2004 AGM Minutes
Date: 2/7/04
Time: 2pm
Place: ASFLA annual conference, Education House, Brisbane
Chair: Kristina Love
Committee: David Butt, Marie Quinn
Present: Len Unsworth, Louise Ravelli, Kathryn Tuckwell, Motoki, Shoshanna Dreyfus, Dorothy
Ecconoumou, Gary, Louise Droga, Sally Humphreys, Lenore Ferguson, Jill Kealley, Dianna McCullum,
Mary Macken-Horarik, Helen Tebble, Annabelle Lukin, Rebekah Wegener (and others).
Apologies: Helen Jenkins, Susan Hoadley, John Polias, Anne Thwaite, Clare Painter
Minutes:
Kristina Love:
Discussion of agenda items, call for further items.
Action: no further items
Reading of apologies
Minutes of last year not up on the web yet, due to be circulated as soon as Carl is available.
Marie Quinn:
Report of the state of membership within ASFLA.
The report will go up on the web shortly. In conjunction with Susan Hoadley we have been working on a
database of membership. The membership at the moment is:
8 Life members, 12 Student members, 58 members and numerous associates.
We are getting new members, and we would like to see conference organizers encourage new membership
and make use of the database. We don’t reveal names, but we do make contact, and University of Melbourne
supports with mail outs.
Discussion from the floor
Kristina Love: it is part of our privacy policy that we don’t reveal names from our database
Gary: Is there a capacity for corporate membership to ASFLA?
Kristina Love: at the moment no there isn’t but I think we should take time to investigate. It would be nice to
see an increase in teacher members and we could possibly have a reduced rate for schools. I would like to
propose a corporate or institution membership to be set at $50.00.
Gary: This is complicated with Universities.
Marina: We don’t want to lose money through corporate membership
Kristina Love: school membership to be set as separate at $50.00.
Sally Humphreys: We could advertise through the department of education
Kristina Love: It is a job for the state representatives to publicise.
Action: Marie to provide details on how many associates there are and if these are recorded on the database
as well. Executive Committee to carry on further discussion about fees for institutions
Motion: That there be a separate $50.00 membership for schools - Motion Carried
Note of Thanks: Len Unsworth calls for note of thanks to be recorded for Ray Misson as the Head of the
Department of LLAE which supports the costs for mailouts and circulars.
Kristina Love:
We have developed guidelines for conference organisers to follow. These rules of thumb will go up on the
web page soon and should be helpful for those planning conferences in the future.
ASFLA would like to have a newsletter that reports on things like research, degrees, causes, celebrations,
advertisements and general interest stories. Call for editor for newsletter – no nominations.
Action: David Butt to explore possibilities for Newsletter Editor
Last meeting, Maria Couchman proposed that space be set-aside on the ASFLA web page for research
profiles. Carl has indicated that he is ready to receive any such contributions and hopefully Maria will be
able to pursue this suggestion in the near future.
Reclaiming Knowledge Conference – this conference is going ahead in December of this year, and we would
like to remind you that early bird registrations closed on the 31st of July, but there may be an extension as
they are still open for papers.
Discussion from the floor:
Kathryn Tuckwell: noted that student discount is for full time students only, and part time students are often
just as under funded if not more so. Might we consider a waged – unwaged distinction?
Shooshi Dreyfus suggested a fully waged, partially waged and unwaged scale?
Kristina Love: this would be up to the organising committee of each conference to discuss.
Kathryn Tuckwell: does it come up under the conference rules of thumb?
Kristina Love: not at this stage, but it is something for the executive committee to discuss.
Action: Executive committee to discuss the issue of student income and conference registration fees.
Kristina Love:
President’s Report
Funding for 2004.
Request from Pakistan (SPELT) to send a speaker over. This was accepted by P Gibbons, but due to unstable
conditions this did not take place. The request has been made again, and Marie Quinn has accepted. She
should be going for 10 days, conditions permitting. The executive committee has re-approved that the $3000
from 3years ago be carried over as funding. [Please note that comments made at this point have been
included under discussion from the floor as they were quite extensive and disrupted the flow of the report]
One of the points of ASFLA is to encourage overseas philanthropic work and to take a long-term view of the
association. Requests for funding have been made by Western Australian representative Anne Thwaite for
$600 to invite David Rose over to talk in the interests of encouraging the development of SFL across states.
