ISGS General Assembly Friday 15th July 2022, at 08:30 AM
Attendance
ISGS Executive Board: Spencer Kelly (President), Aliyah Morgenstern (Vice President), Tilbe Göksun (Secretary General), Aslı Özyürek (Past President), Sotaro Kita (Editor of Gesture).
Apologies: Kensy Cooperrider (Treasurer), Jana Bressem (Public Relations Officer)
ISGS members and interested parties (there were around 40 voting members present).
1. Welcome and President’s report (Spencer Kelly)
The President welcomed the members who were present in the meeting and outlined his main activities for the Society since the last meeting in Cape Town in 2018. These included working with and supporting the local organizers for the Chicago conference, redesigning the website and establishing a new server as well as the new listserv, establishing and creating new ISGS hubs (in France and Hong Kong), working on the code of conduct, and solving the tax situation of the Society. The president emphasized the new hubs and how these hubs in specific regions can promote the society through seminars and improve public relations of the Society.
2. Report from the Treasurer (Spencer Kelly standing in for Kensy Cooperrider)
An important tax situation was discussed. In Spring 2002, when ISGS was founded in Texas, there was registration to tax status. State taxes for Texas were filed, but the federal taxes were not filed (as the federal filing was never advised by the lawyer in Texas who originally helped us become a not-for-profit organization). In Winter 2007, ISGS was contacted by the federal IRS requesting that we submit a special tax form, and upon doing so, our not-for-profit tax status was instated for the Society. However, it was not communicated to the society that we needed to start submitting annual federal returns along with our regular Texas returns, so 4 years later, our not-for-profit tax status was revoked in Winter 2011. The Society learned this new status in 2021 while transferring our web payment system to Paypal. A professional accountant was hired in Fall 2021, and in Summer 2022, our not-for-profit tax status was reinstated. Currently, the problem is resolved.
Following up on this update, there was a discussion about a possible permanent tax advisor. Based on the discussion with the members, the group voted to hire a professional retainer for tax return service (cost estimate: ~$300 a year).
The following membership numbers were reported:
2019: 18 new members
2020: 6 new members
2021: 29 new members
2022: 156 new members
Current membership breakdown:
Regular with journal: 107
Student with journal: 5
Student without journal: 73
Current active membership: 185
The following overview of the budget was reported (in US dollars):
There was a discussion related to the stipends to speakers, particularly for the ISGS Hub in Hong Kong. The members raised questions about whether members of the society should be paid a stipend to give a talk or seminar in the hubs. Based on the suggestions from the members, the Society voted for developing an explicit policy on how we fund future speakers, small expenses, and requests from hubs. The members agreed and voted yes that the new Board should create an explicit policy and share it with the hubs and the members.
3. Board Elections
The President first reaffirmed the Public Relations Officer as Jana Bressem. The President then introduced each candidate for the positions of the President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and General Secretary to the Society.
President: Marianne Gullberg
Vice-President: Naomi Sweller
Treasurer: Liz Wakefield
Secretary General: Gerardo Ortega
Candidates introduced themselves briefly, and voting was conducted via anonymous google doc forms. The members overwhelmingly voted “yes” to all candidates. The President and the group congratulated the new Board and thanked the retiring Board for their service to the Society.
4. Report from the Editor of Gesture (Sotaro Kita)
The Editor reported that he has actively been the editor since May 2017 with two associate editors: Olivier Le Guen and Susan Wagner Cook. The Editor and associate editors will complete their terms by 2023. The Editor thanked the associate editors and announced the new Editor as Breckie Church, who will be gradually phased in over the next year. The new Editor introduced herself and discussed an idea on possible co-editorships, as well as new special issues based on the ISGS9 conference.
The Editor emphasized the change and transition of the online electronic submission system and mentioned the online first articles on the website. The Editor also reported the submission numbers. Since May 2017, there were 161 submissions to the journal. Out of these submissions, 62 were accepted. There were also two special issues: Anthropology of gesture and recurrent gesture. The Editor also apologized for the delays in reviewing and publishing processes due to the pandemic.
The members had questions about the transition to a new editorial board and time frame for the transition. The current Editor responded that the transition would occur later this year by 2023 and he will co-edit one issue with the new Editor. Based on a question about the representation of different areas in the editorial board, the Editor confirmed that representation of different areas such as linguistics and anthropology is necessary for the Society and Journal. The book series will still be handled by Adam Kendon. The members also raised some questions and issues about accessing the journal. The Editor explained the process for accessing the journal to the members (i.e., how a fee is sent to John Benjamins every time a member registers). There was a decision on writing a Q&A to the website to mention about the process of accessing the journal.
5. Discussion and vote on the new ISGS Code of Conduct (Appendix A below)
The President explained the process of writing a code of conduct for the Society. A pair of members after the Cape Town conference (Kate Mesh and Lauren Gawne) crafted a first draft of the code of conduct, which was later revised by the Board. The President asked for any concerns or questions related to the document. The members raised some questions related to the cultural framing (i.e., whether it represents different cultural values), vagueness of the document, and policy for the conferences. A suggestion was made for the new Board to host an online forum with ISGS members to discuss the document more in depth before possibly revising the document and voting on it.
6. Announcement of next ISGS Conference
The President announced that Nijmegen, Netherlands is the official host for the ISGS10 conference. The chairs of the ISGS10 will be Aslı Özyürek and Judith Holler. The conference will plan to be hosted in July 2025 (Note: The conference is scheduled in 2025 rather than 2024 because the organizers are hosting another conference, GESPIN, in 2023). Aslı Özyürek presented the facilities of the places and emphasized how Nijmegen is a hub for gesture-sign research in Europe. The group also discussed having a possible online event before ISGS10, as the conference will take place in 3 years. Finally, there was a discussion about creating more networking events for students and perhaps even hosting a summer school at ISGS10.
7. Other Comments/questions:
Gale Stam acknowledged recent losses of the Society: Dominique Boutet and Kimi Nakatsukasa.
Best practices for accessibility were discussed. The group suggested sign interpreters for all events. There was also a discussion on using mics all the time.
Aliyah Morgenstern suggested the new board discuss whether there could be basic common features across ISGS conferences. This was supported by several members in the assembly (e.g., length of the conference, length of oral papers, the role of keynote speakers, choice of keynote speakers, and diversity -geographic, cultural, scientific, gender-, registration fee, social interaction-outside COVID). However, there were others who thought that local organizers should have as much discretion as possible in light of particular challenges and obstacles that may arise. In short, the assembly agreed that a balance was necessary.
Noted and documented by Tilbe Göksun (the Secretary General)
Submitted on July 21, 2022.