The Australian Mathematical Society (Inc) Agenda
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The Australian Mathematical Society (Inc) Agenda for the one hundred and twenty-first Council meeting with Minutes of the previous two Council meetings and Agenda papers The Drawing Room University House Australian National University Sunday 4th December 2016 Page 1 of 78 The Australian Mathematical Society Incorporated Council The one-hundred-and-twenty-first meeting of the Council of the Australian Mathe- matical Society will be held in the Drawing Room, University House on Sunday 4th December 2016, immediately following the AMPAI Annual General Meeting (which starts at 11am and which Council members are expected to attend). Agenda *1. Apologies *2. Welcomes *3. Approval of agenda Council is invited to star items for discussion, to receive unstarred reports and to approve recommendations in unstarred items. *4. (i) Confirmation of the minutes of the one-hundred-and-nineteenth Coun- cil meeting. See pages 17 to 35 of 78 in the agenda papers. (ii) Confirmation of the minutes of the one-hundred-and-twentieth Coun- cil meeting. See page 36 of 78 in the agenda papers. *5. Business arising from the minutes *(i) Program Review The pressure of other duties forced Professor Miklavcic to withdraw from chairing the working party to devise a revised Society Program Review scheme. After unsuccessfully exploring other possibilities the President o↵ered to take over the task. (ii) Mathsfest At the time of preparing this agenda, the proposal to substantially in- crease international participation in the Society’s annual conference, by running signiificant international workshops on either side of the 2016 conference, has not achieved the desired e↵ect. It is therefore proposed that a decision on future funding of such events be delayed until a full review of the 2016 meetings has been conducted. (iii) Increasing the Society’s interaction with undergraduates The ACE network hook-up to explore possibilities, discussed in item 14 (v) of the one-hundred-and-nineteenth meeting, has not yet taken place but is planned for Semester 1 2017. 1 Page 2 of 78 *(iv) A good practice scheme to guide the implementation of gender equity policies At its one-hundred-and-nineteenth meeting Council suggested that the Women in Mathematics Special Interest Group adapt for Australia the London Mathematical Society’s Good Practice Scheme. The WIMSIG Executive Committee has discussed this suggestion and has decided that WIMSIG will not undertake this project. Reasons are provided in the group’s report to Council, on page 51 of 87. If Council is still keen on this project, then the Special Interest Group suggests that we set up a committee for this express purpose. The Group believes that such a project would be most successful if undertaken by the Society as a whole, not only by WIMSIG. WIMSIG would be supportive of such a committee, and would be happy to contribute (for instance by recommending potential participants), but will not be taking responsibil- ity for the project. 6 chair a Aidan woking party . *6. Reports from the Society’s Officers *6.1 President’s Report to Council (Professor T.R. Marchant) See pages 2to4of53intheAGMandCouncilreports,alsoincludedaspages37 to 39 of 78 in the agenda papers. 6.2 Secretary’s Report to Council (A. Prof. P.J. Stacey) See pages 5 to 15 of 53 in the AGM and Council reports. *6.3 Treasurer’s Report to Council, Financial Report and Audited Financial Statements (Dr A. Howe) *(i) Treasurer’s Report See pages 16 to 20 of 53 in the AGM and Council reports, also included as pages 40 to 44 of 78 in the agenda papers, with supplementary information on page 45. (ii) Audited Financial Statements for the year ended 31 July 2016 See pages 21 to 30 of 53 in the AGM and Council reports, also in- cluded as pages 46 to 55 of 78 in the agenda papers. As a result of the changed financial year, the auditor’s comparison with his most recent prior audit is not very useful. For that reason the 2014-15 audited statement is included, for Council’s information, as pages 56 to 66 of 78 in the agenda papers. It is the business of the AGM, rather than Council, to receive audited statements. 2 Page 3 of 78 *7. Meetings *7.1 Reports on meetings held (i) Fifty-ninth Annual Meeting, 2015. See pages 2 to 3 of 87 in the reports to Council. *(ii) Early Career Workshop 2015. See page 4 of 87 in the reports to Council. The report contains the suggestion to discontinue the small Early Career Workshops in odd years, of which the 2015 workshop was the first. (iii) ANZIAM Early Career Workshop 2016. See pages 5 to 10 of 87 in the reports to Council. 