We are also interested in allocating funds for bringing others into the country. At the moment, $3,000 has
been set aside to bring a visiting scholar over for the international conference in 2005 in Sydney.
Discussion from the floor:
Annabelle Lukin: What happens if there is a profit from national conferences?
Kristina Love: If there is a loss ASFLA bears the loss, if there is a profit, the seeding funds get reattributed to
ASFLA and the profit goes back to ASFLA.
Annabelle Lukin: LBC cost $20 000 but notionally made $6000. Can we have a clear policy on conference
funding and some flexibility to change with different situations? Say for things like reaching out to other
groups.
Kristina Love: If there is money available and the executive committee can justify the risk, we can consider
supporting additional conferences outside the annual one. We require conference organisers to submit
budgets for their conferences, and the executive is subsequently involved in decision making with the
conference committee.
Annabelle Lukin: the conference committee needs to feel that the executive is behind them when they are
planning, because we don’t want people to be worried about if they lose money or not, they need to be able
to plan the conference.
Kristina Love: The executive has a short and long term view. We might expect that some conferences will
make a loss, but that others will make a profit, and we can still support them.
David Butt: can we combine funds from national conference and the international conference?
Kristina Love: no we can’t, and I think we will elaborate the principles for requesting funding and
responding to requests in a guide that we can put on the web.
Action: development of conference planning guide and funding application guide by the executive.
Treasurer’s Report
Susan’s report is attached to the agenda. It is reasonably self-explanatory.
Discussion from the floor:
Annabelle Lukin: On the treasurer’s report there is a $1000 merchant fee for credit card payment facilities.
Should we cut credit cards as a payment option? We aren’t big enough to have it.
Against credit card option: charge extra for those who use credit card so that we transfer the cost, a kind of
user pays system; explain that it takes money away from the association.
For credit card option: lots of people don’t feel confident with online banking; useful for conferences; credit
unions can’t use the banking transfer system; overseas might have difficulties and institutions prefer to pay
by credit card, they won’t use other methods.
Action: Trial for another year and executive to check proportions that use credit card and discuss future.
Maintain flexibility for conferences and get more advice on this issue.
Motion: Accept Financial Report – motion carried
Note of Thanks: Thanks to Susan Hoadley for her report and work. Immense thanks on behalf of the
association for the hard, regular and reliable work that she carries out.
Kristina Love:
Privacy statement read out [see below]
ASFLA Privacy policy.
The Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association is committed to protecting your privacy and the
confidentiality and security of any personal information you may provide to us. We are committed to
complying with the Privacy Act and National Privacy principles. We collect a limited amount of information
from you when you apply for membership and when you register for ASFLA related conferences. This
information is collected to enable us to provide membership benefits, including advice about forthcoming
events. It is our policy not to pass on your personal information to any other organization for commercial
purposes. ASFLA mailing list addresses are never sold, rented, leased, traded, swapped, exchanged, or
bartered to anyone. We don’t like to receive junk mail, and know you don’t either. If we were approached to
provide personal information about membership for professional purposes only, we would seek your consent
before releasing it.
We also aim to ensure that your personal information is up-to-date. Under the privacy Act you have the right
to access personal information we hold about you. If you feel the information is incorrect or incomplete, you
have the right to require us to amend the information. Please contact the president of the association if you
have any queries.
Motion: move that this statement be accepted and printed on the web – motion carried.
David Butt: There are quite a few issues that have been raised that have continued over that past few years,
for example fees for students, and membership issues. I think that we do need to discuss these the difference
between 238 associates and 58 members is quite large and at this stage we may just have to wear the credit
card charges in order to get more members. We should also sign up people at conferences, a physical
presence might get some good results.
Suggestions about membership:
Annabelle: membership from January to January
Kathryn: might be a bad time for students to come up with money.
Gary: If someone turns up is it better to catch them before they leave?
