Present

David Mitchell, Phil Last, Curtis Jones, Michael Hughes, Bob Armstrong, John Jacob, Stephen Taylor, Stefan Kruger, Adám Brudzewsky, Chris Pollard, Morten Kromberg, Phil Last, Bob Armstrong, Chris Hughes, Chris Hogan, Ellis Morgan, Jules Verne, Peter Capek,

Officers Present: Paul Grosvenor (Chairman), Ziggi (Secretary), Nicholas Small (Treasurer)

Paul Grosvenor welcomed everyone to the AGM.

The Minutes of the 2019 AGM prepared by Ellis Morgan were accepted by unanimous vote of those who attended or expressed an opinion.

Chairman’s report

  • Most of the plans for 2020 had to be cancelled, delayed or moved on-line due to the pandemic.
  • Good progress on the BAA website, we now have the ability to self-author and the committee members have been given access.  Access will be rolled out to other in due course.
  • We have a full committee for the first time in a long time.
  • We have started to produce the by-weekly webinars/meetings:
    • These replacing the monthly London meeting. 
    • All details of all the meetings are published on the website thanks to Jake.
    • These dovetail with the webinars from Dyalog.
  • We have changed our subscription basis so individual members are free, and we are seeing new members coming through.
  • Some changes are required to the constitution which will be voted on.
  • This is our first virtual AGM.
  • Covid allowing we will have a social event in November (mb: Covid did not allow)

Treasurer’s Report – Nicholas Small

Nicholas presented the accounts, key points below

  • Income:
    • Financially an acceptable year with 5 sustaining members renewing but it was not a good time to chase the other
  • Expenditure
    • Zoom Licence, website (£3000) and refreshments at 2019AGM – Approx. £3000
    • We are no longer producing the hardcopy of Vector.
  • Net assets are just under £24,000.

Website and Social Media Report – Jake (John Jacob)

Jake gave a PowerPoint presentation on the 3 or 4 websites managed by the BAA.  This PowerPoint is available via the main BAA website.

  • BAA Site
    • News and events
    • Constitution
    • A page for each sustaining member
    • Reports
    • Calendar – A google calendar
  • Vector  – current and old copies of Vector
  • Archive – all historical Vectors
  • YouTube channel.
  • Morton requested that it be made clear the Archive was an archive and that there is normal Vector page.
  • Stephen stressed the importance of keeping the web address for links from other site and prevent broken links.
  • There was a discussion about how the articles in the Vector and the Archive could be made more searchable.

The Committee

Paul proposed the current team be re-elected on mass.

Chairman –          Paul Grosvenor

Secretary –          Ziggi (Chris Paul)

Treasurer –          Nicholas Small

Events –                Phil Last

Web Editor –       Jake (John Jacob)

Web Master –     Mike Lingard

Web Admin –      Chris Hogan

The committee was voted in unanimously.

Chris Hogan was voted in as auditor for the coming year unanimously.

Events – Phil Last

Phil briefly described the meetings for the last 12 years.

After the first of the proposed twice a year presentations were called off due to Covid, we set up the once a fortnight webinar program.

Proposed Charges to the Constitution.

Full proposal is on the website but as a summary:-

  • Changes to reflect the free membership.
  • The clause that prevents a committee member from standing for more than 4 years has been changed to allow if no opposition.
  • Change the AGM date to June
  • Remove appointed officers.
  • The clause whereby in the event of the dissolution of the BAA any assets would pass to the BCS is changed to pass the assets to the sustaining members.

Question: Does anyone object to making any changes – All voted no.

It was proposed and accepted the new constitution be tidied up and voted on at a later meeting.  This was accepted.

AOB

On the Symposia for 2020/21 – will be postponed until after the Covid-19 restrictions.

Meeting called to a close: by Paul