SSAISB AGM 2008: Minutes

AISB AGM
========
Thursday 3rd April, 12.00, Elphinstone Hall, University of Aberdeen.

1.  John Barnden welcomed society members to the AGM.

2.  Apologies for absence had been received from Fiona McNeill
(Schools Liaison).

3.  Minutes of last AGM (to be approved).

Item missed.

4.  Requests for Changes and Additions to the Agenda.

The Chair intended to make a few comments but keep the substance of
his report until after the Treasurer's report.

5.  Initial Chair's Report (John Barnden, Chair).

John Barnden thanked Frank Guerin and Wamberto Vasconcelos for
organising AISB'08. It had featured cohesive yet varied symposia and a
good line-up of speakers with nice mix of AI and Psychology.  John
also thanks Mark Bishop, Slawomir Nasuto and the other symposia
organisers, plenary speakers and participants.

6.  Membership Numbers (Steve Croker, Membership Officer)

The society currently had 301 members not including people who signed
up at the convention.  This consisted of 217 ordinary members, 43
students, 1 patron, 1 company, 21 institutions, 16 fellows and 2
honourary members.

John Barnden outlined the ideas of patron and benefactor members who
contributed extra funds to the society.  He asked that society members
who knew relatively senior members of the community to draw their
attention to these.

7. Treasurer's Report (Kris de Meyer, Treasurer).

In the previous year the society had had a turnover of around 15,000
UKP and had made a loss of around 3,000 UKP mainly due to falling
membership numbers.  However the society still had around 40,000 UKP
in cash at the back.  A lot of projects were planned to increase
benefits to members and the visibility of the society.

The 2008 budget still planned a large deficit (around the 6,000 UKP
mark) based on an assumption that membership would continue to fall
and to account for money going into new activities.


8.  Chair's Report continued.

John Barnden noted that some of the loss of income arose because the
society was clearing out its membership list and, in particular,
attempting to contact and remove members who were still paying small
amounts by standing order.

The society intended to invest in outreach to all relevant departments
by sending out new posters.  He encouraged those present with contacts
in non-Computer Science departments which might be relevant to the
AISB to make the society known to those people.

The society was putting in place a scheme to sponsor public
understanding events.   

The society was also doing outreach to MSc course organisers.

It was sponsoring two conferences: A Symposium in honour of Alan
Bundy's 60th birthday and the multi-conference event, Conferences in
Computer Mathematics in Birmingham.  In both cases this was through
Student Travel Awards.  The Society was also underwriting an academic
symposium to be held in parallel with the Loebner event in Reading.

As of 2010 the society intended to drop the theming of conventions.

The society intended to institute a system of "champions" to cover
different areas of AI.  Their role would be to get articles on their
area into AISBQ, suggest conference symposia and public understanding
events.  Various members of the committee had already volunteered
though there was no intention to restrict these people to committee
members.

AISBJ had not been doing well for some time with very few submissions
most of which were rejected.  The committee had decided not to pursue
it in its current form.  An opportunity to publish AISBJ through OUP
had been pursued but eventually fell through.  Manfred Kerber was
looking into relaunching it in a revised form, possibly merged with
AISBQ.  It would not operate as a standard academic journal any
more.  If society members had any ideas about future directions of
AISBJ they should contact Manfred Kerber at Birmingham by email.
Since the chief benefit of society membership for institutional
members was receiving AISBJ the society anticipated it would lose
those members and had budgeted accordingly.

John also noted that the society had only one Corporate Member
(Boeing).  He intended to send a letter to other potential members
(e.g., QinetiQ and DSTR) but would welcome contacts from Society
members.

The society was currently investigating a joint bid to host ECAI-12
with the BCS Special Interest Group in AI.

Following a lack of interest all plans for the society to exploit the
Olympics in some fashion had been dropped.

9. AOB not mentioned in 4.

A suggestion from the floor was that the sponsorship of public
understanding events should include bids for pump-priming money to
support subsequent EPSRC bids.  The committee agreed to consider this.

ACTION 08.AGM.9.1: Tim Blackwell (Public Understanding Officer) to
consider including bids for pump priming EPSRC grants as part of the
public understanding scheme.

It was noted that not only EPSRC but also the Royal Society and
possibly the British Academy offered money for public understanding.
Could there by a section on the AISB website listing potential
funders?

ACTION 08.AGM.9.2:  Louise Dennis (Webmaster) to consider including a
page on the website outlining public understanding funding sources.

Meeting closed at 1.05pm.