Meeting, Hotel Agro, Budapest

Present

Present: Manuel Parés i Maicas (President), Frank Morgan (President-elect), Ole Prehn (Sec Gen), Annie Méar (Treas), Marjan deBruin (VP), Eddie Kuo (VP), Katharine Sarikakis (VP).
Before the official meeting, the president welcomed Pal Thamas and asked him to convey to the organizing committee the association´s gratitude for having arranged the conference at a very short notice.
Pal Thamas informed the board that 150 people had registered for the conference, and that it would amount to 200 people in total. Thanks to the participation of local people from the media and politics, he envisaged an interesting conference.

Opening

The president welcomed the board and warned that a tight and complex schedule was ahead during the next days. He excused the absence of Divina Frau-Meigs and Jan Servaes, and the late arrival of Frank Morgan. The agenda was expanded to include the following new items: Proposal from Jan Servaes to join the Platform for Democratic Communication, the Chinese Communication Society´s application the become an associate member, a membership questionnaire, approval of new members, postal voting procedures, and inactive members.

Agenda

The agenda was approved.

Executive Board minutes of the Singapore conference

The approval of the minutes was postponed as not all members had received them.

President´s report

The president´s report focused on the difficulties related to the conflict in the Middle East and the necessity to relocate the 2001 conference from Israel to Hungary with very short notice. The Barcelona conference progressed in a very positive way, and similarly the relationship with ICA developed positively, and thanks to The University of Texas, a joint conference on the Digital Divide would be held in November. The rejuvenation process was well underway to becoming a success thanks to the president-elect, and hopefully the formal part of it, the changes of statutes, would be concluded at the General Assembly in Barcelona. Finally the report stressed that IAMCR still need funding to make participation from the developing countries possible, and that the work of Katharine Sarikakis to provide more junior members on an equal footing was also very important for the association. The report was approved after minor corrections regarding the relocation of the conference from Israel to Hungary, and will be published in the November 2001 issue of the Newsletter.

Secretary General´s report

The report reflected on recent difficulties with locating the 2001 conference, the secretary´s work in conference planning and the development of a new web service. The report was approved and will be published in the November 2001 issue of the Newsletter.

Treasurer´s report

The treasurer presented the financial statement that showed the association to be in a rather healthy state, but she warned that more revenues were needed, if the association should be able to realise the plans for more services to its membership. The financial report was approved and would be forwarded to the International Council and will be partly published in the November 2001 issue of the Newsletter.

Report from vice-president Katharine Sarikakis

(Katharine) Sarikakis outlined the main items in her report, and especially items regarding how to attract more students and young researchers, conference fees for these groups, and how to establish focused activities and subsidisation were stressed. Related to her portfolio as vice-president, the report contained a description of the work that had been done to attract more junior members and women to the association. This had been done in close contact with Junior Scholars´ Network, and one result had been the new publication Inter/Sections . The further strengthen the participation of young scholars, the report proposed that the membership fees should be even more reduced, that a grant system should be implemented, that membership should include at least one journal, that conference fees for junior scholars should be reduced to one quarter of the normal fee, and that the Junior Scholars´ Network should become more visible at the conferences. The report was approved, and would be published in the November 2001 issue of the Newsletter.

Report from vice-president Marjan de Bruin

Marjan de Bruin's report concentrated on the Newsletter. The main topic was how to increase the budget for the Newsletter by more advertising, and how to develop the publication. In relation to the report, it was concluded that institutional members shall have more than one copy of each issue. The report also concentrated on the division of tasks between the Newsletter editor and especially the Secretary General, which had hitherto not been functioning smoothly, and especially the editor had felt it as a burden in the production of the first issue of the Newsletter, where she had to take care of various tasks that were not her responsibility. The board took note of the critique and generally praised what had been accomplished and approved the report that would be published in the November 2001 issue of the Newsletter.

IAMCR-ICA conference

The president informed about the IAMCR-ICA conference on the Digital Divide to be held in Austin, November 2001.

The Marseilles conference

The board took note of the fact that the planned conference in Marseilles had been cancelled.

New conferences

After Barcelona no formal applications had been submitted, and it was agreed to start a search for options. Among them were Brazil, South Africa, and Hong Kong, Taiwan or perhaps mainland China.

