Minutes of the 2016 annual Language Creation Society Members' Meeting - Saturday, December 10th 1900 CET Times given are CET (PST) Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets, President, opened the meeting at 19:00:16 (10:00:16) by calling for roll call. Members present are: (Proxies are in parenthesis) Tim Stoffel Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets Kaleissin Sai John Quijada Tony Harris (Jim Hopkins, Lorinda Taylor) Jan van Steenbergen Alex Fink Jerome Gay Sylvia Sotomayor (Philip Newton) Jeff Jones Francisco Andrade Max Dominik Weber Jeffrey Brown Piermaria Maraziti Kelvin Jackson David Peterson (Murdoch Macleod, Jessie Sams) Arnt Richard Johansen Jim Henry Billy Jaime Beltran Benjamin Johnson (Amanda Furrow) Joseph Windsor (Donna Lillian) Ola Lisowska Alexis Hugelmann John E Clifford William Annis Tim Smith Britton Watkins Rasmus Praestholm Grayson Richardson David Salo 38 members present at the start of the meeting. 38 members need for quorum (25% of membership. It took nearly 46 minutes to get enough members present to achieve quorum. Members joining during the meeting: Christian Borillo Justin Mansfield Doug Ball (David Peterson proxying for him.) George Corley Officer's reports: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets, President Here is the text of Christophe's report as President: I will keep this short, as I have reflected on 2016 already in my latest column in the latest Language Creation Tribune. Let's just say here that I see 2016 as the year when we really focused on external contact and influence, especially towards non-conlangers. Our participation in the Paramount vs. Axanar case really increased our visibility (mostly in a positive way), and the amount of attention we got from various media has kept us busy. We also showed how serious we are in our mission to promote the art and craft of conlanging itself through our support of the Conlanging documentary, although here it's really our members' support that is commendable! As for myself, I participated in quite a few interviews, but the high point of my role as President of the LCS really was my participation to TEDxFryslân, a TED-related event where I was invited to present and to introduce conlanging to an audience of 500 people! The video of my presentation will eventually be put online, by the way. And I happen to know this presentation has already inspired people into conlanging themselves! To finish with looking back on 2016, I'll quickly mention the LCS Jobs Board. We handled 4 job requests this year. That's not a lot, but it's actually stable (we had 5 job requests in 2015. And 8 in 2014, but that was an unusually busy year, and not all these jobs actually came through in the end). For next year, besides handling the LCC, I think we should keep doing what we've been doing so far: support the community to the best of our abilities, and look out for opportunities to engage others and further awareness of our art and craft. We do have room for improvement in those matters, but we are going in the right direction. Or at least that's my opinion. There were many accolades for Christophe's 'speech'. John Quijada brought up the idea that the success of LCS might be breaking down our 'close knit community'. After a fair amount of discussion on this topic, it was tabled until the Members' forum portion of the meeting. George Corley, Vice President George was not present at the meeting, so no report was given. Grayson Richardson reported that George has been doing great work on the Conlangery podcast. Tim Stoffel, Secretary A motion was made by Jeffrey Brown to approve the minutes as posted. David Peterson seconded No objections were raised, so Christophe declared the minutes approved by unanimous consent. Sylvia Sotomayor, Treasurer Treasurer's report: We have $18946.54 to our name as of yesterday. Balance in all accounts January 1st, 2015: $16,251.51 Balance in all accounts January 1st, 2016: $17,645.75 Income for 2015 Total: $6370.82 - From memberships: $4653 - From LCC6: $1511.46 Expenses for 2015 Total: $4647.97 Major expense items: - LCC6 Expenses: $2002.80 - New batch of pins: $522.90 - Batch of Conlang Flags: $632.00 2015 Income - Expenses = $1722.85 Income for 2016 To date: $5245.07 - From memberships: $4900 Expenses for 2016 To date: $3944.28 Major Expense items: - Contribution to Conlanging Documentary: $3000 2016 to date Income - Expenses = $1300.79 Membership report: Currently 151 members in good standing. (152 with David Salo joining at the beginning of the meeting - Tim) We added 47 members in 2016, and lost 45, some of which probably will still come back, being only recently lapsed. Net change +2. For comparison, in 2015, an LCC year, we gained 52 members and lost 37. In 2014, we gained 45 members and lost 32. Membership Stats: 29 Student Members Members are from 26 countries: 93 from USA, 11 from the UK, 6 from Germany. Sylvia further reports we had some minor income from Amazon Smile and from LCS flag sales. There was no job board-related income per David Peterson. There was some discussion involving a discrepency between member numbers and membership income. It was deferred to the Members' forum. There was a brief