7.2 Annual Meeting 2016 (i) Sixtieth Annual Meeting, 2016. See pages 11 to 12 of 87 in the reports to Council. (ii) Early Career Workshop 2016. See page13 of 87 in the reports to Council. 7.3 Future Meetings (i) The sixty-first annual meeting of the Society be held at Macquarie University from Tuesday 12th to Friday 15th December 2017, with Professor P. Smith and Professor X. Duong as Co-Directors. (See pages 14 to 15 of 87 in the reports to Council.) (ii) It will be recommended to the AGM that the sixty-second annual meeting of the Society be held at The University of Adelaide from Tuesday 4th to Friday 8th December 2018, with Dr T. Leistner as Director. 7.4 Report from the Vice-President, Annual Conferences (i) The report from Professor V. Gaitsgory is on page 16 of 87 in the reports to Council. *(ii) Early Career Lecturer. Since 2009 one of the plenary speakers at the Society’s annual conference has been designated the Early Ca- reer Lecturer and has been selected by the organisers of the Early Career Workshop. In early August the Program Advisory Board for the 2017 conference asked the Secretary if we now have an Early Ca- reer Lecturer every year or every second year, when we have a bigger Yes ECR event. It also asked if the Program Advisory Board could ap- proach the early career workshop organisers with a suggestion about apossibleEarlyCareerLecturer. An email discussion then took place between the Vice-President (An- nual Conferences), the Secretary, the Chair of ANZIAM and early career workshop organisers. In the discussion it was asked if the Early Career Lecturer should also speak at the associated Early Ca- Yes reer Workshop. Extracts from the emails are provided in page 67 of 78 in the agenda papers. 3 Page 4 of 78 From information provided by the Chair of ANZIAM and the ANZIAM Early Career Workshop organiser it was clarified that the J.H. Michell Medal winner is e↵ectively an early career lecturer at the ANZIAM meeting and no further Early Career Lecturer is required. Further- more the organisers of the workshops hosted by ANZIAM have chosen not to have technical presentations during the workshop. The questions to be addressed by Council therefore relate to the Society’s annual conference and the associated early career worksops, as follows. (i) Should the Early Career Lecturer be selected by the Conference Program Advisory Board or the Society’s Early Career Represen- tatives (who organise the early career workshops)? If the former, should an Early Career Representative be added to the Program Advisory Board? (ii) Should there be an Early Career Lecturer every year or just in even years, when there is an associated full early career work- shop? (ii) Should the Early Career Lecturer necessarily talk at the associ- ated early career workshop? *7.5 3 Financial assistance for conferences *(a) Funding for annual conferences The Vice-President (Annual Con- ferences) seeks advice from Council on an appropriate ceiling for reg- istration fees for the annual conference, noting the capitation fee for each registrant at the Society’s annual conference of twenty-five per- cent of the ordinary membership fee of the Society (proposed to be $138 in 2017, corresponding to a capitation fee of $34.50). Early reg- istration fees for ordinary members since 2010 have been $320, $350, $375, $400, $400, $500, $500. Council resolved in 2005 that confer- ence registration fees for the Society’s Annual Meeting should not change more than 15% from one year to the next, unless otherwise approved by Council. *(b) 2018 Annual Conference Council needs to approve seeding money and funds for plenary speak- ers for the 2018 Annual Conference, conditional upon a suitable draft budget. For the 2017 (61st) conference (already approved) $35,000 was approved, of which $25,000 was for plenary speakers, and it was requested that the conference budget should be set so that the ad- vance could be returned. *(c) Budget for minor 2017 Early Career Workshop If it is decided to continue the early career workshops in odd years, Council needs to approve a budget allocation for a 2017 workshop. As reported on page 4 of 87 in the reports to Council, $3519.97 was spent in 2015, including $3080 for catering: excluding dinner and $347 for dinner. 4 Page 5 of 78 *(d) Special Interest Meetings Council needs to confirm total limits and individual meeting limits for the financial years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 and set them for 2019-2020. For the financial years 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 the total limit is $35,000 and the normal limit for each meeting is $6,000. *7.6 Financial assistance for student attendance at conferences i An allocation for the 2016-17 session needs to be determined for the Student Conference Support Scheme.