Minutes of AISB AGM, 27th August 1998, Brighton Centre
======================================================
(ECAI), Brighton.
=================
== 1. Committee members present --------------------------------------------
Ann Blandford, Roger Evans, Rudi Lutz, Geraint Wiggins, David Bree, Chris
Reed, Frank Ritter, Ian Gent
== 2. Apologies for absence ------------------------------------------------
Helen Pain, Blay Whitby, John Barnden, David Elsdon
== 3. Minutes of last AGM --------------------------------------------------
Rudi Lutz has been unable to find any!!
== 4. Chair's Report -------------------------------------------------------
a) Fellows: Christopher Longuet-Higgins and Jim Howe have been made Fellows
of AISB.
b) ECAI98: Thanks to Roger Evans, Medeni Fordham, and Lauren Liptrot for
all their hard work in making this a success. There are over 500
participants, and there is a projected 12000+ pounds surplus, half of
which will come to AISB.
c) ECCAI: ECCAI are providing many new services, including ETAI, AIComms
(soon to be electronic), a fellowship scheme, dissertation prize, travel
awards to ECCAI sponsored events, various events, but this will bring
new costs. In particular there will be a small per member charge. AISB
are hoping to offset this to some extent by selling AISBQ to ECCAI
members, and to sell ECCAI the AISB Bulletin.
d) Web Pages: These are currently very out of date. A new version has been
prepared by Chris Reed, and is about to go live.
e) AISB'99: This will be held in Edinburgh, with a general theme of AI and
Creativity. The call for symposia/workshops is out, with a deadline of
1st October.
f) AISBQ: The last two issues have been properly refereed, and seems to be
well liked. However it is very expensive to produce, and in the light of
AISB's financial situation (see below) will either need to be
downgraded, or have its circulation increased. For the moment (and
hopefully temporarily) there will only be 2 issues next year.
g) New Committee: Thanks to David Elsdon, Chris Thornton, Donald Peterson,
Mandy Haggith, and Murray Shanahan for their work on the committee.
Welcome to Frank Ritter, John Barnden, Ian Gent, Martin Ritter,
and Rudi Lutz. Rudi Lutz has taken on the role of secretary, Geraint
Wiggins has taken on the role of Vice-Chair, and David Bree has taken
over as treasurer.
h) Membership Survey: There were only 6 returns so it is rather hard to
draw any firm conclusions. These suggested that members were not that
keen on the idea of a Summer School, but that workshops should continue
as at present. There should be p/g training events but more "conference
like" [however the feeling from the floor of the AGM was that tutorial
aspects should remain]. Evening events seemed to be not favoured, and
day events seemed to depend on where they were held. Low costs were
preferrred. There was luke-warm support from industry for these.
However, none of these conclusions should be taken too seriously, given
the low response rate.
i) Finances: Our expenditure exceeds our income. Discussion to follow
treasurer's reports.
== 5. Membership numbers ----------------------------------------------------
Frank reported that currently we have 424 members (for the first time
this is an accurate number!) He will attempt to attract more student
members via their course organisers, partly by trying to stress the
benefits membership can bring.
== 6. Financial Matters
a) Treasurers report for 1997
SSAISB Annual General Meeting - Former Treasurer's Report
=========================================================
27th August 1998
Roger Evans
(Treasurer for 1997)
1) Accountants' reports
-----------------------
The Accountants' report for 1996 has been completed, and copies are
available for inspection at the AGM. Our total sterling assets at the
start of 1996 were 13036 pounds. Anyone who would like a copy to keep
should let me know and I shall arrange it.
The Accountants' report for 1997 has not yet been drawn up. Figures for
1997 in this report are therefore provisional.
2) Money in the bank
--------------------
The overall performance of our bank accounts during 1996 is summarised
in the following table:
Current High Int. Total Sterling US Account
(1) (2) (1) + (2)
Start 1996 1782.65 10509.86 12292.51 $3214
Totals for year -1038.01 5883.50 4845.49 $203
------- -------- -------- --------
Start 1997 744.64 16393.36 17138.00 $3417
To obtain a more accurate end year figure, the following items should
also be taken into consideration:
COMMITMENTS:
Office costs 7091.32-
ECAI98 design 576.45-
AISBQ printing 1546.00-
Travel award 200.00-
Accounts (1996) 587.50-
AISB96 bill 1117.93-
AISB97 bill 8960.09-
--------
20079.29-
HIDDEN ASSETS AT YEAR END
ECCS balance 2835.00
Membership credits 1330.00
ECAI98 float 1717.00
--------
5891.00
Thus I estimate our total net assets at the start of 1998 to
be approximately 2950 pounds plus 3417 dollars.
3) Breakdown of performance by categories.
Breaking this performance down into the main categories of activity
yields the following year totals (Sterling figures only) - corresponding
figures for the previous two years are also provided, plus a projection
for next year. The categories here do not correspond exactly to those in
the official report. Also the commitments listed above have been
included in the figures for the relevant years.
1997 1996 1995 1994
Membership Subscriptions 12300 14000 16200 17400
Sponsorship 0 0 0 0
Committee Expenses -700 -400 -600 -700
AISBQ -4000 -5000 -4600 -4300
Conferences and Workshops 1100 6400 12100 2100
Travel Awards -1000 -3000 -1200 -1400
Office and other costs -18050 -17800 -11800 -16300
Bank Interest 400 500 300 400
Tax -150 -200 -100 -200
------- ------- ------ ------
Total -10100 -5500 10300 -3000
b) Current Financial Status
AISB Provisional estimated balance sheet
for end of 1998, as of 30/6/98
-----------------------------------------
Cash 14,738
Bills - 5,408
------- 9,330
Obligations:
Expected income 2,000
AISBQ issue - 5,000
CASA for 1998 -10,000
------- -13,000
-------
Expected end of year: - 3,670
This negative balance will be offset by any income from ECAI98, which is
now expected to be about 7,000.
AISB
Budgets: 1998 1999
------- (provisional)
INCOME:
Subscriptions 12,000 12,000
Advertisments 1,700 4,000
Workshops 2,000 2,000
------ 15,700 ------ 18,000
====== ======
EXPENDITURE:
Membership 4,450 4,500
AISBQ:
prepartion 4,900 3,300
production 5,000 3,300
postage 2,000 1,300
----- 11,900 ----- 7,900
Other:
E-bulletin 1,500 1,500
Committee 1,000 1,000
Travel grants 1,000 500
Fees 600 500
ECAI Sub 1,000
----- 4,100 ----- 4,500
------ ------
Total 20,450 16,900
====== ======
Expected profit/loss: -4,750 1,100
Notes:
1. Two items for 1998 will turn out differently. The subscriptions are
likely to be lower, but the profit from ECAI98 will be higher. However,
the opportunity provided by ECAI conferences only occurs at most once a
decade.
2. The reduction in expenditure on AISBQ will be brought about by
combining 2 issues, to give two instead of three issues for the year.
3. There is a drive to increase membership. If this is sucessfull, it
will permit the restoration of the third issue.
c) Proposed Actions: We will therefore need to do various things:
o- only produce 2 issues of AISBQ next year
o- try to increase circulation of AISBQ via ECCAI (see above).
o- increase membership subscription to 30 pounds per annum (student
rate to be left unchanged at 15 pounds).
The meeting ended with some discussion of the above points, those present
agreeing that there was not really any choice about these measures given the
grave financial situation.
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