2016 AGM
Tuesday November 29th, 5:15pm – 6:30pm
The Cathederal Hall, ACU, Melbourne
Attendance: Katie Hughes, Dan Woodman, Alphia Possamai-Inesedy, Joshua Roose, Elizabeth Humphrys, Ashleigh Watson, Karen Soldatic, Tom Barnes, Jo Lindsay, Naama Carlin, Mithzay Pomenta, Sara James, Sarah Midford, Catherine Strong, Joanne Bryant, Joseph Borlagdan, Fran Collyer, Edgar Burns, Constance Lever-Tracy (non-member), David Radford, Christy Newman, Karen Willis, Diane Luhrs, Gianfranco Giuntoli (non-member), John van Kooy, David Rowe, Deborah Stevenson, Stewart Lockie, Farida Fozdar, Helen Walton, Yoland Wadsworth, Judy Rose, Alan Scott, Melanie Shier-Baker, Kate Huppatz, Robert van Krieken, Rob Stones, Melanie Glavimans, Deb King, Eileen Clark, Steve Matthewman, Brady Robards, Theresa Petray, Grazyna Zajdow, Christina Malatzky, Brad West, Peta Cook, Brendan Churchill, Marcus Banks, Dina Bowman, Sally Daly & Greg Vickers (non-member).
Minute taker:Sally Daly
Item / Discussion / Action1 / Welcome – Katie Hughes opened the meeting at 5:23pm.
2 / Apologies
Shanthi Robertson, Kristen Natalier, Raewyn Connell & Nicholas Osbaldiston
3 / President’s Overview – Katie Hughes
4 / Business arising from previous meeting - Katie Hughes called for business arising from the previous meeting. Nothing was raised.
5 / Approval of minutes from last meeting - Katie Hughes / Katie Hughes moved for the confirmation of the previous minutes, November 2015.
Alan Scottaccepted the 2015 minutes. Eileen Clarkseconded the motion. Katie Hughes called for all those in favour and those against. Motion accepted.
6 / Presentation of Financial Statements – Katie Hughes / Katie Hughes called for the audited accounts for TASA’s 2015/2016 financial year to be ratified. Debra King moved to ratify the financials, Karen Soldatic seconded the motion. Katie Hughes called for all those in favour and those against. Motion carried.
7 / Questions on matters from the annual report– Katie Hughes called for questions on the annual report. There were none.
Please see the 2015/2016 annual report for full details
8 / Public Engagement Portfolio – Katie Hughes reminded the members thatPublic Engagement Portfolio Leader position was not filled during the recent Executive election. Subsequently, Katie explained, expressions of interest were called for and two were received: Dina Bowman and Nicholas Hookway. Both members were given a minute to speak, to the members, about what they would do in the Public Engagement. Dina Bowman spoke first (about the leveraging of existing networks& engaging with different publics) followed by Nicholas Hookway (who describe his passion about getting sociologists onto public panels such as Q & A and developing new ways to skill up members to share their research.
Each member was given a yellow sticky note, handed out by Sally Daly, Greg Vickers (Conference Solutions) & Naama Carlin, to write either Dina Bowman’s or Nicholas Hookway’s name. The votes were collected by the same three people who handed the sticky notes out. They were then counted by Joshua Roose and Greg Vickers. Nicholas Hookway received the most votes and was subsequently announced as the newly elected Public Engagement Portfolio Leader.
9 / Public Statements – Katie Hughes called for members to voice their thoughts on the TASA Executive making Public Statements. Alan Scott commented thatSociology is being undermined by public statements about academia and asked that the Executive discuss ways of addressing this issue.
Peta Cookvoiced Nick Osbaldiston’s (apology) concerns about the process the Executive used to decide on what public statements to make. Katie Hughes explained the process currently used and opened the floor to suggestions for an alternative process. One member suggested TASA statements include a list of 6 members interested parties could contact regarding the statement topic. Stewart Lockie suggested TASA uses the Directory of Research Expertise, when an issue arises, to contact media departments with suggested names for them to contact.
Dan Woodman officially acknowledged Alan Scott’s commitment to TASA and sociology over the last 40 years.
10 / Journal of Sociology – incoming editors: introductionsKatie Hughes introduced the incoming editors for the Journal of Sociology, Kate Huppatz and Steve Matthewman
11 / Ratification of new office bearers: 2017 – 2018 Executive Katie Hughes congratulated the following newly elected office bearers, welcoming them to their first meeting and reminding them of their official start date, being January 1st, 2017:
Dan Woodman: President
Alphia Possamai-Inesedy: Vice-President
Luke Gahan: Secretary
Shanthi Robertson: Treasurer
Peta Cook: Thematic Group Portfolio Leader
Brady Robards: Digital mediaPortfolio Leader (continuing)
Nicholas Hookway: Public EngagementPortfolio Leader
Joseph Borlagdan: Applied Sociology Portfolio Leader
Ashleigh Watson: PostgraduatePortfolio Leader / Katie Hughes moved to ratify the newly elected members. Theresa Petray seconded. Katie Hughes called for all those in favour and those against. Motion passed.
12 / Other Business – Joshua Roose spoke about the new 18c inquiry and announced that the closing date of submissions is Friday December 9. Joshua also informed the members that the 2016 was one of TASA’s largest and that TASA membership numbers were also the highest on record.
Meeting closed at 6:10pm