Minutes of the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies

Executive Meeting

Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Tuesday 5 July 2005, 5pm

1. Attendance

Jonathan Bollen, Paul Dwyer (representing Sydney Uni) Ray Goodlass, Helena Grehan, Veronica Kelly, Adrian Kiernander, Paul Makeham, Geoffrey Milne, Delyse Ryan, Joanne Tompkins

2. Apologies

Tom Burvill

3. Business

* Paul will give his last report as President.

* Joanne will give her last report as President.

* There was discussion of potential new members to fill Executive roles.

4. President's Report

* This is a year of transition ahead for the Executive, the website and ADS.

* Subscriptions for the journal need to be stripped from the membership of ADS.

* Paul formally recorded how good the Charles Sturt Conference has been and formally thanked Ray Goodlass.

* E-mail meetings are sometimes effective but this needs to be assessed.

* We need to have a standard membership renewal date-1 January.

* Concern that numbers are so low when they really shouldn't be.

* Invoices and receipts need to be issued as well as membership cards.

* There should be a break from the journal.

* We may need a paid position to handle memberships (possibly 1 day a week)

* LERN bid was unsuccessful. This raises issues about how theatre studies is regarded by the broader community. It questions the perception of what we do. LERN has legs as a structure for generating further research. It is different from ADSA (possibly larger) but it has a strong link with ADSA particularly through the website. The new ADSA website will be cross-linked with the AusStage and LERN sites. There may be some way to re-instate the role that theatreoz played. There wasn't a plan B for LERN-we need to think about the priorities for resurrecting the network.

* The Sydney conference is looking good. It will be the first week in July 2006

* The Shakespeare Conference in Brisbane will be 16-22 July 2006

* Ballarat is unable to host the 2007 conference so we need to find a new host as soon as possible.

* Geoffrey Milne has offered to take on ADS and has tabled a position paper.

* Online publication issues were raised throughout the year.

* Helena Grehan has raised several 'big picture' issues to do with how we work, how we teach, and the current learning environment. These will be placed on the table at the AGM.

5. Treasurer's Report

* Membership numbers are a real worry-they are unusually low.

* We agreed that membership fees would go up this year but Joanne felt that our current balance was healthy so we really wouldn't need to. However, fees will definitely need to go up next year (especially because the postgraduate rate really only covers the cost of the journal and nothing comes to ADSA).

* The subvention was not returned from Wellington. The conference lost about $6000 but their university subsidized the shortfall.

* Book sales have been low and we need to promote them more. We could bring copies to the conference to sell and we may need to bring the price down.

6. CHASS: Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

* Adrian Kiernander, Ray Goodlass, Joanne Tompkins, and Bill Dunstone attended a CHASS event. Brendan Nelson was very good and said all of the things about the Arts that we want to hear from the Government.

* Is CHASS a way forward for us? They have the ear of the government. We need to try to get one of us on to the committee of CHASS (although it seemed like the membership was predetermined last time).

7. Publications Report by Veronica Kelly

* Alan Eady has been subscriptions manager but he doesn't really want to continue for another year.

* Subscription promotion is a difficult issue.

* There has been a credible submission from La Trobe to take over the journal.

* An expression of interest from Newcastle has not come to fruition.

* We need to change the address for all of the agencies (eg. Libraries and databases, APAIS, Infotrac, etc)

8. Key Points of the La Trobe Proposal by Geoffrey Milne

* 2 print issues per year.

* There will be a separate reviews editor.

* They need to recruit a typesetting person in Melbourne.

* We need to discuss how we'll separate the subscription membership from the ADSA membership.

* April 2006 will be the last issue out of the University of Queensland.

* We need a website for ADS that has everything. This needs to be maintained so we may need to pay Flinders to look after it.

9. Issues raised with regard to the La Trobe Proposal

* Online version.

* It might be possible to have an online presence for postgraduate students to post their papers. Possibly a mentoring scheme could be set up to help postgrads to work their papers up into an acceptable style for publication.

* In a way the journal is already available online if our libraries subscribe to the full-text databases.

* It may in the long run be cheaper for the journal to be entirely online. However, Theatre Research International is fully online and this is a full-time job. We currently do not have the resources for this.

* Performance Paradigm has been launched through the University of Sydney. They envisage having a refereed section and anon-refereed section. They have gone for a hybrid model where people can print on demand. They need to sell about 100 to cover their costs but then it goes online for free.

10. University of Sydney Conference (2006)

* The first call for papers will go out at this conference.

* Theme: "Being There".

* The conference will experiment with the American model of have panel of 6 or 12 people who meet together for possible 3 sessions over the course of the conference or in one half day session. Groups can specify what they need/want to develop their work.

* Proposals to curate panels will be called for in the first instance. The second call for papers will focus on general papers.

* The organizers were reminded about the Early Career Research Panel. The executive felt that this is where the Keynote Speaker earns the airfare by being a mentor and a guide to postgrads.

* All people proposing papers need to be ADSA members.

* It is useful to have a welcoming party for postgrads. (They could do a ballot for the postgrad rep at this event)

* Maybe we need a conference session on Journals.

* How to get published?

* What needs to happen to a conference paper to work it into a journal article?

The meeting adjourned and reconvened over Dinner.

11. Hire of an ADSA RA

* Paul can arrange for a PG/RA person from QUT for a day per month.

* This person could report directly to the President given that the President is the executive role in charge of membership.

* It would be good if we could find someone who has a background in marketing.

* We need continuity with this role.

12. Links with Drama Australia

* We need to maintain our links with Drama Australia.

* The current President is Sandra Gadaloff.

* Publicity for the Journal needs to be a part of their conference.

* Paul will get promotional material to Sandra.

13. Executive Action Points

* Instead of minutes of the meeting, we need to a separate set of Action points with names attached so we know who is actually responsible for things throughout the year.

14. Research Register

* Geoffrey Milne would like to work on the Research Register.

* It's possible that Loretta (the Drama Admin Officer at La Trobe) could play some role here.

* CHAUTSI may be able to hire someone to ring people up and ask questions regarding updating the Research Register.

* It's also possible to go on to individual staff profiles on University websites and find the most recent information.

15. ATHE Panel

* What is the current status?

* Joanne is going to the conference but will not be on the panel.

* This relationship should be kept up.

* Paul will contact Peta.

16. Prizes: Rotation of Judges:

* Philip Parsons Prize for Performance as Research

o Alison Richards, Ian Maxwell. (Maryanne Hunter rotates off)

* Marlis Thiersch Prize for a Scholarly Article by a Member

o Glen d'Cruz, Gay Poole, Peter Eckersall. (Maryrose Casey rotates off)

* Rob Jordan Prize for a Book by a Member (awarded every 2 years)

o Helena Grehan, Mark Radvan, Adrian Kiernander.

* Veronica Kelly Prize for Best Postgraduate Conference Paper

o Organised by the Executive. Geoffrey Milne is looking after this year's round.

* Every year after the Conference we need to post the judges on the website with who will rotate off.