Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 1988, Minutes of the business meeting held on the future of CAA.

The meeting commenced at 2.00 p.m. on Friday 25 March 1988, Clive Orton in the Chair. Over 40 delegates were present.

(1) Report on year's work of Steering Committee.

Clive Orton reported that 5 meetings had been held during the year. The main business had been the draft constitution.

(a) Finance. Clive Ruggles circulated copies of the accounts for CAA87; these showed that there had been a healthy profit on the Conference. The complimentary copies of the 1987 Proceedings. which BAR had supplied in return for the camera ready copy had made it possible to provide subsided volumes to all who had paid the deposit. Sebastian Rahtz noted, however, that this had only been possible because his department had borne the cost of producing the camera ready output. This could not be guaranteed in future years.

Clive Orton reported that the printing of the proceedings for CAA85 had not yet been paid for. Even when all copies had been sold there would still be a loss of c. £200 outstanding.

Susan Laflin reported that all stocks of the Birmingham CAA proceedings would be transferred to CAA in return for a one-off payment. The size of this was yet to be negotiated. She would pass on £2 to CAA for everyone who had registered for CAA88.

(b) Mailing list. Clive Orton reported that some work was still required to update the CAA mailing list. Sue Laflin noted that one copy of the mailing list was to be held on the computer at Birmingham. This could be used for the production of a set of labels for the initial mailing for each Conference.

(2) CAA Constitution

(Draft constitution circulated before the meeting)

The following amendment to paragraph 3 was proposed:

"At an A.G.M. any member deemed to have given outstanding service to CAA can be elected to an honorary life membership thereof."

Proposer: G.Allport Seconder: Mrs. Bettess

The amendment was carried by show of hands, with one vote against and two abstentions. The Steering Committee was asked to improve the wording of the amendment.

The meeting then proceeded to a vote on the CAA Constitution.

Proposer: C.R.Orton

Seconder: S.Stead

The Constitution, as amended, was accepted with no votes against and one abstention.

The fee of £2 was accepted for 1988-89 with one vote against, and one abstention.

(3) Election of Officers to 1988-89 Steering Committee.

There being no other nominations the following were elected unanimously on a show of hands:

Convenor/Chairman: Clive Orton
Secretary: Ben Booth
Treasurer: Clive Ruggles

(4) Venue for CAA90. Clive Orton reported that the Steering Committee recommendation for the venue for CAA90 was the University of Southampton, to be organised by Sebastian Rahtz and Roger Leach of RCHM. Sebastian Rahtz announced that the conference theme would be "large scale resources".

The recommendation was approved with two abstentions.

(5) Archaeological Information Exchange.

Sebastian Rahtz made a plea for conference participants to make use of electronic mail facilities. All those giving him their user name would be added to the aie-list. He noted that only one program had been received for the software exchange - a seriation and clustering program by Irwin Scollar.

Since most field units did not have access to the academic network Archaeological Computing Newsletter would retain an important function for them. Sebastian Rahtz noted that the Southampton bulletin board had been temporarily suspended because of hackers.

(6) Arrangements for future conferences.

After discussion, it was agreed that parallel sessions were necessary in order to prevent the Conference from running over 2 days. However. it was also accepted that there was a need for plenary sessions on general topics with closely defined specialist topics running in parallel.

After further discussion the new arrangements for publication with BAR were approved, with no votes against and six abstentions.

The need to have tutorials, whose aims should be defined and publicised in advance, was approved with one abstention.

It was also agreed that extended abstracts should be invited where possible, but should not be compulsory.

(7) Any other business

(i) Susan Laflin was unanimously elected a life member of CAA, proposed by G.Allpart, seconded by S.Rahtz. (ii) Clive Orton reported that bids for CAA91 should be submitted by the end of

1988.

(iii) Clive Orton reported that he had been asked to organise a joint meeting of the Multivariate Studies Group of the Royal Statistical Society and CAA. This would be held in London, an the afternoon of 6th December.

J D Richards 1987-88 Secretary.