Barcelona: Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting

Chair
Mauel Parés I Maicas

Present
Parés I Maicas, Morgan, Prehn, Méar, de Bruin, Sarikakis, Servaes, and Teer-Tomaselli.
Excused: Kuo.

Opening

The president welcomed all to the meeting – especially Ruth Teer-Tomaselli, who would replace Tawana Kupe if the International Council approved. Various e-mails, arrived after the meeting documents were sent out, were distributed.

Agenda

The agenda was approved.

Minutes of the Budapest meetings

The minutes were approved.

Report from the Barcelona organizing committee

Miquel de Moragas reported from the preparatory work done prior to the conference and pointed to the fact that many abstracts and section programmes were not received on time. This had created many logistic problems amongst others due to the size of the event.

It was further informed that all abstracts and papers up until July 1st were available on the net. After the conference a cd-rom containing all papers would be distributed to all participants.

The conference seemed to be successful in many ways. At the moment of reporting, more than 700 participants were registered, and even more were expected. Around 230 were non-members of the IAMCR, and 65 nations were represented. More than 200 participants were young and/or from low-income countries, a number significantly higher than the expected 100.

Approximately 15% of the conference papers dealt with the theme of the conference, which had a budget of 400.000 euros. 54% of the budget were covered by registration fees, the rest coming from various other sources. Based on the information reported, the conference was expected to a very successful event in the history of the IAMCR, and the committee was congratulated by all members of the board.

During the following discussion it was suggested that people not able to come to the conference for economic or other reasons might be given I possibility to present their papers online. Morgan, summing up, pointed to the need for better coordination and discipline and a more formal and harmonized referee system to improve the standard of presented papers. Finally he repeated the need to limit participation to only one paper, as it appeared that many participants presented more than one paper and the same paper in various sections and working groups respectively.

The president´s report

The report was approved, and the president thanked the board for its kind and productive cooperation during his mandate.

The president elect´s report

The report consisted of the draft of the new statutes, and a few corrections were made before presenting it to the General Assembly.

The president elect expressed his admiration for the leadership conducted by Manuel Parés I Maicas during his four years term. Although not always an easy task, the president had amongst others put the board and a much more professional footing.

The secretary general´s report

The report was approved.

The treasurer´s report

The treasurer presented the Interim Financial Statements as at June 30, 2002. The statements showed total assets of $ 109,937 and an accumulated surplus of $ 97,013. The excess in the previous year of $ 7,810 was reported to level off during the coming period. The relatively good financial situation notwithstanding, the resources do not allow for more activities.
The report was then adopted.

The Taipei 2003 conference

The Taipei conference organisers, Liangwen Kuo as his colleagues from Shih Hsin University and Chinese Communication Society, presented the layout of the conference with the theme “Information Society and Glocalization: What´s Next?” to take place in Taipei July 13-16, 2003. The early registration fee would be $ 200 (students and low-income countries $ 100). The cheapest site available had been chosen, and various accommodation possibilities from expensive to cheap were presented. Various questions were discussed, and the board expressed its satisfaction with the planning, asking the organizers to consider establishing scholarships like the Barcelona organizers.

Vice-president Jan Servaes´ report

Servaes presented the report, which was actually submitted in relation to the meeting in Budapest, but being absent himself, the report was not dealt with in detail at that meeting, and some misunderstandings between him and the rest of the board had lead Servaes to asking for a confirmation of his portfolio.

It was endorsed by the board that Servaes would continue creating and chair a revived publications committee with members committed to work thoroughly and fast. It was the general point of view that publications from the IAMCR was an important promotion factor, and that such publications would be a welcomed opportunity for younger members of the association to present their works.

Morgan moved that Servaes resumed to leadership of the committee comprising a sufficient number of members that would work with the sections. This was approved unanimously, and Servaes was asked to continue negotiations with Hampton Press to making one of the foreseen three annual publications an IAMCR yearbook.
The question of an IAMCR journal was discussed, but Servaes pointed to the fact that publishers were reluctant to embark on such a project, and that the interest among members to subscribe to the offered journals at a discount was at a level that hardly could justify our own journal.

