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Australian General Semantics Society Inc.
Annual General Meeting
a. Secretary's Report –
Pauline reported that we are still using lateral thinking during our
4th year of covid and are continuing with zoom meetings, and thus
enjoy the fellowship of people who would not be able to attend in
person. Tom in
Melbourne still covers the cost for, and management of our meetup
group. The library at Bonnet Bay was mentioned, as was the possibility
of posting books to members.
Report accepted
He thanked everyone individually for their contributions in their
various roles, and discussed whether we could invite the NY IGS to the
meetings. We were asked by the
IGS President to record John’s meeting last month, which we did and it
was duly sent to him. Report
Accepted
c. Treasurer's Report – Gavan reported that Current closing balance is
$247.67 with $25.00 from each member to come.
We will need to transfer the membership money via internet
banking to Fair Trading now, as cheques are no longer accepted.
Gavan and Pauline will set that up with St George for the AGS
Account.
d. Public Officer's Report - David reported that he has submitted the
necessary forms regarding last year’s AGM and would submit the ones
required this year to the Fair Trading Office etc.
He is owed US $100.00 for IGS Membership, for this year.
We decided, and voted to drop our IGS Membership to the US
$50.00 rate as there doesn’t seem to be any difference to what you
receive from IGS. Report
accepted.
7. General Business 8. Next Annual General Meeting: August 2024. 9. Meeting closed 1.35 pm.
Australian
General Semantics Society Inc.
Promoting the educational-therapeutic discipline of General
Semantics
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 and Brett from Wollongong, David Purnell from the Canberra Quaker Society, Pauline and Gavan from Sydney and Dion from the Blue Mountains all attend our meetings in the past year.
Tom has taken over ownership and payment
of the Meetup group.
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.
Pauline Callaghan
Again, what can I say about our last twelve
months? Labels like “continuing (worsening?)
pandemic”, “unprecedented flooding”, “unprecedented bush fires in
Northern Hemisphere” “continuing war in Europe”, “blockade of grain
exports”, “bombing of grain storages”, “oil embargo”, “cyber warfare”,
“trillion-dollar debt”, “skyrocketing interest rates”, “pending
recession” … so the list goes on. But what are the “realities” – the
territory behind these facile “maps” that colour the lives of human
beings and the condition of our fragile planet?
Membership Our “core membership” has been supplemented
by engagement with people in Australia and overseas responding to
notices in our website, Meetup and FaceBook, as well as personal
references and invitations. In particular, we welcome our friend John
Gillam, who brought to us an extraordinary seminar on “Exploring the
Intersection of Generative AI and Communication: Insights from Jung,
Korzybski and McLuhan" last month.
John’s wife Kirstin was a therapist to “Uncle Frank” as he was
declining with Parkinson’s Disease at Concord Hospital five years ago.
Then by chance, Kirstin and John arrived in Canberra, so we’ve
maintained close contact with them. We were able to make a recording of this
presentation. This went
well, and I suggest that we do more recording of our presentations –
good time binding! There is clearly a potential for more
engagement via social media – this should be seen as “the next
frontier” for our promotional activity!
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”. This fulfils an important time-binding role in
denoting our presence and sharing resources.
Our Meetup
group has
124 members who show an “intentional” interest, but reluctant to
show-up at AGS meetings. They are informed of all coming events, and
can engage on-line.
The AGS
FaceBook page
contains a long and increasing 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
in-person social intercourse, as we’re not able to exploit Gav &
Pauline’s exquisite lunchies and Bonnet Bay views, which we still
miss. However, the on-line format opens up the possibility of global
engagement – we’ve had people from Montreal, Cleveland (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 18 months or so, our activities
have included eg:
* February 2022: "A GS Approach to Coping with a Pandemic"
We were particularly
fortunate in engaging David Purnell from the Canberra Quakers as our
guest speaker, discussing “The Challenge of Pacifism – a General
Semantics Perspective”. David was a close friend and associate of AGS
founder Laurie Cox, in the Social Developers Network.
We shall have more
seminars this year (2023-24), 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. I do hope that we are open to changes in the
AGS roles and office-holders in the coming year!
The AGS Library 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 internationally, such as John
McWhorter’s panel discussion on “Totem and Taboo in Contemporary
Talk”. We look forward to widening our network of connections and
activities of this nature. Thank you, AGS members and friends in
Australia and around the world, for your support and commitment during
the year. Robert James, ~0~ |
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Updated by Robert James 26/08/2023 |
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