Minutes of SRN EC Meeting

Monday 20.4.2020 at 10 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 present. RL joins at 10.30.

2. Minutes of previous EC Meeting for approval (All)

Minutes Approved. PR to send final draft to RL for upload to website.

3. Contingency Plan for SRN EC elections in light of COVID-19 (All)

a. AGM

b. Alternative options or postponement to 2021

PR initiate discussion amongst the Executive Council (EC), which will be work in progress with a view to reach a decision by the May meeting so as to notify SRN membership in due course.
According to the SRN Constitution, elections of new EC members requires secret ballot which can only be ensured at the AGM.

The EC considers the feasibility of a “virtual AGM” for elections only. First of all, the elections are not meant to happen as a stand-alone event (i.e. not tied to an AGM). Moreover, a virtual AGM would prove very difficult to set up given that members are scattered all over the world in different time zones and would require some form of membership authentication before anyone could be admitted to vote. Similar issues would arise as well if using online polling tools/apps – these would possibly guarantee secrecy of ballot, but would need a separate system to check eligibility and would not comply with the required presence of impartial scrutineers. The SRN Constitution allows “postal” votes for those who wish to express their votes but cannot attend the AGM; but not as a replacement for the elections per se.

MM and AK point out that, from a strictly legal point of view, a virtual AGM does not equate to an in-person AGM; the same is true for “postal” and “email”. Unfortunately, the SRN Constitution does not include any special arrangements in case of extraordinary circumstances such as the current COVID-19 crisis; at the same time, there is no precedent to base a decision on. This vulnus can be addressed by amending the Constitution but any changes need approval by two thirds of members at an AGM; and therefore, while the SRN might consider adding alternative arrangements in case of any future unforeseen circumstances similar to the current one, this can only be done at the 2021 conference at the soonest, and at the moment these are not viable.

Given the above, it will be down to the EC to make a decision, bearing in mind that the Constitution also states that decisions made by the EC must benefit all members. The most sensible option at the moment seems to issue a Call to Members with a proposal to extend the mandate of the current EC by one extra year (one off, until 2021), including the three members who are due to step down this year (i.e. Carmen Sofia Brenes, Paolo Russo and Margaret McVeigh – pending individual availability) as well as the other three members due to step down in 2021 (i.e. their mandate will extend until September 2022) so as to ensure that the new members elected in 2021 are supported by the extant members with more experience of the roles and duties. This would ensure continuity for all the initiatives developed by the EC these past few months, whose visions and future plans (which were due to be reported at the SRN2020 Oxford conference) can be duly actualized. The EC would keep expanding membership, especially by promoting the SRN in underrepresented regions; revamp the website; draft proposed changes to the Constitution to be put to Membership in 2021.

ACTION – PR and All to draft Call to Membership for EC approval in May meeting before sending out to Membership. Point raised by AK, to which PR confirms that the Early Career Representative (ECR) is an exception to the above as it is not voted in by members but rather chosen and co-opted by the EC.

ACTION – EC to put out Call for Nomination for new ECR by June meeting (min. 60 days before deadline). Nominations to be collected over the Summer; decision to be made by EC in September.

4. Newsletter and social media updates (MM, RW, AK)

a. Updates on skipped March issue of newsletter and Facebook posts

b. Planning June issue of newsletter

PR and AK have planned the move of March news items to the Facebook page. MM wonders whether this would make the newsletter redundant but the general consensus is that the newsletter and Facebook complement each other rather than overlap.

In general, with regards to news items, we should keep using Facebook to tease members to read the full items in the newsletter. Moreover, even though some content will have been released on Facebook in April and May, nothing prevents us from including it in the June Newsletter for reference anyway. It is also noted that the Newsletter is then archived on the website and remains always accessible, not just at the time of the issue’s original release.

On the other hand, the Facebook address can also be a useful port of call for new members, especially from underrepresented regions who can find and connect with colleagues who have similar research interests.

The EC notes that – without the usual lead-up to annual conference – the Facebook page might not be as lively in the upcoming Summer months. MM suggests using it to share stories of transferring teaching online (and more) that most colleagues will be experiencing at this time.

RF congratulates AK on her excellent work on the Facebook page! AK thanks everyone for sourcing content for the Facebook posts.

5. Future conference dates (RW, All)

RW raises some uncertainty over the 2023 slotting of the Missouri conference due to the now much later date further into the future and her contractual position with Stephens College. She therefore wonders whether she could swap with the Vienna conference in 2022. The EC cannot make such a decision and advises RW to contact the Vienna organizer (Claus Tieber) directly. Should he agree on the swap, the EC would second the new plan.

