Note from the Chair

July 2016

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I am delighted to welcome you to the 23rd ALM conference at the completion of my first year as Chair. On behalf of the trustees I would like to thank Ciarán Mac an Bhaird and Ann O’Shea and their teamfor organising this conference.

ALM is a membership organisation and I am pleased to see that our membership has grown over the past year. Please continue to encourage colleagues to join, support our work and become involved in our activities. There is some promotional material available on the website, and if you have ideas for additional resources to promote the organisation please let us know.

Our previous Chair Terry Maguire put a lot of effort in to establishing and running our Webinar series, including presenting the three most recent webinars herself. There have been three series of webinars and these all remain available on the Website. I would encourage you to consider offering a paper or workshop you have developed for this Conference in a Webinar version. Please consider sharing your research and/or practice with other adult mathematics educators in this way. Excellent technical support is provided to ensure presenters are happy with the system before the live event.

I would like to thank all those working on the editorial teams of the ALM International Journaland the Conference Proceedings. Particularly I would like to thank Javier Díez-Palomar who has taken on the additional responsibility for the Special Editions of reviewed papers from the conferences, to Sonja Beeli for her work on the ALM 21 proceedings, Graham Griffiths for the design of the proceedings and Anestine Hector Mason for her work on both the IJ special editions and conference proceedings. However I must also apologise to our authors for the late publication of recent proceedings;all the work is voluntary and unforeseen difficulties cause unavoidable delays.

Through the proceedings and journal we support researchers developing as academic writers and also provide an opportunity for practitioners to begin their journey as researchers. This is a journey I personally have followed and hope many more willdo likewise.

That journey in ALM for over 20 years has seen the organisation move from one that was largely paper-based to one existing, in between conferences, through its website. This is of course of enormous benefit to an organisation like ALM, with a wide international membership and very little resources. I believe we can do much more with our website, but for that we are dependent on the volunteer skills (and time) of our active members. Please come and join us.

I express my gratitude to the officers and trustees of ALM. We have met monthly by Skype and I thank you for your time and commitment to the organisationover the last year.

Finally I am delighted to announce thatALM 24 will be held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands with Suzanne Verveer as Chair of the Organisation Committee and Kees Hoogland as Chair of the Programme Committee.

Best wishes

David Kaye (Chair)

Treasurer notes for AGM

As at the 1st June 2016, ALM has assets of £19,015.20. This is an increase of £1232.51 from the previous year.

If we look at the last five year’s assets, we can see a recovery in ALM finances.

2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016
17,945.28 / 16,081.95 / 14,948.90 / 16,667.92 / 17,782.69 / 19,015.20

This has come about through dealing with membership in a more systematic way. In 2013 we had a low point in membership fee collection (£590) which has grown each year to £1370.24 this year.

In addition, we have been clearer about how conferences will be budgeted and have made sure that some income will come through membership fees paid to the conference organisers.

It is worth bearing in mind that there are some costs that we will need to take into account in the near future: in particular four small bursaries of £250 each and one larger £750 amount for attendance at ALM23. These will partially be offset by some income from the conference.

Graham Griffiths (Treasurer )

Membership Secretary notes for AGM

Membership Report ALM-23 AGM 2016 (Draft)

Membership Profile / 2015 / 2016
Fully paid membership 2016 / 45
Fully paid membership in 2015 / 29
Members who included membership in conference fee 2016
Members who included membership in conference fee 2015 / 15
Total Membership
Membership roll profile
Members attending 3 or more conferences of the last 7 (excluding ALM 23 Maynooth) / 37
Members attending 1 or 2 conferences over the same period
Of whom paid fees for this year
Of whom were Freshers in Newport with no subsequent activity / 6
36 / 75
Members attending 1 conference only of the last 7
Of whom paid membership fees this year / 15 / 289
Inactive members who paid membership fees this year / 13
Inactive members in the last 7 years / 33
Total membership roll since ALM 16 / 447

The membership roll is a little distorted by the decision at ALM 22 AGM to remove the ‘free’ membership year for Freshers. There is some evidence of membership renewals among those who attend conference infrequently. The decision to attend a conference seems to be influenced by geographical convenience and cost.

Membership proposals

Whether current membership is determined by the payment or otherwise of a membership may not be a true reflection of a person’s enthusiasm for ALM, is for future trustees to decide. However, I would like to propose the following changes:

In future the conference fee should be the same for everybody, regardless of membership status, although early bird concessions should be maintained
People should pay the membership fee in January, regardless of whether they plan to attend the conference
Members in good standing who attend the annual conference should be badged to signify their tangible support for the aims and objectives of the organisation
Rather than focus on the benefits of being a member, ALM should accentuate its aims and objectives and view membership fees as a signal of support.

John Keogh (Membership Secretary)