BISA 2015 AGM Minutes

Minutes of British & Irish Sound Archives (BISA) Annual General Meeting held on 5 June 2015, at Council Chamber, BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, W1A 1AA

1.  To receive the minutes of the previous Annual General Meeting held on 16 May 2014, at Fiontar, Dublin City University, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Republic of Ireland (http://www.bisa-web.org/bisa-2014-agm-minutes)
The minutes were accepted as a true record. Simon Rooks (SR) duly signed the minutes.

2.  Committee Members’ Reports
Convenor
SR apologised for the delay in planning this year’s event.  He stated he would like to see more traffic on the BISA JISCmail discussion list.  SR announced he was standing down as convenor but that he was committed to smooth transfer.  He was pleased to see new people involved with BISA.

Secretary
Jonathan Draper (JD) explained that prior to this year’s event in London, BISA had 107 members.

Treasurer
Dafydd Pritchard (DP) did not have the current balance to hand but reassured everyone that it was healthy [post-meeting note is that the balance, as of the end of May 2015 was £2,104.52, an increase on the previous year of £234.52].  DP acknowledged BISA should update payment methods. He emphasised that as a free organisation, BISA’s biggest cost is speaker expenses.  He also mentioned that BISA was extremely grateful when a host was able to waive room hire costs.  JD thanked SR and the BBC for their generosity towards this year’s event.

Webmaster
Richard Ranft (RR) explained that BISA incurred no costs for website hosting.

Listowner
Will Prentice (WP) reported that there were 158 members of BISA’s JISCmail discussion list. WP encourage people to send more messages to the discussion list and emphasised that you don’t have to be a member of BISA to contribute.

Committee Members without portfolio
Grace Toland (GT) encourages people in Ireland to get involved with BISA and explained that the Irish Traditional Music Archive would be happy to host a BISA event in the future.  Cathlin Macaulay thanked SR for today’s event.

3.  BISA Directory
SR promoted the directory and encouraged people to add their details. He emphasised how it was an off shoot of the British Library’s Save our Sounds programme.  He was encouraged with the amount of entries that we now on it and by the wealth of material mentioned on it.  

4.  BISA Committee and Elections
JD announced there were vacancies for Convenor, Secretary and Treasurer and that he would organise a period for nomination and voting using the BISA discussion list.  

5.  Any Other Items of Business
Martin Astell mentioned that the North West Sound Archive had closed and its collections disbursed to other organisations.  He reiterated the importance of showing support to such places.

6.  Date and Time of Next BISA Conference
SR invited proposals for a venue for BISA’s event in 2016.  Possible venues included the Channel Islands, Tamworth and Birmingham Library.

The meeting ended at 17:23.

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