6. Any other business

RF proposes to create content on the history of the SRN to put on the website.

The Facebook page can be used to attract contributions/stories from members and conference organizers that can then be collated and uploaded onto the website. All agree this is a good idea and PR notes this should/could be an ongoing task – not just one point in time – with the new website section kept open for any future contribution.

To this purpose, RL has prepared a shared folder in Google Drive that can be further customized and used as a template/work-in-progress document for members to add content. PR has lots of useful information about past conferences that he can share.

CSB offers to help RF with this ongoing project.

Date of next meeting: Monday 18 May, 10 pm UTC/GMT (consider DST)
Confirmed.

Meeting ends at 11.12 pm

Minutes of SRN EC Meeting

Monday 16.3.2020 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

• MM

2. Minutes of previous EC Meeting for approval

• Minutes Approved. PR to send final draft to RL for upload to website.
• Note: the agenda for the March meeting was modified in order to priorities decision re: SNR2020 in light of the COVID-19 emergency; PR has circulated a memo outlining possible scenarios and implications prior to the meeting (attached here for reference).

3. Contingency Plan for SRN2020 in light of COVID-19, and

4. SRN2020 Oxford Conference update (PR)

• The EC agrees that given the circumstances SRN2020 can no longer be held in September 2020 and therefore postponement options are to be discussed. Given the exceptionality of the situation, there is no precedent to rely on; which means that the decision made by the EC will set such precedent although, hopefully, never to be needed again in the future. AK praises the level of detail outlined in the memo and suggests September 2021 as the best option. RW considers whether the EC should survey the membership about this. CB points out that the EC chooses the locales and dates without asking for a group vote from membership and therefore this too is a decision that pertains the EC.
• The EC agrees that, should the conference be postponed by only a few months (i.e. January 2021), this would impact the Vienna conference negatively. Also, RL notes that if the pandemic is not over by the Summer we would have to postpone again anyway, leading to even more complications. Moreover, Claus Tieber having offered to move Vienna to 2022, and RW and RL agreeing to do the same for their conferences in 2023 and 2024, the EC agrees that postponing by one year to September 2021 is the best option (note: MM was consulted after the meeting and agreed as well). PR thanks CT, RW and RL for their help and availability.
• PR thinks postponing to September 2021 should be feasible in terms of practicalities. Shortlisted delegates will be accepted for 2021 automatically, as long as they are still willing to attend. PR also assures that any PhD students who might become faculty or change their status in the meantime will still access discounted registration fee, although their access to travel and budget arrangements at their institutions may change by next year. PR will have to look into and iron out some financial concerns as a result of postponing – e.g. non-refundable deposit for the booking of the conference dinner, extension of website subscription fee for another year. AK asks for details re: the course of action if postponing by one year, what questions will come from the membership, and what issues need to clear with Oxford-Brookes.
• ACTION: PR will email membership tomorrow with the EC’s decision and will deal internally re: all logistical issues at Oxford Brookes. Registration will be suspended and any payments made reimbursed. Once the September 2021 date can be fully confirmed, PR will set up the registration system and the website again. The information will then be posted on Facebook, on the SRN2020 website and on the SRN official website as well.
• CB points out that since the responsibility for the decision ultimately lies with the EC, should anyone not be happy with it they can speak directly to the EC. RF wonders whether the postponement will cause issues/problems to the organizing committee of SRN2020. PR replies that, since a lot of work had already been put into it, the committee will simply have to pause preparation for now, then resume whenever possible. Anyone whose proposal had been accepted will roll over – those who can’t attend in 2021 will open it up to others and a new CfP can be posted in the Autumn of 2020 if needed. PR informs that, so far about 15 delegates had already registered and 3 already informed they could not come at all due to the pandemic.
• SRN Awards: the prize money being funded by Oxford Brookes and the award ceremony being held during the AGM, the awards will be pushed to 2021 and nominations will cover a two-year time span. PR has liaised with the Jury members who agreed on this change. PR has also tried external funding/sponsors for the prize money but no luck so far.
• ACTION: The newsletter and Facebook page should inform the members that the Awards will skip a year.
• AGM and EC Elections in 2020: the question is raised about whether there can be elections without an in presentia AGM in 2020. Can elections be held online or should the current EC serve for another year ex officio? RL observes that Google just opened a platform for conference: could we use that to call a virtual AGM and hold the elections this way?
• ACTION: to be discussed in the April meeting and that the platform could be tested before making a decision. If, eventually, the current EC members are to serve an additional year, the EC could seek Ian MacDonald’s advice about how to formally action this extension.
• ACTION – PR to double check the SRN statute by the April meeting. Should this be the case, the EC could use the extra year to focus more systematically on the plan to reach out to underrepresented regions (as per RF’s memo).

