2023 Annual General Meeting

Annual General Meeting of the Australasian Computer Music Association 2023

Date: 11/10/2023

Location: University of New England, Sydney Campus, Parramatta, NSW. (online participants on Zoom).

Present

• Mark Oliveiro
• Charles Martin
• Bridget Johnson
• Jesse Austin-Stewart
• Mike Callendar
• Yichen Wang
• Nicole Carroll
• Donna Hewitt
• Roger Alsop
• Warren Burt
• Vincent Giles
• Andrew Brown
• Jim Murphy
• Sophie Rose
• Neil Steward

Apologies

Vicki Hallett, Eve Klein, Patrick Hartono

Minutes

Opening

• Acknowledgement of Country
• President moved to accept the minutes of the 2022 AGM. Passed.

Receive Committee Reports

President’s report:

Community building and networking was key plan for the executive during the 2022-2023 academic year, I had the fortune to meet and discuss collaborations with a number of research and industry partners to assist in future goals, and to assist in the annual conference. I am pleased to report there are future plans for collaboration with similar international associations (like SEAMUS and CEC), and we may also have interest with sponsorship with industry partners (like ADAM audio). Securing these networks and plans will be the job of the Executive to build upon in 2024.

Inclusivity remains a strident goal for this association, and continuing to work on achieving this aim, should persist into 2024. The 2022, and 2023 conference are/were excellent examples of an inclusive community of practice.

The 2022 ACMC was a roaring success, it was a performance and artistic research heavy conference, with a good number of Australasian and International delegates, and presentations. Of particular note where the outstanding display of facilities, installations and music technology; a testament to Massey University, and the 2022 hosts: Bridget and Team. I would like to make a particular note of the engagement from, and presentation of, the research of younger academics (and early career/interest non-academics), inclusivity was well demonstrated here. Furthermore, the New Zealand cohort of our association put the Australian members to shame in their representation of Indigenous Peoples and Nationhoods; ACMA has much to work in this area.

The 2023 ACMC conference is proceeding currently, and there has been an uptick in the presentation of formal research, yet the presentation of creative work and performance remains strong. Installations and the Riverside theatre offerings are the current highlight, yet another day of conference remains, much to look forward to. Showcasing Western Sydney has been a highlight, and Donna and team should be proud of their work, with commendations from the Executive committee.

Reflecting on the recent conferences, I would like to note in this report the current phenomenon of “representative non-attendance.” Too many conference delegates are contributing work to the community, without the associated work towards building networks within this association. I would like to encourage this committee, and Executive, to work towards solutions to this issue.

On behalf of the ACMC executive, I would like to thank this committee for their hardwork, proactivity, and representation; we are effective because we as individuals we are committed to our research and work, and this community.

Vice President report:

• Bridget Johnson noted that we had a great time last year in Wellington and glad to be here this year.
• Noted that we had 106 registrations at ACMC 2023 (well done!)

Treasurer’s report:

Prepared by Vincent Giles

General:

The bank account currently sits at $4115.01

I do not currently have access to PayPal (but I believe Charles does).

There have been zero outgoing or incoming funds in the past twelve months, which suggests that: membership/attendance funds from the past ACMCs and website/paypal have not been withdrawn. There is therefore currently zero profit/loss.

Suggested action: on advice from present company, Treasurer will gain access to PayPal to oversee these. Information needed: email address and 2FA associated with PayPal account, password.

Outstanding:

There are possibly some moneys owing to some members for costs incurred that have not been withdrawn, unless they have been claimed through PayPal. This includes domain name registration.

Authorisation of Expenditure: ACMC2023

The executive committee authorised in an out-of-session meeting the expenditure of $1000 (4x $250) prizes for papers and performances at ACMC2023.

After voting closes and winners are decided by the executive committee, winners will be required to send an invoice to ACMA for the fee of $250 (ex GST) and remittance will be sent upon payment to the winner. In the event that there is no winner of the prize in a given category, the prize will not be paid out and will remain with ACMA.

Motions for Action:

I would like to move for the following processes to be implemented from all ACMA events moving forward, and table the following for discussion at the AGM.

• As a standard post-event follow-up, event organiser(s) will supply the treasurer and executive with a table of in-kind running costs for the event. This will help get a clearer idea of the financial value and in-kind support that ACMA is able to leverage, and provide information for potential hosts of events. It will also provide a catalogue of evidence for any future funding applications undertaken by ACMA.
• At the closing of registration for a given event, registration data (and income) is provided to the treasurer.

Secretary’s and Publications report:

• Charles Martin discussed Chroma, the website, and the mailing list.
  • Chroma has successfully published 12 articles as of the meeting.
  • We decided to publish the fully-refereed ACMC submissions in the journal as a special issue.
  • We noted that most authors have been early career researchers and that the journal has materially assisted ACMA members secure academic jobs.
  • The publications role, however, is a lot of work in terms of securing reviews and communication with authors and Charles asked to relinquish this role.
  • The ACMA website has been redesigned in Jekyll as the previous wordpress website was vandalised by hackers.
  • The current host is working for Chroma (Open Journal Systems) but we may have to change as the journal website is quite slow.
  • Currently Charles is paying for the website and should seek reimbursement.
  • We are still searching for some past proceedings: 2003, 2011, 2012, 2016.
  • The mailing list has been discovered by spammers and spurious subscription requests are out of control.
  • We should review how this is handled and whether it is valuable.
  • There were comments suggesting looking at how the live coding list and community are organised which is a good point.

Secretary moved to vote that all reports are delivered as true representations in accordance with the act: passed.

Elect Committee Members

• President moved to keep the executive officers except for publications and elect other attendees as non-executive members of the committee (passed the list of elected officers is below).
• The secretary (Charles Martin) nominated Donna Hewitt and Mike Callander as publications officers (passed)

Plans for ACMC2024

• Mike Callendar suggested running the conference in Melbourne and offered to consider how it might work at RMIT.

Membership, Fees, and Data

• Charles Martin suggested that the previous practice of establishing a membership list from the conference should not happen without participant’s consent to share their name and contact information.
• Suggestion was to establish consistent wording and a form for 2023 and future conferences to gather attendee data and convert into members

Submissions and action on Chroma Journal

• new publication chairs can take on conversion of ACMC submissions into full papers as they wish, good to have two people handling it.
• Charles will still handle the website stability and discuss article production using the template.

Other Business

• None