discussion on membership renewal notices, which led to a brief discussion on email problems. David Peterson, Editor-in-Chief of Academic Publications David reports that Fiat Lingua is up and running. January 2016 saw the most page views ever (2,269). But most other stats are missing. They started to disappear in April. Jhamie Latonero continues to do a good job as webmaster. Fiat Lingua has picked up two new editors: Jessie Sams and Ola Lisowska. They are both editing incoming submissions and submitting some material of their own. David made a desperate plea for an acquisitions editor, a person who would contact other conlangers for new material. There was some discussion on the reporting problems for statistics for Fiat Lingua. There was also some discussion on people interested in the acquisitions editor job. There were also accolades for David's continuing work on Fiat Lingua. End of officers' reports. Director's election report, and voting to fill unfilled Director's positions. New Directors by election: Joseph Windsor (50 Aye, 1 Nay, 5 Abstain) Grayson Richardson (55 Aye, 1 Nay, 1 Abstain)(Later corrected to 55 Aye, 0 Nay, 1 Abstain) Jesse Sams (55 Aye, 1 Nay, 1 Abstain)(Later corrected to 55 Aye, 0 Nay, 1 Abstain) Write-in candidates: (None elected, 1 vote each unless indicated otherwise) Billy Jaime Beltran David Salo (2 votes) David Peterson Sylvia Sotomayor Marc Okrand Henrik Theiling Sonja Elen Kisa (A.K.A. Sonja Lang)(4 votes) André Müller Pete Bleackley Not all Director positions are filled by this election. kaleissin mentioned that future Director candidates should indicate what social networks they are active on. There was a little discussion on the 'marketing' of candidates. Statements from candates are currently solicited and placed on the ballot. Sai made a motion to nominate all the write-in candidates to be eligible to fill the remaining three Director seats, and to vote on them immediately. Tim Stoffel seconded. David Peterson and Sylvia Sotomayor declined nominaqtion. Billy Jaime Beltran accepted nomination. There was some discussion on leaving the empty board seats empty. Further discussion deferred until after the vote on this motion. There was some discussion as to getting acceptances first from the nominees, before a vote. The vote was as follows: 0 Ayes 27 Nays 6 Abstains The vote fails. There was some discussion on why there were 56 votes total for Joseph Windsor, and 57 votes for Grayson Richardson and Jesse Sams. Sai reviewed the voting for the Directors that were elected, and determined that the Nay votes for Grayson Richardson and Jesse Sams were incorrect. Both of these candidates should be 55 Ayes, 1 Abstain. Billy Jaime Beltran again afirmed that he was willing to run for a Director's position. Grayson Richardson seconded. Christophe moved that Billy Jaime Beltran be elected as a Director. Jeff Jones seconded. Billy was given a chance to explain why he should be elected as a Director of LCS. Voting by secret ballot was held off until it was determined if any other members wanted to stand for election as Director. David Salo was strongly encouraged to run. He accepted. There was also an extended discussion of how many open Director's seats there were. It was confirmed as three. It was also confirmed that the bylaws require all 15 Director's positions be filled. There was much discussion as to the eligibility of Sonja Elen Kisa to run for a Director's seat. A number of people spoke up for her. A number of people also spoke against her nomination. Sonja is not a member of LCS. Even though non-members can run for a directorship, many felt that not being an LCS member reflects poorly on being a candidate for Director. Ultimately, no one seconded Sonja's nomination, so she was dropped as a potential Director's candidate. Christophe asked that the election proceed with just Billy and David Salo on the ballot. Grayson Richardson seconded both Billy Jaime Beltran and David Salo's nomination as a candidate for Director of LCS. (Note: Billy's nomination had been previously seconded by Jeff Jones.) After a brief discussion about the other write-in candidates who were on the first ballot, the new ballot with just Billy Jaime Beltran and David Salo was opened for voting. Voting was done using the same access codes used for the first ballot. While voting was proceeding, the meeting moved on to the next agenda items. Old Business There was no old business New Business LCC 7 Christophe pointed out that LCC 7, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada had previously been announced in The Language Creation Tribune. The dates are July 22-23, 2017 A link to the LCC 7 website: http://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc7/ John Windsor, from U Calgary, reported there was a lot of interest and excitement U Cakgary, where the event will be held. There had been some "Very preliminary responses to my request for funding". There was also a request for events for non-conlangers. There was a discussion about what events might be suitable for non-conlangers, and the linguistically inclined general public. It was also mentioned that the 'Conlanging' film would be screened at the conference. There was also some