Meeting commenced 9.12am. 

1. Attendance and Apologies 

In attendance: Geoffrey Milne, Adrian Kiernander, Bree Hadley, Janys Hayes, Maggi Phillips, Jerry Jaffe, Meredith Rogers, Rebecca Clifford, Cate Clelland, David O’Donnell, Ian Maxwell, Kim Durban, Angela Campbell, Veronica Kelly, Megan Evans, Alison Richards, Victor Emeljarow, Gillian Arrighi, Rosemary Farrell, Joanne Tompkins, Helena Grehan, Maryrose Casey, Lisa Warrington, William Peterson, Ryan Hartigan, Jasna Novakovic, Glen McGillivray, Adrian Guthrie, Stephen Carleton, Dawn Albinger, Michael Beh, Denise Varney, Suzanne Little, Julie Robson, Leah Mercer, David Williams. 

Apologies: Jonathan Bollen, Peta Tait 

2. Minutes of 2008 Annual General Meeting 

Motion that the Minutes of the 2008 meeting be accepted. Moved Victor Emeljarow. Seconded David Williams. Carried 

3. Business arising from the Minutes 

Meredith Rogers: we are still awaiting a costing for the Marae gift. 

4. President’s Report 

This was a busy year to be the President of ADSA, largely due to advocacy work. The ADSA submission to the ERA for journal rankings was submitted, and this submission was used in the ranking process. 

Macquarie University proposed forced office sharing for its staff on the alleged basis of ‘ecological concern’. ADSA’s letter contributed to the overturning of this decision. 

ADSA’s letter of support for the journal TDR received thanks from Richard Schechner, and he is pleased to announce that TDR has successfully resisted its funding cuts. 

CHASS: no one seems quite sure what CHASS does, or how it does it. Delegate shared the feeling that we don’t quite know why we are there, but we can’t afford not to be there. Recommends that we maintain ADSA’s CHASS membership. 

Sue Baker, Learned Academy of Creative Arts: Ian is on steering committee for this, and attended a meeting in Melbourne in April 2009. There is a political will to establish a peak body for the creative arts, but there is no process to set up a Learned Academy beyond a Royal Charter – a difficult task in the twenty-first century! Advice form John Byron (CHASS) was that this is probably a 10-15 year process. 

Past AGMs have discussed advocacy, and this has certainly been occurring throughout the year. 

The website is functioning much better, including the mailing list. The ADSA membership seems to agree that these short email communiqués are effective.

Completions:

Kim Baston (PhD, La Trobe University) 

Ruth Thompson (PhD, University of New England) 

Alyson Campbell (PhD, University of Melbourne) 

Angela Campbell (PhD, Murdoch University) 

Stephen Carleton (PhD, University of Queensland) 

Ricci Jane Adams (PhD, University of Melbourne) 

Rand Hazou (PhD, La Trobe University)  

Appointments: 

Alyson Campbell (Queens University, Belfast) 

Angela Campbell (University of Ballarat) 

Jonathan Marshall (University of Otago) 

Diana Looser (University of Queensland) 

Achievements: 

Mark Seton, Churchill Fellowship 

Helena Grehan, Murdoch Teaching Award (the Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence in Teaching Award) 

Motion to accept the President’s Report. 

Moved Adrian Kiernander, seconded Glen McGillivray. Carried. 

5. Treasurer’s Report 

Meredith Rogers (Treasurer) tabled a report for the Financial Year 2008-2009 as follows: 

Expenditure: $12,302.54 

Income: $14,870.39 

Total assets to 1^st June 2009: $42,028.94 

ADSA doing fine financially. Membership slightly down on last year, but seems to be recovering over the course of the conference. ADSA had commissioned $3,000 last year for research and advocacy, but so far this remains unspent. The term deposit is doing well, though probably won’t do as well in the coming year due to falling interest rates. CHAUTSI funds have been moved into ADSA’s bank accounts, with these funds clearly earmarked for advocacy. Melbourne conference unexplained profit now reclaimed (partially) by La Trobe’s finance department, but the conference still made a small surplus. The 2009 conference has not asked for a subvention. 

Motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report.

Moved Maggi Phillips, seconded Janys Hayes 

6. Elections for Executive 

The Returning Officer, Ian Maxwell, reported that at the close of nomination, he had received the following nominations: 

President: Ian Maxwell 

Vice-President: Bree Hadley, Glen McGillivray 

Secretary: David Williams, Glen McGillivray 

Treasurer: Meredith Rogers 

Executive Member (regional): Janys Hayes 

Executive Members (at large): David O’Donnell, Gillian Arrighi 

Executive Member (linkages): Adrian Kiernander 

Next conference convener: Cate Clelland & Rebecca Clifford  

Elections were held for the positions of Vice-President and Secretary. 

Upon counting of ballots, Bree Hadley was declared elected as Vice-President. Upon counting of ballots, David Williams was declared elected as Secretary. 

All other positions were declared elected unopposed. 

The Postgraduate Caucus reported that they had met and recommended that two members join the Executive, namely Michael Beh and Dawn Albinger. 

Jonathan Bollen continues in the Executive position of Immediate Past President, and Geoffrey Milne continues in the position of ADS journal representative. 

Motion to coopt Glen McGillvray to ADSA Executive. Moved Julie Robson. Seconded Adrian Guthrie. Carried. 

7. Membership 

The Treasurer notes that membership seems solid and steady. Current memberships at 29 June were as follows: 

14 Life Members 

76 Individual members 

23 Student members 

Total members = 113 

8. Prizes 

8.1 Awards to be made for 2009 

There will be a Phillip Parsons Prize, a Veronica Kelly Prize, and a Marlis Tiersh Prize this year. The Rob Jordan Prize will next be awarded in 2010. 

8.2 Rotation of judges for 2010 

Phillip Parsons prize: 2010 judge will be Leah Mercer, the 2009 winner. 

Veronica Kelly Prize: Maryrose Casey to convene 2010 

Marlis Tiersh Prize: David O’Donnell (chair), Alison Richards, and Denise Varney. Rob Jordan Prize: 2010 stays as is. 

Laura Ginters recommended an amendment to the Marlis Tiersh Prize to require the applicant to submit electronic copies of articles. 

9. Conferences 

9.1 Past Conference 

2008 Conference, Otago University. Suzanne Little thanks those who attended and braved the cold. Ian Maxwell passed on thanks to the conference organisers for an excellent conference. Jerry Jaffe will submit a more detailed report in the near future.

9.2 Present Conference

Helena Grehan suggested that the publishing forum held at the current conference be repeated biannually. Jonathan Marshall discussed the possible publication of conference proceedings through the Double Dialogues journal. An in-principle agreement is currently being firmed up, and Jonathan hopes for a timeline of 18 months toward publication.

Ian Maxwell thanked conference organisers for what has been an excellent conference, with a fascinating program and strong keynote speakers. 

9.3 Next conference 

Cath Clelland and Rebecca Clifford: Canberra in July will be cold, but perhaps not as cold as Duneduin. Theme will be: Stripping Bare. Theme emerges out of a discussion of the directing of nude scene, but obviously has wider applications and resonance. Very keen for conference to have a practical focus, and welcome suggestions from delegates for such events. Keynotes would include Sharon Carnicke. There was a discussion about the ANU facilities, catering and accommodation.  The membership supports the ANU conference for 2010. 

9.4 Future Conferences

Will Peterson and Maryrose Casey expressed interest in Monash hosting the 2011 conference. There has also been some interest from Jonathan Bollen for a conference at Flinders University. 

10. Postgraduate report

Both postgraduate representatives from the 2008 conference were not in attendance at the 2009 conference. 

Michael Beh: A discussion of updating the Postgraduate database. 

Ryan Hartigan: The postgraduate caucus has proposed setting up an ADSA postgraduate Facebook group. This will be simple to set up, and can be linked to US associations and graduate caucuses. 

