Saturday 14th
August 2021
1pm Sydney time, by Zoom
Our Lovely Annual
General Meeting
As below:
* Minutes,
*
Secretary's Report,
* President's Report.
Australian General Semantics Society Inc.
Promoting the educational-therapeutic
discipline of General Semantics
ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING
1:00 pm 14th AUGUST, 2021, at various locations, via Zoom
Minutes
1. Attendance: Jeanne, Pauline, David, Gavan, Robert
and Jaison
2. Apologies: None
3. Minutes of the AGM from 2020 accepted as read from
Pauline’s email as a true copy of the meeting.
4.
Matters Arising from the Minutes - none.
5. Presentation of Reports:
a. President's Report – Robert went through the
main points of his excellent President’s report which was accepted.
Robert brought up the topic of
Facebook
and we discussed using it more as a marketing tool and increase our
presence.
Pauline suggested we could join
groups who might be interested in GS and post meeting notices and
subject matter.
Robert talked about how many
voluntary associations there are in Canberra and how we could use the
lists of associations as a way of finding like-minded groups and
sending them our meeting notices.
Robert showed some links to different GS
online events we could attend, and said he will send us the emails.
b. Treasurer's Report
– Gavan reported that we had $588.02 in the kitty, membership fees
received were $100.00, IGS Fee was $141.46 and the incorporation fee
was $47.
c. Secretary's Report
– Was accepted as read from Pauline’s email, with the Report attached
- we currently have 101 members in the meetup group, which thankfully
Tom now covers the cost for. Pauline realised she hadn’t been sending
letters to new members and Robert said he would have a look,
and
Pauline said as there are no physical meetings, the letters probably
were not needed.
d. Public Officer's Report - David reported that he
has submitted the necessary forms regarding last year’s AGM and would
submit the one to the Fair Trading Office. He also looked after paying
our IGS fees. The Report was
accepted and seconded.
6. Election of Office Bearers
a. President: Robert James
b. Vice-President:
Jeanne James
c. Treasurer: Gavan Callaghan
d. Secretary:
Pauline Callaghan
e. Public & Meeting Notification Officer: David
Hewson
7. General
Business
We decided
to continue to hold meetings every month or two via zoom for the time
being, with the next one scheduled for 18-09-2021.
Jaison expressed interest in continuing
with the group and in becoming a financial member.
Yay!
8. Next Annual General Meeting:
August 2022.
9. Meeting closed 1.35 pm.
Australian General Semantics Society Inc.
Promoting the educational-therapeutic
discipline of General Semantics
ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING 14th AUGUST, 2021
Secretary’s Report
AGS has demonstrated the lateral thinking and adaptability of
map/territory thinking during our second year of Covid, with the
continuation of on-line zoom meetings which thankfully, enabled an
expanded group of participants, which has added significantly to the
interest and enjoyment of our meetings. We have been lucky enough to
have Milton from Montreal, Jaison from Ohio, Tom and Gary from
Melbourne, Robert and Jeanne from Canberra, David from Wollongong,
some hobbits from Sydney and Dion from the Blue Mountains all attend
our meetings in the past year.
As secretary, most of the
written correspondence which used to be writing to new members of the
AGS Meetup group, has thankfully been covered by Tom coming to our
rescue and taking over ownership of the Meetup group. Perhaps I should
keep an eye on new members, and write to them??
The AGS library
is still available and full of excellent titles in the ante room at
Bonnet Bay, so feel free to have a look at the list of titles on the
AGS site, and we could post it to you if you were really keen to read
it. Thanks also to Robert for keeping the site updated with meetings
and events, and to David for so diligently keeping members updated
with meeting information on the email list, Facebook and meetup, which
makes my job as secretary, very, very easy.
Australian General Semantics Society Inc.
Promoting the educational-therapeutic
discipline of General Semantics
ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING 14th AUGUST, 2021
President’s Report
Anything that I can say about the state of
the world at this strange and dreadful time, sounds like a silly
cliché from the news commentators.
Drought and dust, dreadful bushfires and smoke, hail and
floods, global climate change, and now this rather tiresome pandemic!
So we must be diligent in our dating-and-indexing, when we form
a concept of what is “a normal time”!
Who can say what the year ahead will bring?
Membership
Our “core
membership” is steady, with traditional adherents loyally supporting
the social network. We’ve
welcomed more people into our meetings since we’ve gone on-line. We
could install a payment facility via TryBooking, for Membership and
Events, if desired.
