CAA2005 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Minutes

The 2005 Annual General Meeting was held on Thursday 24^th March 2005 at the Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, Tomar, Portugal. The meeting started at 16.40 p.m. with Nick Ryan in the chair and about 55 members present.

1) Minutes of the 2004 Annual General Meeting held on Friday 16^th April 2004 at PIN, Prato, Italy.

After changing under point 3 EPOQ into EPOCH, the minutes were accepted.

2) Matters arising from the minutes.

None.

3) Chairman's report.

The chairman reported that the committee had met on two occasions (Friday 16^th April 2004 in Prato, Italy and Saturday 18^th December 2004 in Tomar, Portugal) and had conducted most of its other business by Email.

4) Treasurer's report.

CAA has € 5700 in the Dutch account and £ 7000 in the UK. The UK account owes £ 5000 to a creditor.
There were 156 full paying members at the conference and 40 students, so the total amount of membership fees was € 4980.
12 bursaries were offered for a total of € 4670 but two were not taken up, so CAA spent € 4030 on bursaries for the 2005 conference.

5) Election of officers and auditor.

Nick Ryan explained that the elected members of the steering committee have been in office for a very long time. It is time to start changing the committee gradually. The secretary Hans Kamermans announced his intention to resign in 2006.

Chair: Nick Ryan was nominated, agreed to stand and was re-elected unopposed.
Treasurer: Stephen Stead was nominated, agreed to stand and was re-elected unopposed.
Secretary: Hans Kamermans was nominated, agreed to stand and was re-elected unopposed.
Membership Secretary: Kelly Fennema was nominated, agreed to stand and was re-elected unopposed.

The following are ex-officio members of the Steering Committee for 2005-2006:

Gonçalo Leite Velho (CAA2005 organiser & CAAPortugal)
Jeffrey Clark (CAA2006 organiser)
To be decided (CAA2007 organiser)
Sascha Schmidt (students & low income)
Dora Constantinidis (students & low income).
Franco Niccolucci (CAAIt)
Juan Barceló (CAAEs)
Vinod Nautiyal (CAAIndia)

6) Membership.

No announcements.

7) CAA2006.

Jeff Clark reported that the organisation of CAA 2006 in Fargo (USA) is in full swing.
Jeff asked to sign up on the mailing list. There will be online registration, online abstracts, online hotel reservation, post conference papers etc.
During the conference there will be among many other things a 3D stereo projection room and exhibition stands.
There are flights from Amsterdam via Minneapolis to Fargo and there will be a two day bus trip excursion.
The weather can be tricky in April.
Accommodation for students can be cheap. You can share a room with 2 or 3 people for € 40.

8) CAA 2007.

There was one bid for CAA2007.

The German Archaeological Institute, the Free University and the Pergamon Museum (Berlin) submitted a bid to host CAA2007. Ortwin Dally and Friederike Fless presented Berlin (Germany).
Conference Theme: Layers of perception. Advanced technological means to illuminate our past reflect the general theme of the conference. This theme is symbolized by one of the most famous bronze statues of the Antikensammlungen Berlin, the so-called Berliner Knabe (Berlin youth) recently analysed with modern, computer-based methods. Therefore the Berlin youth symbolises the dimension of the past and the dimension of modern, computer-based techniques. The theme is also a description of the general work of the Organising Committee formed by the German Archaeological Institute, the Centre “Antique World” of the Free University and the Pergamon Museum.

Schedule: We propose that the conference takes place April 2^nd through April 5^th 2007. The traditional tour programme could follow on April 6^th and 7^th.

Location: Berlin is the capital of the federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the most fascinating German towns with a long history, a lot of cultural attractions like museums, concerts, operas, theatres, bars etc.

Conference facilities: The conference can be organised in the Henry Ford Building of the Free University (Berlin). This building has about ten conference rooms with high-speed Internet connections. The opening session can be organised in the ministry of Foreign Affairs; the receptions will be organized on the museum island in the heart of Berlin.

Accommodations and Dining: There are a lot of restaurants and hotels in Berlin. A list will be available for attendees. Standard rooms cost between € 20 and 100. They will be reserved after CAA2005. Most of the hotels are not within easy walking distance, but Berlin has an excellent metro system, and it is possible to get to the conference centre within 30 minutes.

Travel: Berlin has three airports: Tegel, Tempelhof and Schoenefeld. The most convenient way to arrive is to take a flight to Berlin Tegel. There are cheap flights from all European destinations. There are also cheap flights from the United States. From Berlin Tegel it is possible to go by bus and metro to the conference centre (ca 30 minutes). Berlin is also accessible by train, bus and car.

Post-Conference Tours: Tours will be arranged to the Province of Brandenburg (e.g. Slavic fortress Raddusch) and Potsdam. The excursions will provide a good view of the conditions of archaeological work in Brandenburg and the history of Berlin and Brandenburg.

The membership voted unanimously for Berlin as the venue for CAA2007.

9) Publication of proceedings

Nick Ryan stated that Franco Niccolucci promised that the CAA2004 publication would be ready by June.

The membership asked questions about the new publication plans as drawn up by the subcommittee proceedings.

Jeffrey Clark asked if the local organisers do the editing of the unrefereed papers published on the Internet. The answer is yes (NR). There has to be a strict layout.
Other questions were:
Should not be added under point 2 “in a digital format”?
Who will decide what are innovative papers? Answer: There will be an editorial board from the membership.
When will all this take effect? Answer: we will ask Fargo 2007 to apply this.
The motion “shall we proceed according to this proposal” was carried with ca. 45 in favour, 1 abstention and 0 against.

10) webservices.

Tyler Bell presented his plans.

The CAA steering committee has long recognised the need for a centralised web presence for CAA and the management of its annual conferences, and has commissioned Tyler Bell to investigate available options for Content Management Solutions. The desired solution must act as the online hub of CAA, and will be designed to facilitate communication between members of the CAA community.   The Mambo Content Management application will satisfy the majority of CAA's website needs, although some customised development will be required to address some of the group's specific needs. The Commence conference management application will provide the majority of conference management tools, but not all.  The two can be superficially integrated.

The way forward is to install Commence and Mambo on a single server, with the immediate goals of getting an improved CAA homepage online, and an outline of CAA 2006 on Commence to test its functionality. If both applications are deemed suitable for preliminary use, a proper specification can be created for further development and integration.

Again the membership was given the opportunity to ask questions.

Martijn van Leusen asked how to proceed from here. Answer: we will look at the costs, make a time schedule and hope to show visible progress for the next conference (Fargo). It should be in full swing for Berlin.
As soon as it works for the international conference we can make it available for the National Chapters.
Further report next year.

11) Any other business.

Martijn van Leusen asked for a delegates list (both addresses and email) from both the Italian and Portuguese conference.

MvL: how many of the students present during the conference presented papers? Answer: 7. 100% of the people who received a bursary presented a paper or poster.
Gail Higginbottom stressed the point that teachers from Universities should bring their students to the conference.

MvL announced that most probably the University of Groningen in the Netherlands would come with a bid to organise the CAA conference in 2008.

The chairman thanked the CAA2005 organisers and staff for a successful conference.

The meeting closed at 17.00 p.m.

Hans Kamermans
Secretary CAA steering committee