Finally the research component of the portfolio was discussed, and it was agreed that monitoring research within the sections and working groups was important as was observing and evaluating the outcome of projects, whereas a formulated research agenda for the association was not a viable procedure to follow.

Vice-president Marja de Bruin´s report

The report was an account of measures taken to improve the newsletter and the tasks involved. In the report it was suggested to divide the tasks as had been the case in the latest issue. As printing costs in Jamaica seemed to be high, it was suggested to find another country were printing and distribution could take place. Finally the format of the newsletter was discussed in the report.
Generally the board expressed its satisfaction and admiration for the work conducted by the vice-president. Morgan repeated his earlier observation that the newsletter had improved and that it perhaps was close to being an IMACR journal. The latter point was questioned by Servaes.

It was agreed that a concrete proposal would be put in the agenda at a later meeting in Barcelona.

Vice-president Katharine Sarikakis´ report

The report contained mainly two issues according to the portfolio: the status of women in the IMACR and the status of junior scholars. Regarding the first issue several problems in order to promote women in the association were discussed, but on the positive side of the balance was the establishing of a women-net forum and the planning of the first women-only plenary during the Barcelona conference. As regards the second issue of young scholars the issuing of the journal Inter/Section was mentioned as well as the Junior Scholars´ Network with a membership of 90. It was finally proposed that a mentoring system should be established to increase juniors´ involvement in IAMCR, to fostering relationships with international colleagues and to improving the relations between senior and junior members.

Although some difficulties in realising the proposed mentoring scheme were discussed, the proposal was approved, and Sarikakis was asked to continue working with the planning.

The 2004 Porto Alegre conference

It was decided to plan for a presentation at the International Council meeting, and before that to have a meeting with the representatives.

The next IAMCR/ICA conference in Loughborough, November 2003

A meeting was planned during the conference.

IAMCR Schiller´s Award

The treasurer would meet with chair of the committee, Graham Murdock.

Election to substitute Tawana Kupe

As Tawana Kupe for personal reasons had not been able to function as vice-president, it was proposed that Ruth Teer-Tomaselli would substitute him for rest of the mandate. This was unanimously agreed and would be forwarded to the General Assembly.

New section

The board had received an application from the Media and Sport working group to be elevated to a section after several years of increased activity. The proposal endorsed by the board as was the proposal to delete the Information and Documentation section that had not been active for several conferences.

Vice-president Divina Frau-Meighs´ report

The report dealt with the options for IMACR related to the upcoming World Summits On the Information Society in Geneva 2003 and in Tunis 2005. It was generally agreed that IAMCR have a role to play in the preparations of the world summit meetings to affect the outcome and for promotional reasons. As the preparations are complex and conflictual, and as the modality to be followed was not clear to the board, it was decided to propose the General Assembly that the International Council sets up a task force to follow the development and to present policy issues and proposals to the board and the council.

By-laws and regulations

I was decided to look into the by-laws in order to harmonize them with the new statutes. It was also decided to establish a working group on future conferences chaired by Katharine Sarikakis and a working group on membership services chaired by Ruth Teer-Tomaselli.

IAMCR yearbook

The board in principle endorsed the idea of having an IAMCR yearbook as part of the contract with Hampton Press pending the financial consequences. As it turned out that the costs would be prohibitively high according to negotiations with the publishers, the item was left for further scrutiny.

IAMCR archives

It was decided to ship the archives from Barcelona to Newcastle the cheapest way possible. As this was the first transferral of archives the issue of archives from earlier presidents and the future procedures was discussed, and the general secretary was asked to look into whether scanning of documents would be a viable solution in the future.

July 26, 2002. 2pm to 3.45pm

IAMCR website

Kirsten Larsen, IAMCR web-administrator, presented the proposal for enhancing the web-services by the association into a more comprehensive and interactive format. The proposal was generally approved with minor corrections, and Kirsten Larsen was asked to continue the developmental work; to present a prototype on the web for testing; and to calculate the establishing and running costs of the project.

AOB

Various items were discussed related to strategic priorities and housekeeping issues. Manuel Parés I Maicas notified the board of his new e-mail address: mpares@uab.es