New Associate member

It was approved to welcome the Chinese Communication Society as a new associate member.

September 7 th. 2001, 14.20 - 18.00

Present

Manuel Parés i Maicas (President), Frank Morgan (President-elect), Ole Prehn (Sec Gen), Annie Méar (Treas), Marjan deBruin (VP), Eddie Kuo (VP), Katharine Sarikakis (VP).13.

The report from the president elect

The president-elect presented the report of the IAMCR Committee of Review, which had been approved in principle by the GA in Singapore and included proposals for changes in the statutes. He mentioned that the Legal Committee´s considerations to a large extent was inserted in this second draft of the new statutes. He also addressed the possibility of removing the formal head quarters of IAMCR from France to another country. The board then went through the proposal. Some minor additions and corrections were adopted, after which the whole proposal was approved for presentation to the IC.

September 8 th. 2001, 9.15 - 14.00

Present

Present: Manuel Parés i Maicas (President), Frank Morgan (President-elect), Ole Prehn (Sec Gen), Annie Méar (Treas) (leaving before the meeting ended), Marjan deBruin (VP), Eddie Kuo (VP).

UNESCO grants

Although it was still uncertain, whether UNESCO would allocate funds for subsidising members from the less developed countries to participate in the Barcelona conference, it was agreed that in event IAMCR would receive funding from UNESCO, it would be necessary to implement a coordination with the Barcelona organising committee. The president-elect reported that he would meet the new ADG-CI at UNESCO, Paris on 11 September and would raise with him the question of UNESCO's relationship with IAMCR, including financial support and joint activity.

The Schiller Fund

It was agreed to include a flyer for the Schiller Fund with the coming renewal of memberships, as well as it would be highlighted on the web.

Vice-president Jan Servaes´ report

The report was welcomed in general and as a sign of that the publications committee is actually working. The list of journals offering a discount price from IAMCR members was impressive. The board discussed the content of the report and identified a few items that needs elaboration: it seems that it is unclear how to distinguish between IAMCR and ECCR, and a more developed plan for the publications committee was called for. At the same time it was discussed, whether IAMCR needs a publications committee given the long time it takes the committee to approve manuscripts for publication. As Jan Servaes was absent, it was decided to table the report at the Barcelona meeting.

Vice-president Eddie Kuo´s report

Eddie Kuo reported on how IAMCR could attract more members from the less developed countries. He had identified the Chinese Communication Society and the Korean association as possible stakeholders, and it was agreed that the Chinese organisation, now already an associate member, should be contacted regarding a possible hosting of an IAMCR conference. It was also discussed how IAMCR could enhance its services compared with other organisations, as well as it was concluded that having a conference in one of the respective countries would itself help increasing membership.

The Fundraising and Development Committee report

Fundraising is still a problem as previous attempts to approach possible sponsors had failed. Pro-actively it was discussed, whether the association should focus its activities on specific projects rather than apply for funding as such, as it had become obvious that general funding for e.g. travel grants to conferences were drying out. It was therefore suggested that a project on health should be established with Marjan de Bruin as responsible, and also other possibilities should be investigated. It was also stated that the committee actually was in the process of negotiating with major donor agencies, and that a report on these initiatives would be at the table in Barcelona. Finally Annie Méar informed that she wanted to resign from the committee.

Conference Guidelines

It was agreed that we shall deal with the guidelines in a flexible way, so that they can be used in a two-step mode: to be considered in the process of submitting a proposal and later to be more binding in the final arrangements.

The Platform for Democratic Communication

Jan Servaes had suggested that IAMCR would be formally represented in the platform, which had been established to influence the agenda of the ITU-World Summit in 2003. It was concluded that IAMCR should not be represented in the platform, but would be happy to maintain informal relations to the initiative to be kept informed on activities.

The IAMCR web site

As the initiative taken in Singapore to look into the electronic future of IAMCR had not succeeded, Kirsten Larsen from Aalborg University presented a project that could cheaply satisfy most needs of the association and its members. It was agreed to continue the project and to have a prototype ready in Barcelona.

AOB

A certain number of items on the agenda were not dealt with due to time constraints, and it was agreed to try to continue the work on e-mail between the Budapest and Barcelona conferences.