Marie: There is a rush before conferences.
Kristina: Are you suggesting 6 months free?
Annabelle: Could membership and conference registration be combined?
Dianna: is there a reason for calendar year?
Kristina: it introduces another level of complexity which might be a reason for July to July.
Dianna: Calendar year has value sometimes.
Action: circulate proposals (e.g. booth at conference to sign people up, changes to membership) to the
executive and all to contact Kristina Love or Marie Quinn with any ideas.
Kristina Love:
Report on future conferences
Annabelle Lukin: Discourses of Hope Conference [ISFC conference in Sydney with many notable guest
speakers]
Len Unsworth: Language and Education Day – July 20th 2005 – a showcase of SFL and ASFLA organized
as a workshop. We plan to follow up the keynote address with a workshop; this will allow direct and indirect
contact with speakers, parallel papers and a concentration on materials and methods for teaching. This will
lead into a publication exercise around August 1st.
David Butt: we are planning to have a workshop a week before much like that in 1996. There will be graded
workshops – not quite so diverse, but for 2-3 days.
Kristina Love: Publicity will need to go out shortly.
Mary Macken-Horarik: Canberra 2006 – because Canberra is quite isolated, we will need a lot of support
and help from the executive.
Kristina Love: Western Australia still being explored for 2007, under Anne Thwaites direction. Again much
support will be required from the executive, since Anne is the only SFLer in WA prepared to take on the
task!
Lenore Ferguson: There seems to be a tearing apart of resources and time slots for conferences, we need to
address the issue of clashes.
Kristina Love:
Election of Office Bearers to the executive
State Representatives:
NSW – Clare Painter
ACT – Mary Macke-Horarik
WA – Anne Thwaite
NT – Peter Wignel
SA – John Polias and Brian Dare
VIC – Kristina Love
QLD – Lenore Fergusen
TAS – ?
Motion: propose re-election for 1 year term – Motion carried
Motion: Propose $500 continues as payment for Carl – Motion carried
Len Unsworth: Executive might consider an increase in funds for Carl
David Butt: The executive has contacted Carl to negotiate further payment for additional work associated
with additional conferences. But ultimately his work is still essentially volunteer labour.
Note of Thanks: thanks and appreciation for Carl’s work.
Motion: move that Susan continue as treasurer for 1 year – motion carried.
Motion: David Butt to continue as Vice President for 1 year – motion carried.
Motion: move that Marie Quinn continue as Secretary for a further 2 years – motion carried.
Motion: move that Kristina Love continue as President for a further year – motion carried.
Discussion from the floor:
Helen Tebble: there are 3 national associations, can doors be kept open and links maintained between
linguists? We need to encourage more understanding between linguists.
Kristina Love: we do need to encourage more understanding, and as editor of ARAL, I encourage this.
Helen Tebble: I don’t have any suggestions but I would like to raise it as an issue for discussion.
David Butt; it hasn’t always been an issue, but we need to branch out and present at other conferences as
well.
Kristina Love: Helen’s point is really important - please contact the executive with any ideas.
Lenore Ferguson:
Conference Comment
I would like to formally thank the conference committee. We are very grateful to all those who have helped
out [names]. I would also like to thank the presenters for their generosity of spirit and I think that this was
reflected in the tone of the conference. This was most appreciated and I have really enjoyed listening to
other’s work. I feel it has raised the profile of SFL and been taken on board by the school sector. It grabs
people’s enthusiasm and inspires practical applications. Thanks for the support and guidance from the
executive as well.
Gary: it was truly a team effort but all teams have captains, and this was taken on very much by Lenore,
thank you on behalf of the committee for doing such a great job.
Kristina Love: on behalf of the whole association [names] we really appreciate everything that has been
done. The selection of keynote speakers was excellent, the papers worked very well and the organisation was
seamless. It points to the superb nature in which everything was conducted – thank you.
Close of meeting
Next meeting: 2005
RW
Additional note from President.
A very big thank you to Rebekah Wegener for taking such comprehensive minutes. Rebekah has kindly
offered to take up the role of secretary for next year.