There was also a discussion of a postgraduate online journal. 

Ian Maxwell discussed postgraduate career development, suggesting for instance that postgraduates be encouraged to chair sessions at conferences. The ECR (Early Career Researcher) panel used to be a feature of conferences, and was dropped at the request of the postgraduate caucus. Should this be returned?  What kinds of conference experiences do postgraduates want and/or need, and how can this be delivered? 

11. Publications 

11.1 Australasian Drama Studies 

Geoffrey Milne: next issue of ADS will be great, and it has been a great pleasure to work with guest editor Meredith Rogers. There has been some difficulty in getting members to do book reviews, and he encourages members to participate in this process. 

11.2 Other journals 

About Performance #9, ‘Playing Politics’ edited by Paul Dwyer, has just been published. CFP for issue #10 has just closed. 

Issue 5.1 of Performance Paradigm, was released yesterday. The great response to the theme has seen the issue split over two issues. Helena Grehan encourages membership to check it out. The guest editors are Bryoni Trezise and Caroline Wake. 

Victor Emeljarow: about to launch the biannual peer-reviewed e-journal Popular Entertainment Studies. This new journal has a large and quite stellar editorial board. The inaugural issue will be themed ‘Defining the Popular’, and a CFP will be sent to ADSA members soon.  

12. Research report 

12.1 AusStage 

AusStage goes from strength to strength, and seems highly supported by universities. Jonathan Bollen has achieved a NEAT grant to continue to develop and resource AusStage. 

12.2 Excellence in Research for Australia (E.R.A) 

The ERA session on the 2/7/2009 made the following recommendations to the ADSA AGM: 

1. Resolve that the President of ADSA draft a letter to the ARC 

a) seeking clarification of the way in which interdisciplinary outputs produced by the ADSA membership are to be captured as part of the ERA assessment process; 

b) seeking clarification of the process in relation to ranking adjustments in subsequent ERA assessment cycles; and

c) strongly expressing ADSA's willingness and capacity to contribute to evaluation of the results of the HCA trial prior to full scale implementation of the ERA assessment model in 2010, and to contribute to forthcoming publisher and location ranking processes 

2. Resolve that the ADSA Executive gather submissions from the membership with a view to developing a standard pro forma for presentation of Research Statements and supporting documentation in relation to creative outputs submitted to the ARC as part of the ERA assessment process 

3. Resolve that the President of ADSA draft a letter to Assistant Deans Research, Deputy Vice Chancellors Research and Promotion Committees at Australian tertiary institutions articulating ADSA’s strong commitment to ensuring that journal outputs across A+, A, B and C ranked publications continue to be recognised in the determination of Research Active Status and the assessment of applications for promotion. 

Motion to accept these three recommendations. Moved Maryrose Casey. Seconded Veronica Kelly. Carried. 

In addition to the above resolutions, Adrian Kiernander recommends that ADSA write a letter to Kim Carr. 

12.3 Performance as Research

PAR session was held during ADSA conference, providing a snapshot of discipline and research. There appears to be a need to collect mission statements for departments. Ian Maxwell will action this. 

13. Advocacy 

This agenda item was addressed in the President’s Report 

14. Liaison with other organisations  

14.1 CHASS 

This agenda item was addressed in the President’s Report 

15. Any other business 

Theatre Aotearoa website: As a research tool, people should know about it. Lisa Warrington describes the website, a research and production archive of the performing arts in New Zealand. 

Geoffrey Milne supports this web project, and acknowledges Lisa Warrington’s largely solo efforts to make this site work. 

David O’Donnell notes that a link from AusStage to Theatre Aotearoa had been discussed at the last ADSA conference, but this doesn’t yet seem to have occurred. There followed a discussion amongst the ADSA members present about possible funding sources available to support this project within New Zealand.

Victor Emeljarow: David Watt has retired, and Victor Emeljarow is retiring, leaving a “gaping hole” at the University of Newcastle. To fill these positions, there will be one Level B position advertised soon, for a February 2010 start. 

Meeting closed 11.42am