CAA1996 Annual General Meeting Minutes

The meeting started at 14.35 with N. Ryan in the chair and about 60 members present.

These were accepted.

None.

The chairman thanked the organisers Virgil Mihailescu-Bîrliba, Vasile Chirica and Kris Lockyear for their good work and Irina Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Dan Matei for their help. He reported that the committee had met on three occasions (in Leiden on 2nd April 1995, in Canterbury on 5th September 1995 and in Reading on 18th December 1995) and had conducted most of its other business by e-mail or in small subgroups.

In February 1996, the committee organized a postal vote on the copyright and internationalisation issues.

The previous documentation and the money are still in the possession of Nick Fieller, the previous treasurer. A summary of the financial situation was presented which showed that CAA has a positive balance of £ 1096.17, no debts and a credit of £ 300.-. 54 bursaries were awarded for a total amount of £ 2428.-.

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.

Auditor - Gina Martlew was nominated, agreed to stand and was re-elected unopposed.

Note: the accounts have not been audited since the days of Clive Ruggles!

Kelly Fennema and Hans Kamermans were thanked as ex-officio members.

The following are ex-officio members of the Steering Committee for 1996-97:

Kris Lockyear, Virgil Mihailescu-Bîrliba & Vasile Chirica (CAA96 organisers).
Susan Laflin (CAA97 organiser).
Dave Wheatley (editorial and WWW).
The occasional post 'students & low income' is still vacant. It was decided to connect this post with the current congress organisation.

The conference will be held at Birmingham University from 10th to 13th April 1997. Sue Laflin will be the main organiser.

Conference themes will be: 25 years of CAA, state of the art

There will be student presentations, papers in absentia (for eastern Europe) and possibly a joint session with the USA by way of a telecom connection.

Accommodation for 100 participants will be in University House, very close to the lecture rooms. The costs will be £ 25 per night. The rest will be lodged elsewhere at 10 to 15 minutes walking distance. Social events may include trips to Stratford on Avon, Shrewsbury, the Ironbridge Gorge and Wroxeter Roman city.

Only one bid was received: Barcelona (Spain). The congress will be a joint venture between museums and universities and shall be held in the old city. The price of a hotel room will be $ 50 during the low season (before the 31st March).

Vote: Unanimously For. Therefore CAA98 will be held in Barcelona. Juan Barceló will join the steering committee after the AGM.

No bids received sofar. Written bids are invited. Bids should be received two years in advance, at the latest on the first day of that year's conference.

199 forms were sent to the members and 38 were returned. For the first proposal (internationalisation) 37 members voted yes, 1 no and no abstentions. For the second proposal (copyright) 30 voted yes, 5 no and 2 abstentions. Both proposals were accepted and the constitution will be changed accordingly.

One of the consequences of the copyright resolution is that the property of the Conference of whatever nature shall be vested in three Trustees who shall be appointed by the Steering Committee and shall be called "Holding Officers".

Publication

Dave Wheatley presented the problems organisers have with publishing the proceedings on time. First he gave a description of the current practice. He then suggested some ideas for alternative strategies. These were pre-circulated papers, annual proceedings (as now) or a CAA journal. The meeting was asked in which direction the steering committee would develop its plans. No one was in favour of pre-publication papers, 25 were in favour of annual proceedings and 9 were in favour of a journal. The steering committee will now formulate proposals for streamlining the annual publications.

Logo

From now on the logo will be a local logo superimposed on the CAA95 background. Local chapters may also adopt this rule.

T-shirts

There is no money to produce CAA T-shirts.

The meeting closed at 15.30.