sunny Bains (Editor) reported that she was actively seeking new
editorial board members.  Anyone interested should send her an email.
She then proposed a motion that 

a) The position of Editor of the AISB Quarterly be an elected position
with a three-year term. 

b) The first election should be held as soon as practical.

c) In three years time, the membership vote on making a constitutional
change to require the AISB Quarterly Editor to be elected.

This proposal was seconded by David Bree.

There was considerable discussion of the proposal from the floor.  In
particular several people questioned the necessity for a separate
election process.  Sunny was in favour because it gave the editor more
automony.  Louise Dennis pointed out that it also eased the process of
appointing an editor since it did not involve a volunteer being found
from within an existing committee.

Dimitar Kazakov put forward a separate proposal that the Editor of the
Quarterly be independent of the committee.  This was seconded by John
Barnden.

The first proposal (Sunny's) was put to the vote.  12 were in favour,
1 against and 2 abstentions.  The motion was carried.

The second proposal (Dimitar's) did not proceed to a vote.


9. AISB'06

John Barnden reported that the University of Bristol had agreed to
host AISB'06.  It's theme would be Adaptation in Artificial and
Biological Systems.  The convention would take place somewhere in the
week of April 3rd 2006.  He welcomed Tim Kovacs (Convention Organiser)
to the committee.

10. AISB'07

A call for proposals to host AISB'07 had just been issued.

11. AOB

    1.  Could something be done about the AISB Logo.
    The committee reported that Dimitar Kazakov was looking in to
this.

    2.  It was noted that the AISB was sponsoring a Public
Understanding Event at the Royal Society of Edinburgh to coincide with
IJCAI.