Minutes of SRN EC Meeting
16.12.2019 at 9 pm GMT/UTC (via Skype)

Circulation list: Carmen Sofia Brenes (CSB), Rose Ferrell (RF), Alexandra Ksenofontova (AK),
Rafael Leal (RL), Margaret McVeigh (MM), Paolo Russo (PR), Rosanne Welch (RW)

Agenda

1. Apologies for absence – All in attendance

2. Minutes of previous EC Meeting for approval
• Approved. Action Points still pending have been itemized in the December Agenda.

3. News/update re:
a. SRN2020 Oxford Conference (PR)
• PR reports around 120 submissions – will get back to presenters in late January
• EC voted against granting deadline extension till end of December as it would not be fair to people who submitted timely

b. Newsletter
• MM reported on the latest issue: good response from readers
• RW should be credited next time as well
• ACTION – Next call will be in February (to publish in March) and will feature SRN2020
• ACTION – RL to install plugin to automatize alerts

c. Website: Resources and Local Initiatives sections, Awards (RL, All)
▪ Should we start new sections now? There are Falmouth and Germany (very successful) for now: these have been very successful and are planning 2020 editions. We should give them more visibility.
• AK reported the Germany event saw high attendance, high quality of papers. As a result, 2 more JOS subscriptions in Germany. The German “division” of the research network will apply for financing and plans another conference for 2020, hosted this time by a different person. The German network has its own separate website – is it worth doubling the information on our SRN website? But it is in German only, so is it worth translating into English?
• PR suggested that the SRN website can include a short description plus links to the fuller websites. Also, it looks like some membership requests came in German in the wake of this event.
• ACTION: MM suggests to include these initiatives too in the Newsletter.
• ACTION: Both (AK to liaise with John Finnegan) to send content for the website BUT no rush. In January she’s Skyping with Claus and other German organizers so they will send RL the info on the events.
• ACTION: RL suggests to install Google Analytics to see how individual members come to the site? No personal info taken – he will ask for plug ins installed. All agree.

d. Social media:
▪ AK reports on the new weekly posts on different themes etc.– Very good engagement, good reach and active community. Will keep analyzing data to report again in a few months’ time. AK spoke with social media manager and said if 10% of our subscribers react to our posts, that’s a good showing
▪ Not good to have multiple posts on same day. further away posts are from each other, the larger their reach – so if ou have good information but something else has already been posted that day – don’t post or you will waste it on a lesser audience. At the moment, there are 7 administrators on the page allowed to post.
▪ RL suggests podcasts are a good thing to share.
▪ AK also started to collect information about other initiatives (Festivals, etc.).
▪ Emma Berrill from Intellect compiled a list of institutions that have subscriptions to JoS to advertise – also plans to advertise numbers of members – where they come from?
▪ AK is working on Twitter login/password to keep it alive
▪ ACTION – AK to send DOC with suggested posts in advance in monthly updates
▪ ACTION (ALL) – If you have info to share, email AK and she will schedule it to not overlap
▪ ACTION – JF will liaise with AK for Twitter to start tweeting from January. RL suggests that we can automatize Tweets when we have new posts or updates on website.
▪ ACTION – PR to send AK statistics about Membership. RF to send current numbers to AK. Membership update is scheduled in January agenda.
▪ ACTION – AK to contact previous FB page administrator to ensure posting plan goes smoothly.

4. SRN Awards (PR, All)
• PR confirms members of the renewed Jury: Tom Stempel, Janet Staiger, Eva Novrup Redvall
• PR re: need to send out more frequent reminders on FB and website with deadline for nominations
• MM asks question about judging criteria – e.g. in Australia, be published by a prestigious publishing house or journal (not self-published). PR confirms that the Awards criteria
specify that all nominees must be fully peer-reviewed, scholarly publications.
• AK and PR point out that the call (or any other info on the SRN Awards) is not found on the website.
• At SRN 2019 in Porto, members suggested to add award for book chapters in edited volumes. Should we add these as a new category?
• RW and ALL agree it would be a good idea and therefore the EC approves BUT…
• PR points out that adding book chapters may mean too many nominations and the jury would be too busy.
• MM suggests a subcommittee that would screen and shortlist the nominations to a final pool to then send to the Jury. The subcommittee could include the winners from last year (in
this case, JJ Murphy and Rakesh Sengupta), then maybe past conference hosts (like Davinia Thornley) to start with, JoS editorial board members, and members of the EC if needed.
Perhaps each member of the subcommittee could be given max 3 nominees and could produce a summary evaluation to other members, based on a shared rubric/template to
ensure fair evaluation. The criteria must highlight that publications must be specifically about screenwriting, and make a significant contribution to the field, something with a
strong hypothesis/new academic theory as opposed to simply unearthing a case study.
• AK points out this has to be dealt with sooner rather than later, to give enough time to prepare and read.
• PR observes that the above (i.e. introduction of a subcommittee) will imply changing the submission procedure. So far, nominees would send copies of publications directly to Jury.
Now, they should send to us and we then send shortlisted publications to the jury. This means the EC must coordinate distribution/forwarding of copies to members of
Subcommittee first: and that the Jury will receive the shortlisted publications only at a later time, closer or after the deadline (which happened anyway, last year, so hopefully not a
problem).
• MM wonders whether we can accept publications in other languages and she feels limiting to English language might be too “colonialist”. Regardless of reason, PR points out that this
would raise a number of practical problems (e.g. how many languages, how to find readers able to evaluate publications in those languages for free and within timescale).
• CSB doesn’t think English is colonizing because it allows non-English-speaking scholars to reach a much bigger audience and be more visible internationally.
• AK suggests that awards in non-English languages could be created by local initiatives
• PR suggests that we discuss this again at SRN 2020 with all members, if relevant
• ACTION –PR to contact Jury members and 1) inform them of new suggestion, 2) ask if they used template last year and draft rubric for next EC meeting to approve at the latest.
• ACTION – PR to contact previous winners and conference hosts to see if they would serve on sub-committee. Next EC meeting to plan more people to contact for subcommittee.
• ACTION – PR to draft new procedure for next EC meeting to approve.
• ACTION – PR to prepare and send revised info on call/deadline/categories/jury/subcommittee/procedure to RL to post on website and to AK for FB page (likely at end of January)

5. Relationship between SRN and JoS
• AK posted list of institutions that have JoS subscription. Will encourage more to subscribe through photos of EC with JoS issue.
• AK and RW to maintain contact/update from JoS

6. Suggested items for January EC meeting
a. Diversity and awareness
b. Update on membership
c. Address membership in underrepresented regions
d. Initiatives in specific regions (visibility, liaising, etc.)
e. Elections: Call for nominations
• Approved

7. Any other business
• There was no other business

Date of next meeting: Monday 20 January, 9 pm UTC/GMT
• Confirmed. MM won’t be able to attend.

The EC meeting ends at 10.07 pm GMT/UTC