discussion on the dates of the conference conflicting with other linguistic events, including Conventiculum Latinum Lexintoniense and possibly the Klingon qep'a'. Christophe announced the balloting on the second ballot for Directors was now closed. Alex Fink made a motion that the second ballot be held open for a week. Jeff Jones seconded. There was some discussion as to whether this motion was in order or not, as Christophe had already closed the vote. Parlimentarian Sai declared the motion in order. Christophe called for a vote. The results: Aye: 0 Nay: 26 Abstain: 11 The motion fails. Grayson Richardson then moved to close the vote and announce results of the second Director's election. Benjamin Johnson seconded. Alex Fink pointed out that this motion may be out of order. Sai suggested to Christophe that a no-objection motion be made to close the vote. Christophe so moved. John Quijada seconded. Sai pointed out that John's second was in order. No objections being heard, Christophe announced the motion carried. Sai announced the results of the election: Billy Jaime Beltran: 30 approve, 0 reject, 7 abstain. Elected. David Salo: 36 approve, 0 reject, 1 abstain. Elected. There were many congratulations for the newly elected directors. John Windsor asked if an oversight committee be formed for LCC7. Sai suggested forming committees was a Board of Director's matter. After a brief discussion, Sai suggested that the lcc7 subcommitte be formed by the board by email, with interested members emailing Christophe and John Windsor if they want to help After some discussion, Christophe made a no-objection motion to follow Sai's suggestion. Sylvia Sotomayor seconded. Hearing no objections, Christophe announced that this motion carried. Alex Fink asked what was next on the agenda. Tim Stoffel said Member's forum. Members' forum (moved to with no announcement) Sai made a motion to amend the bylaws to reduce the quorum for the members' meeting from 25% to 20%. Jeffrey Brown (and several others) seconded. After a very short discussion, Christophe called for a vote on the motion. The results: Aye: 30 Nay:2 Abstain: 7 Christophe announced that the motion carries. David Peterson then announced that he had three announcements he would like on the record. Christophe told him to go ahead. 1. David suggested that Slack be used for future members' meetings, instead of IRC. There was some discussion following using either Slack or Discord for future meetings. 2. David gave accolades for the service of outgoing Treasurer Sylvia Sotomayor, saying (among other things) "she has been THE most valuable member of the board, and single-handedly, in my opinion, kept it afloat for a few years". Many other members shared those accolades. 3. David announced the sudden passing of Trent Pehrson's wife Aubrey. He said some goosd things about Trent, and then announced a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to help Trent with funeral expenses. A number of members gave their condolences. Christian Borillo suggested that maybe a card could be prepared for Trent, perhaps written in our conlangs. David Peterson said he would work with Britton Watkins to coordinate this. Jeffrey Brown then announced the Southern California Conlang Club, formed earlier this year. Meetings are quarterly. Folks who live in the Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana area, should consider joining. sccc.conlang.org A brief discussion followed, suggesting there should be more regional conlang clubs, and a listing of them in the newsletter/website. Kaleissin then made a Public Service Announcement: "Don't depend on email for important stuff anymore. I'm speaking as an email professional/paid spam hunter. Have a secondary address at the least. Google, hotmail and friends have broken email for the rest of us. Thx." Kaleissin also suggested that the LCS mail list be modified to switch the lcs list to send *from* the list, not the person. Christophe suggested that kaleissin talk to Tony Harris about this matter. Kaleissin also made a motion/fervent wish: that this meeting is too close to Christmas. It should be either the first week of December at the latest, or in january next time. Christophe noted kaleissin's request. George Corley announced that he had decided not to renew his position on the Board of Directors, and not to run again for Vice president. He explained that while he loved LCS, he felt unable to serve in those capacities. Many members thanked George for his service. Christophe then announced that this meeting had run far too long (about 2:59 at this point). He suggested that any remaining items be moved to the members' email list for further discussion. No motion was made, but many members agreed with Christophe. Tim Stoffel mentioned that all items on the agenda had been covered and that a motion to adjourn was in order. Alex Fink motioned to adjourn the members' meeting. John Windsor seconded. (There were a couple of pseudo-motions and seconds, to adjourn). Christophe then made a no-objection to adjourn the meeting. No objections were heard. Christophe adjourned the meeting at 22:11:35 (13:11:35) === Tim Stoffel Secretary, Language Creation Society Original version 12/19/2016