Accounts and Minutes of the 1988 AGM

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 21

British APL Association - 1988 Accounts¶

Minutes of the AGM of the British APL Association 29th April 1988 at the Royal Over-Seas League, London SW1.¶

by Graham Parkhouse

Agenda¶

1. Approval of the minutes of the last AGM (5th June 1987) published in VECTOR Vol 4 No.1 p.9.
2. Approval of the minutes of the EGM (20th Nov 1987) published in VECTOR Vol 4 No.3 p.10
3. Chairman's report
4. Treasurer's report
5. Election results
6. Special Achievement Award

Approval of Previous Minutes¶

The minutes of the previous meetings were approved by the forty people present.

Chairman's Report¶

This has been another very successful year for the BAA; as you will see from the Treasurer's report membership is significantly up and our financial status is healthier than ever.

Looking at our major activities, we have run the regular series of technical meetings (barring one where adverse weather caused cancellation); our meetings organisers have an exciting forward programme including plans for regular events outside the London area and an upmarket 'APL for Management' event.

By contrast, the Vector group has not had such a strong year, although we would hope that all the production difficulties are now behind them. The committee has given a lot of thought to the content of Vector, particularly to the amount of material of lasting value to non-London members - for whom this is the chief benefit which the BAA has so far provided.

As we continue to grow administration becomes an increasing burden and the committee has decided that it is now appropriate for us to take on someone as (initially part-time) paid help handling many of the tasks we have hitherto relied on volunteer effort for. This we expect to see improving the quality of membership service and freeing the committee for more strategic planning.

Among our other activities has been the first of what could be a regular series introducing APL to teachers, and launching the BAA Software Library.

Something of a disappointment has been the response to our Members Projects Scheme, which we launched last year as one of the ways we wanted to invest the APL86 income in the future of APL. A few projects were proposed, but the only one we wanted to back seemed to go on permanent hold. We have a Projects Officer, whose main mission in life is to give financial backing to worthy projects; we shouldn't let this opportunity go to waste.

More positive progress has been made in the other scheme launched from APL86 - the APL-ication conference to be held at Canterbury in late September is looking like the major APL event of the Northern Hemisphere this year. The Organising Committee (myself, Christine McCree, Mel Chapman, Philip Goacher and Dave Parker) have been at work all year, we are more than happy with the papers received; publicity mailing will begin shortly and we look forward to seeing you all in Canterbury.

In closing I would like to record my appreciation of the work of the whole BAA Committee this year - as I said earlier, we have had a very successful year to a degree which I hope our successors can emulate.

Treasurer's Report¶

Mel Chapman reported membership figures as currently being 12 sustaining members, 32 corporate members, 7 library members, 445 full members, and 16 freebies. This he said compared to 11,33,7,333 & 16 for last year. An interim statement of accounts was distributed, which showed a total income of £21,542, £12,965 of which was from subscriptions, and an expenditure of £27,726. This included a sum of £20,000 which had been given to underwrite APL-ication, the conference taking place in Canterbury in September, which is expected to be recovered. Net reserves stand at £53,572. Mel reported that £30,000 had been invested on the London money market for one year at just over 9% fixed interest rate, which would mature next February.

In answer to questions from the floor, Mel said that the BAA does not contribute to the British Computer Society, to which the BAA is affiliated as a special interest group. The opposite is true, in that the BAA can take advantage of BCS services to the tune of £500 p.a.

The £20,000 for APL-ication was queried; was it expected to come back? Mel replied it was, with profit.

Income from book sales was noticed to be low this year, at only £100, compared to £738 last year. Last year's figures included book sale income from APL86, it was explained.

In view of the £20,000 earmarked for APL-ication, and the £30,000 locked up in the London money market, was there only £3,572 left for the incoming committee to spend? No, the £20,000 was not included in what had been declared as the assets; the incoming committee had £23,572 to spend plus subs.

There was a query about what the bank charges of £138 were for. They were for getting the facility of being able to receive subscriptions by Access and Visa credit cards. This facility will be especially useful for overseas members. The BAA loses 4% commission on subscriptions paid this way.

The summary of accounts submitted had not yet been audited. An audited version will be published in VECTOR.

Election Results¶

Phil Goacher read out the results of the postal ballot, which he had just received from the Electoral Reform Society. He reported that the number of votes was up 80% on last year, having received 222 voting papers. Voting was as follows:

The other posts were uncontested.

The new committee is made up as follows:

Special Achievement Award¶

This award was introduced a year ago, and was awarded at the meeting for the first time. Dick Bowman handed the award, a glass apple richly embellished in gold and silver, to John Scholes of Dyadic Systems Ltd, with the citation "... in recognition of his work as leader of the team that has developed Dyalog APL. For his far-sightedness in 1981 when he anticipated the potential of a second generation APL allied to Unix running on the machines of the future. For his skill in creating innovative software which is at the same time practical."

Graham Parkhouse (Hon. Sec.)
2nd May 1988