Minutes of the Annual General Meeting at the IEE on the 11th June 1993

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 15

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting at the IEE on the 11th June 1993¶

The meeting began at 14:06. The minutes of the 1992 AGM were approved.

Election of Officers¶

The chairman reported that, as one of the two candidates for the only contested post, that of recruitment, had decided instead to stand for the vacant post of activities officer, there was no need for a ballot. He therefore presented the new committee to the meeting.

Peter Donnelly is standing down as activities officer due to the pressure of his work and the chairman expressed the thanks of the BAA for the work he has done on the committee over the past five years. Peter Branson is also unable to continue in the post of recruitment officer. Thanks were extended to him for his valuable service, both as recruitment and as activities officer before that. Jonathan Barman having been the editor of Vector for three years is to become the technical officer. It was noted that during his time as editor Vector had been interesting, timely and professionally produced. Anthony Camacho was moving after three years as secretary to be the new editor of Vector and is replaced as secretary by Duncan Pearson. The new activities officer is Richard Weber, a lecturer at Doncaster College of Further Education, and the new recruitment Officer is Mark Harris of Kestrel Consulting. Other officers continuing in their posts are David Eastwood — Chairman, Nicholas Small — Treasurer, Misha Jovanovic — Publicity and George MacLeod — Projects.

Treasurer’s Report¶

For 1992/93, figures are shown both as income and expenditure, i.e. revenues strictly relating to the activities of that year, and as receipts and payments, i.e. what goes in and out of our bank account. The comparitive figures for 1991/92 relate to income and expenditure (which are as presented at the AGM last year, being a revised version of what was published in Vector 9.1).

The three main net adjustments made to the receipts and payments figures to arrive at those for income and expenditure related to the cost of producing and distributing Vector 9.4, the associated Education Vector, and late claims for expenses by committee members.

Chairman’s Report¶

The chairman reported that the year 1992/3 had seen the bid to hold APL94 in York rejected by the board of SIGAPL in favour of a conference in Antwerp. It was thought that this was not due to any demerits of the bid but rather that there had been two major APL conferences in the UK in the last decade.

The BAA had given financial support (£1000) to a project by Ian Clarke on the Apple Mackintosh to write and market an educational software building tool using I-APL as a scripting language. This tool, APLomb, received its UK launch at the meeting which followed the AGM. The organisers of APL93 in Toronto have set up a fund to finance the travel to Toronto of Russian APLers who would otherwise find it impossible to attend. The BAA have contributed £1000 to this fund.

In the coming year the Chairman highlighted the proposed change in the format of meetings with the all-day GUI workshop in November and with support for the business and statistics conference to be held by the European Business Management School at Swansea from the 18th to the 22nd July 1994. The BAA is also launching The APL Review, an academic refereed APL journal about which the chairman hoped he would have some more news at the next annual general meeting.

Audit Arrangements¶

The audit arrangements were approved.

Outstanding Achievement Award¶

The award was presented to Roger Hui, represented in his absence by Paul Chapman, for his work on the implementation of J. Paul read the following short message of thanks from Roger, “I am honored and gratified to receive the award. Thank you.”

The meeting closed at 14:20.

APL93 Russian Fund — Further Funding¶

Anthony Camacho read a letter from Robert Bernecky and Benjamin Best of the APL93 organising committee saying that the Russian Fund had grown to nearly US$3,000 by the end of February but that there had been no further contributions by the end of April, and explaining the aims of the fund. Part of the letter is reproduced below. The sum did not include the £1000 from the BAA. He then proposed two alternative means for supporting the fund further, that had been discussed by the committee.

1. That the letter below be sent to all members of the BAA with payment details to enable them to contribute personally.
2. That the BAA make a further contribution of £500.

He pointed out that the expenses involved in the first option (postage and exchange costs on individual payments) might exceed £400. The committee had discussed the two options and was in favour of the second. Anthony took a vote to gauge the feelings of those members present at the meeting. The second option was preferred by a large majority.

Part of the letter from Robert Bernecky and Benjamin Best follows.

The APL93 Program Chair has now accepted papers from four Russians for the APL93 Proceedings, three of whom cannot attend APL93 without financial support (the fourth is living and working in the United States). The first priority of the APL93 Russian Fund is to bring these three contributors, plus one of the APL92 organisers, to Toronto. Another group of Russians have written an expert system in APL, which they would like to demonstrate. It would also be nice to bring some of the SovAPL founders as well as APLers from the other former Soviet Republics. We would like to bring 8 to 10 if possible. But this would mean much more money — perhaps US$20,000 — and fairly soon since the getting of Visas can be time-consuming.

The average Russian income is about US$25, but Russia is not just another Third World country. It is a country of many highly educated people and very many skilled scientists. In a country where chess is the national sport and computers must be adapted to a different alphabetic system, APL has a chance to grow and flourish. By helping Russian APLers to be a part of our community, they can acquire the resources to promote the use of APL as part of their new, emerging society.

Some people question why there should be a fund for Russians specifically, rather than for Eastern Europeans, students, APLers from other poor countries, or APLers under economic hardship. This fund was an act of gratitude for the APL92 conference in Russia — and for the groundbreaking efforts to make that conference a reality. The fund is a recognition that the new connections have been made and should not be lost.

The original objectives of the APL93 Russian Fund were modest. In fact there were moments in the Fall of 1992 when one of us (Ben Best) had fears that he would have to top the fund with money from his own pocket to pay for even one Russian to attend APL93 (after having already spent hundreds of dollars on postage). If this fund is successful, however, it can be the precedent for a “World APL Conference Attendance Fund”. It may be that we have colleagues in Eastern Europe, India, China, South America etc. who would submit papers and attend our conferences if they were not subject to such severe economic constraints.