MINUTES
Monday, June 17,2024
Circulation list: Rosanne Welch (RW), Rose Ferrell (RF), Jan Cernik (JC), Isadora Garcia Avis (IGA), Anna Weinstein (AW), Lucien Georgescu (LG). ECR Clarissa Miranda (CM), Hugo Armando Arcinega (HA)
- Apologies–IGA
- Welcome Hugo as Asst. ECR!– Hugo is happy to join and support the organization. RW reminds him to send his photo and bio.
- Approval of Minutes of previous meeting (April)–RF motions to approve, RW seconds
- JC: Update on SRN2024. Reminder to all EC members to pay registration – soon and begin booking travel. Discussion of who is staying where and what will be a good EC meeting day during conference. Jan’s report “- Conference – I have been a bit bogged down in preparations over the last few weeks due to end of semester obligations. We have exams this week, so we will start to focus more on the conference again at the end of May at the latest.
Some of the things that have happened in the last few weeks include a) the payment gateway is up and running and fees are coming in, b) received a grant from the Czech Film Fund which will allow us to involve the Czech National Film Archive and the Czech Screenwriters Association in the conference, c) we have lunches arranged for the participants and are working on arranging coffee breaks.
ALL accepted proposals on the website, b) payment gateway opened for the conference dinner. Venue?
–JC reports that they are still working on funding and programming. Next step will be breaking the papers down into panels. JC reports on four keynote speakers lined up, and two movies for the evening program, which will be good to introduce the film industry. RW asks about purchasing for the conference dinner. JC says payment gateway for the dinner will be out this week or next; will be 45 euros.
—-LG asking about recording the presentations at the conference. LC wants to meet Jan’s colleague so he can find out what she’s planning to do so he can plan for how to help. LC will put them in touch.
–AGM meeting: RW reminds the EC to prepare individual reports for the first week of Aug so she can add to the PowerPoint for the AGM. RW says we’ll likely have the AGM on the Thursday during conference week, but we can decide at our Aug EC meeting.
- JC: Newsletter Update – – Newsletter – will go out in June. If you have any information, please send it to me by the end of May. Suggestions for future issues?
–JC says the letter will be ready to go out this week (Wed). Also re Heidi’s proposal: her project is not funded this year from government funding but received high points; she will apply again next year.
- JC – Suncana Tuskar email – cover letter attached to Agenda
–JC explains that Tuskar approached him via email; he hasn’t met her before, she wanted to participate in some way. AW will reply via email.
- IG: Update on publishing Top 5-10 suggestions/how they are being addressed from Membership Survey to listserve and also AGM.
–Will get update at the Aug meeting.
- IG/AW – Response from Craig Batty to call for Volunteers: “I’m not sure if this would be a formal leadership role or not – and honestly, I’m quite stretched for time these days to attend board meetings and suchlike – but I have been thinking about, and have been asked to consider setting up, a regular (maybe monthly or 6-weekly) drop in session/gathering for screenwriting PhD students. As you know, this is a big area of interest for me, and with my colleague over here I set up (in 2020) a similar online ‘hangout’ for creative writing PhD students. I’d say around 30 people have gone through this ‘support group’ now.
I regularly have PhD students from around the world, particularly the creative PhD students, writing to me to ask for advice. And I recently did a seminar for Romana Turina on the topic, which garnered interest. So I thought it was time to collect all of these people and queries into one international drop-in session (which over time could invite guest speakers, students presenting, etc.). I would run the group – and a colleague of mine over here, in creative writing and journalism (she currently runs the other one for Australian creative writing candidates), has offered to run it with me – we have both supervised many PhDs together and spark off each other well. It would be for PhD students only, not their supervisors, as they need a safe space to talk about what’s going on for them.”
–ALL agree this is an excellent idea/opportunity. RW will follow up with Craig.
- IG Membership thoughts – re: Kath Dooley’s suggestion of new ECR and RW’s suggestion of emailing our own networks to encourage new members.
–RW asks us to remind colleagues about joining the SRN. All agree.
- LG/RF: SRN Conversation #4 progress: Potsdam, London (& Leeds?) Need one done in the next month/6 weeks.–LG reports that it’s been challenging with so many people, been trying to get everyone together. They plan to have a conversation mid-July. Will have more to report at the Aug meeting.
- CM: Presentation of the report of monthly results of social media, and possible conference in Brazil in five years in the city of Florianópolis, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.
–CM is waiting to hear about the location, nobody will talk during the strike. Should have more details soon. (Profa. Dra. Gláucia Davino) Re social media, CM updates that she and Hugo are working together to prepare the posts.
- ALL: Election planning for 2025 – who needs to run again/how do we encourage more involvement in EC? AW – will/has email about running for positions in EC with stress on web management. Ask each EC member to suggest two academics from their home countries / related countries to consider running to have a bigger pool for voting.
–RF reminds us about Sandy Cameron from Australia, interested in running for the EC. RF says she will share his email with everyone on the EC. AW will send out a note today with an August 1st deadline. AW will not run for the EC again but will remain on the Teaching Innovation Award committee. LG has one more year, RW and RF will run again for another year. RW reminds us that someone has to be chair, and it shouldn’t be someone brand new. She will run for this year just to support the new chair (which should be someone already on the EC).
- AW – Teaching Awards – May 1st is deadline – Update on when decision expected?
–AW reports that she, Ian, and Ros met early June to discuss applications and firm up criteria; will review independently and meet again early July to make decisions. AW will email applicants July 15 to notify whether they are awarded. Announcement will be made at the Sept conference, followed by an email announcement to the membership. All agree that AW should ask the winners not to share the news publicly until after the Sept announcement.
- Take group photo
- RW – Book awards Update: Emailed for more article submissions – Paolo Russo nudged contributors to collection to submit. All submissions in both categories should be made directly to all the members of the Jury (see contact details below) by 15 July 2024. One new article came to judges.
- Start conversation on Succession planning/new ideas for EC. Good to invite Working group leaders every few months. Create a small FAQ to keep this institutional memory available for future conference organizers.
–RF reports re folders for the past conferences, photos and books of abstracts; Google drive, she sent an email with the link and password; drive has the documents and the photo app has the photos. She has set up the folders for each year. Reminder to sign out completely once we log out.
- Shall EC meet in July – optional for those who are free? August mtg will be to collect info to prepare AGM presentation.
–Group decides to meet July 22.
Date of next meeting(s): Mondays same time –July 22, Aug. 19, Sept. 12 (in person at SRN2024).