Language Creation Society Minutes of Annual Membership Meeting Saturday, February 4, 2012 Total of thirty-three (33) members (including LCS Board members) in attendance including two (2) by proxy. Call to Order David Peterson called the meeting to order at 1:12:50 PM Pacific Time. Agenda Item 1: Officer Reports Secretary/Librarian's Report Given by Don Boozer. The LCS Twitter Feed (@fiatlingua) now has 311 followers. Boozer also provided an update that he intends to make an online version of the "Esperanto, Elvish, and Beyond" exhibit (originally displayed at Cleveland (OH) Public Library) Treasurer's Report Given by Sylvia Sotomayor: - LCS has $7,781.00 in the treasury with an outstanding liability (uncashed check) of $2555. Total: $7526.08 on-hand, couting assets and subtracting liabilities - 92 memberships of good standing from 18 countries, including 12 student members. Approximately 25-30 new members a year, though I think we did over 40 in 2011 -International members: Canada, 5; NL/Germany/UK all tie with 4; Norway, 3; Australia, 2. Also see: http://tinyurl.com/conlangmap (URL posted by saizai to meeting) - Breakdown of income from memberships: $1085 in 2009, $1960 in 2010, and $2955 in 2011 - Breakdown of donation income: In 2011, $123. In 2010, $165, and in 2009, $399. - $1005 from professional services (primarily from HBO but also from Jonahs Coel job) - Sotomayor is also working to place some statistics on the LCS webpage LCC4 Review - ~$1566.81 in admissions + $474.90 in donations = $2042.72 (~ denotes approx. amount due to original being in euros) - Cost for LCC4: ~$3662.01 - Net: loss of ~$1619.30 (Finances on-hand covered loss) President's Report - Last year's major project: LCC4 in the Netherlands. Achieved an organizational goal of putting on an LCC in Europe. Those that attended had a good time, from Peterson's perspective. Overall, not well attended and the LCS lost about $1,600. - Continued our work on HBO Game of Thrones: completing season 1 and being renewed for season 2 (with same terms as season 1) - LCS had official presence at the World Science Fiction Convention, Reno, Nevada. A few new members joined from WorldCon (one of which attended meeting). Peterson encouraged continuation of official presence at WorldCon. saizai *nods* - This year, we're looking to continue our work on Game of Thrones, try to have a presence at WorldCon, and get started on LCC5. Link to upcoming WorldCon sites: http://www.wsfs.org/ (Chicago, 2012; San Antonio, 2013; London, 2014 (unofficial per Sotomayor) - There is a plan to re-do the LCS Website in 2012. Agenda Item 2: Open Forum for Members Discussion ensued concerning other conventions that LCS could have an official presence at. ghchinoy asked "Are there a list of cons that LCS wants to have a presence at?" Peterson replied "If members are going to cons, please let us know! We'll give you fliers. :)" Sotomayor offered that LCS could assist in paying to make fliers (with advance notice). Peterson noted that a discounted membership price was available to those who became members during WorldCon and suggested this could the case for other cons with official LCS presence. Another convention suggested by ghchinoy was StarFest, Denver 04/20-22/2012 http://starland.com/wp/starfest/ darinarrick had three suggestions (being from an academic perspetive): 1. A presence of some sort with linguistics departments. This can be simple: fliers, contact info, corresponding with professors, or even founding "conlang clubs" on campuses. 2. A scholarship for those who are in linguistics-related programs (not languages, but ling, theoretical ling, educational ling, etc.). 