AGS Website and “Meetup” Sites
The AGS website
www.ags.org.au
develops apace, with extensive records of our activities, resources,
and links to “the GS world”.
Although not particularly effective in attracting new members,
it fulfils an important time-binding role in denoting our presence and
sharing resources.
Our
Meetup group
has 101 members who show an “intentional” interest, but reluctant to
show-up at AGS meetings.
They are informed of all coming events, and can now engage on-line.
We’ll see how we go with this new format!
Thank you Tom, for taking-on support for this facility.
The
AGS FaceBook
page contains a long history of our activities, and people show
interest in it. But we
need to greatly expand our social media presence, with some skilful,
creative content management!
Seminars
In the face of
the Covid-19 pandemic “lockdowns” etc, we have not yet resumed our
Bonnet Bay meetings, but have exploited the very timely technology of
on-line meetings (via Zoom), and have become a little more competent
in facilitating this!
On-line meetings are of course lacking
in social intercourse, as we’re not able to exploit Gav & Pauline’s
exquisite lunchies and Bonnet Bay views, which we do miss.
However, the on-line format opens up the possibility of global
engagement – we’ve had people from Montreal, Ohio, Melbourne,
Canberra, Sydney and Blue Mountains all together at the same time.
Time zones can be tricky, but we’ve worked through it OK.
I wonder if we’ll muster the confidence to invite the New York
folk into our virtual midst?
So there are exciting
possibilities in terms of sharing our “virtual gatherings”, even
if/when this pesky pandemic allows “real-life meetings” again.
In the last 12 months or so, our activities
have included:
·
“Effective Communication – a General Semantics Perspective”,
·
“Unconscious Bias / Implicit Association”,
·
“BYO Favourite GS Formulation, for Discussion”,
·
“Dealing with Stress – What if our Life is Not all Sunshine and
Roses”,
·
“Reaching Agreement – with General Semantics”,
·
“Managing the Media – with General Semantics”,
·
“Alternative Hypotheses – How we Make-up Theories”,
·
“The Brave New World of Aldus Huxley – a Champion of General
Semantics!”
We shall have more seminars this year (2021), exploring and sharing
our experiences and reflections on own little lives, the affairs of
state, and global challenges.
Details of these (and many other) events
are available on our website:
www.ags.org.au
Corporate Matters
and Roles:
Sadly, we’re not able to thank Gavan and Pauline for
their generous hospitality in hosting our seminars at Bonnet Bay over
this last year, but we have certainly appreciated their cheerful and
constructive presence “on the glass” at our on-line meetings.
And we can certainly say “Thank you” to Pauline as
loyal Secretary and Moderator of Debating, to Jeanne as Vice President
and Family Affairs Consultant, to David for his steadfast attention to
his role as Events Coordinator, AGS Public Officer and Senior
Lecturer, and to Gav for acting as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to
everyone else for their support and encouragement.
The AGS Library
We
occasionally add new titles in our “Headquarters” collection at Bonnet
Bay and distributed among members.
These are indexed on our website.
Thank you to Gav and Pauline for hosting this valuable
facility. It is indeed an
unexpected treasure to encounter on the way to the loo.
We’ve
had a number of discussions regarding the value/cost of keeping books,
and how paper records might outlast the .doc and .jpg file formats for
archival storage. But none
of us quite has the courage to get rid of them!
International Affiliations
We continue to be an active member of the international community,
exchanging correspondence and publications with the Institute and with
our scattered friends.
The (almost) regular arrival of “ETC – a
Review of General Semantics” in our letterbox from across the seas, is
a welcome resource of scholarly material.
We have enjoyed the new opportunities to
“participate on-line” in GS events around the world.
These include, for example:
·
The 68th AKML and Symposium in
October 2020, including addresses by our friends
Jaison Tremain
and
MiltonDawes,
·
IGS Secretary Vanessa Biard-Schaeffer’s
address
in the Italian Senate, for the UN 2020 Philosophy Day, on “Science
without a Soul”,
·
The New York Society’s extraordinary
on-line interactive
forum
“General Semantics and All That Jazz” in December,
·
And of course, we look forward to the 2021 GS
Symposium
coming up in October, with Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Alfred Korzybski
Memorial
Lecture
“Making Meaning through Facebook:
A Semantic and Visual-Culture Tour through Social Media”.
This should be of particular interest to those of us who are
still retarded in the understanding and usage of social media.
Thank you, AGS friends
in Australia and around the world, for your support and commitment
during the year.
Robert James,
AGS President 2020-21
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