TEI Members Meeting 2003: Minutes

TEI Consortium Members Business Meeting, November 8th, 2003

Minutes taken by Geoffrey Rockwell

A moment of silence was observed in memory of Antonio Zampolli.

Minutes

Stuart Brown and Matthew Zimmerman were appointed to sign off on these minutes.

Election of Officers

Two volunteers were recruited to help with the counting of votes, Julia Flanders and Werner Wegstein. The results of the election were:

The following people were elected to the TEI Board:

• John Unsworth
• Patrick Durusau

The following people were elected to the TEI Council:

• Edward Vanhoutte
• Christian Wittern
• Mathew Driscoll
• Laurent Romany
• Perry Willett
• Natasha Smith

Special Interest Groups (SIGS)

Syd Bauman organized reports from the Special Interest Groups (SIGs). The SIGs that reported were:

• Manuscript Transcription - Elena Pierazzo
• Human Language Technology - Laurent Romany
• Training TEI Trainers - Susan Schreibman
• Graphics and Text - John Walsh
• Overlapping Markup - Dorothy Carr Porter
• Multilingual Markup - Alejandro Bia
• Authoring and Presentation Tools - Sebastian Rahtz
• Digital Libraries - Perry Willett

There was discussion about how to support the SIGs. Lou Burnard offered to set up mailing lists and create web pages for the SIGs. There was a suggestion that we create a common domain "www.teilists.org" for the SIGs. The reporters for each of the SIGs will send Lou Burnard a written summary of their report.

Chairman's report from last year

The minutes of the last meeting (MM14) including the Chairman's report were accepted with the following corrections:

• "Chairmans report" heading should read "Chairman's report".
• "Auditors fee ..." heading should read "Auditor's fee".
• Where it reads "The Executive Secretary underlined again..." should read "The Executive Director underlined again...".

The current Chairman, Harold Short, discussed the suggestion to run elections by e-mail. He noted that this was discussed by the TEI Board and it was decided to stick with the current system.

The Chairman, Harold Short, distributed his report (MM21). In it he explained the implications of John Unsworth's resignation - that Christian Wittern became Chair of the Council and he (Harold Short) became chair of the Board. The Chairman expressed his appreciation of Alois Pichler who replaced Tone Merete Bruvik as Executive Director for her maternity leave. He also welcomed Tone Merete back.

Short discussed the problem of funding including the fact that the hosts were providing more support to the TEI than they should. He noted that this could become a problem and it was important to expand memberships in order to adequately fund TEI activities.

Short expressed our appreciation for the work of the editors, Lou Burnard and Syd Bauman. He then expressed our appreciation for the work of the officers of the TEI, Julia Flanders - Vice-Chair, Geoffrey Rockwell - Secretary, and Claus Huitfeldt - Treasurer.

Report from the TEI Council (TCR1)

Christian Wittern, Chairman of the TEI Council, presented his report on the last year's activities. We heard reports on the progress of the Character Encoding Workgroup, the Stand-Off Markup Workgroup, the Migration Workgroup, the Manuscript Description Task-force, the Joint IS)/TEI Activity on Feature Structures, and TEI Training activities.

There was discussion around the issue of making Workgroup working papers publicly visible. At present they are visible to TEI Members, but not to the general public. Some were in favor of making these reports open and linking them to a web page controlled by the workgroup while others wanted to keep them hidden until ready. The suggestion was made that this be brought to the TEI Council for discussion. Members should express their views to the Chair of the Council.

Host reports (MM12 and MM18)

None of the host representatives had anything to add to the written reports. There is a chance that there could be one or two institutions that apply for host status.

Treasurer's reports (MM19 and MM20)

The Treasurer, Claus Huitfeldt, presented his a report on the year ending Dec. 31, 2002, a status report on 2003, and a draft budget for 2004. He noted that the budget for 2004 is substantially less than that of 2003 because the NEH funded project on migration is coming to an end. He also noted that there are hidden expenses that are paid for by the hosts or others.

The Treasurer suggested that institutions might be willing to commit resources to workgroups and that there are good reasons to have such indirect costs reported. This is to be taken up by the Board.

Remuneration of officers

The officers confirmed that they are not remunerated.

Approval of the auditor's fee and appointment of auditor

The current auditor (KPMG) was reappointed and the auditor's fee was approved.

Proposals for date and place of next meeting

The date and place for the next meeting were discussed. It was suggested that the next meeting might take place in the Far East in order to involve projects in that region. The Board will pursue possible locations.

Other business

We discussed the anomaly in terms of office between Board and Council members. Board members begin the 1st of January and server for 2 years. Council members should do the same. This involves a change in the bylaws which will be dealt with by the Board. Newley elected Board members will be invited to sit in on meetings in a non-voting capacity once elected (but before their term starts.)

Peter Robinson circulated a feedback form which was then collected.

Harold Short expressed his thanks to the organizing committee for this meeting, Lou Burnard, Syd Bauman, Laurent Romary and Peter Robinson. Short then thanked the local hosting organization ATLF and Laurent Romary for organizing an excellent conference and meeting.