3. If a scholarship isn't possible, would be some sort of recognition of academic achievement, maybe with a certificate and a year of membership or something simple. Peterson spoke about the letter that was sent out "a while back" "to just about every relevant linguistics department in America and some in the UK and Canada letting them know that we had professional services available. Not sure how much penetration that had." John Quijada noted that "Seems there are very few linguistics professors who have anything positive to say about conlanging." This sparked a discussion of some academics who have had positive interactions with conlanging and conlangers including: - Sally Caves - A professor at Swarthmore College (comment by lelandpaul) - A professor at NTNU is writing an introductory textbook about conlanging now. (comment by Broca) - Eric Bakovic did a course on Tolkien's languages at UCSD (comment by DavidJPeterson) - Dr. Pamela Munro's Klingon class, a fellow who taught a course on Lojban at Rice, Dr. Adams at Indiana who wrote "From Klingon to Elvish" (comments by darinarrick) - The Brown University linguistics undergraduate group invited Marc Okrand to come speak about Klingon last year. (comment by kechpaja) - NTNU in Norway? (comment by tltangen) - An anthropologist in Canadia studied Na'vi speakers. (comment by wmannis) [NOTE: Christine Schreyer at http://www.christineschreyer.ca/ - per Richard Littauer 2/10/2012] Peterson summed up discussion: The LCS is willing to help out wherever we can. We have financial resources, but our personpower is severely limited. Peterson raised the idea of having a "Speaker's Directory" and to post to LinguistList about it. darinarrick was given encouragement to work on a project relating to this topic and to keep Board and membership updated. Peterson raised darinarrick's second issue: "What would people think about providing small scholarships to those pursuing, say, a degree in linguistics?" pne raised the example of the Klingon Language Institute's Kor Memorial Scholarship [see http://kli.org/scholarship/] John Quijada raised the idea of "giving travel subsidies for LCC attendance -- say a voucher that allows reimbursement of expenses up to, say, $200?" Other alternatives included providing funding for *members* giving talks places, if we can afford it, submitting speakers to conferences for them, and start a running list of cons (including "linguistics conferences") that may be receptive to LCS info. Discussion ensued with no formal resolution on these. Agenda Item 3: Reelection of Board Members Don Boozer, Sylvia Sotomayor, Henrik Theiling and David Peterson terms were up. Matt Haupt's term was up, but he has elected not to run again. Haupt is remaining the LCS "Tax man". Peterson thanked him for his "invaluable" service, both on the board and continuing as LCS accountant. Others chimed in with their thanks as well. Motion: Shall we reelect Don Boozer, Sylvia Sotomayor, Henrik Theiling and David Peterson to the LCS board of directors? Results: Yes - 28; Abstain - 2 Discussion ensued concerning size of the Board Amanda Furrow self-nominated to fill vacant Board position: Amanda Furrow is the creator of merechi, and a long time member of the Conlang list. Motion: Shall Amanda Furrow be elected to the LCS board of directors? Yes - 24; 4 - Abstain. Motion passed. George Corley self-nominated to fill vacant Board position: primary host ("Mainly the producer and enabler of wmannis" per Corley) of the Conlangery podcast at conlangery.com. Motion: Shall George Corley be elected to the LCS board of directors? Yes - 22; No - 1; Abstain - 7. Motion passed. Agenda Item 4: Announcement: Call for Site Proposals for LCC5 Peterson announced that proposals are now being accepted for LCC5 and will remain open until April 30, 2012. LCC5 is tentatively being held between October 2012 and early spring 2013. John Quijada offered that a mid-West or East Coast venue would be optimum. Additional information is available at http://conference.conlang.org/host.php and http://conference.conlang.org/host_checklist.pdf. After April 30, all proposals will be collected and voted on as to the most feasible. Adjourn Peterson adjourned the meeting at 2:52:03 Pacific Time. Summary: On-going Projects and Action Items - Boozer plans to create web version of conlang exhibit. - Sotomayor working on placing statistics on LCS website. - Plan to re-do LCS website in 2012 in process. - darinarrick encouraged to work on projects relating to concerns he raised during Open Forum. - Explore feasability of LCS acting as "Conlanger Speakers Bureau" - Explore areas where LCS could provide funding (e.g., scholarships, travel subsidies, etc.) - Explore creating list of possibly-receptive conventions and conferences at which LCS could have official presence. - Encourage proposals for LCC5 venue