5. Any other business

• AK informs that German colleagues including CT are planning to go ahead with a local German event in Hanover in November 2020 (expected attendance: 40 delegates). Anyone who speaks German can think of attending: the CfP will be posted by end of April to see how people react. Two diverging opinions emerged among the organizers: is it the right or wrong time to call for abstracts? And does everyone presume that by November this pandemic will be over?

Date of next meeting: Monday 20 April (TBC), 10 pm UTC/GMT (consider DST)

The meeting ended at 10:05 pm

Minutes of SRN EC Meeting

Monday 27.1.2020 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

RW and MM.

2. Minutes of previous EC Meeting for approval

• Minutes Approved. PR to send final draft to RL for upload to website.
• Note: the date of the January meeting was postponed to today (27th) from the date scheduled originally (20th) due to availability of most EC members.

3. Membership: quarterly update

• RF reports healthy numbers and steady increase in the number of new members since last September with only a few members having signed off the network. Currently, membership
  stands at around 590.
• RF suggests to establish stronger contacts with other networks in underrepresented regions – e.g. India (where she has a good contact) or Singapore, both English-speaking countries and therefore potentially good places to start with. The EC agrees this is a good idea.
• ACTION – RF to proceed.
• RF also points out that the procedure/protocol to join the SRN seems to be confusing for some people, due to the double-step process (i.e. joining the JISCMail mailing list and filling in the
  registration form separately). RF suggests to simplify instructions on the website as follows: 1) Keep only the link to JISCMail on the website; 2) As soon as a new member joins, RF receives a
  notification anyway; 3) At that point, RF follows up by welcoming the new members and invites them to fill in the form via email, which also makes the process more “personal”. The EC agrees this is a good idea.
• ACTION – PR and RL to update the relevant section on the website.

4. News/update re:

a. SRN2020 Oxford Conference (PR)

• PR reports that the shortlisting process should be completed by the end of this week (31 January) at which point he will notify all delegates via email. Although numbers are not final yet, SRN2020 has received 124 submissions, 112 papers have been shortlisted, with 120+ delegates from 36 countries from all continents (including some new countries: e.g. Paraguay, Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Georgia, Greece, Estonia, Mexico, South Africa). PR also reports that the keynotes should hopefully be secured and confirmed soon.
• ACTION: PR to send JISCMAIL update to all members re: shortlisted papers before individual notifications are sent out + another update on keynotes as soon as available.
• ACTION: AK to post updates of the above (i.e. shortlisting and keynotes) on FB as soon as available.

b. Newsletter

• This item was postponed to the February meeting.

c. Website

• RL confirms that a plugin has been added to the website which automatizes Newsletter alerts. This is now ready to be tested with the next issue.
• Google Analytics has also been installed and RL has emailed some interesting data about the users of the website in the past few months. He will keep checking every few months, so we can
  have an overview by the end of the academic year.
• ACTION: The SARP section should be nested under Resources, to make room for the upcoming SRN Awards section.
• ACTION: Also under Resources, RL will add a section for “Local Initiatives” as per discussion in the December meeting. In order to start populating it: 1) AK will send one short para re: the German network plus link to website, which can then be used as a (flexible) template; 2) RL will then contact John Finnegan asking him to write a similar paragraph re: his initiatives.

d. Social media

• Facebook page: PR has sent past membership statistics those to AK who posted them.
• AK also shared her posting schedule for the upcoming weeks. The EC commends AK for her excellent work on the SRN Facebook page which shows some really good stats, with interactions
  growing from previous months.
• ACTION (linked to 4a): PR to send AK some stats about SRN2020 once the shortlisting is complete.
• ACTION (for future months’ meetings): when the EC posts the Call for nominations for the next election round, it would be good to include a description of the role of the ECR so as to attract
  interest for next year’s nominees to replace AK. AK can also suggest names of potential ECRs.
• The Twitter account has been revived. The EC acknowledges that it will become more useful when SRN2020 will be approaching and that for now, it can be used to retweet basic info about
  FB postings and similar.

5. SRN Awards (PR, All)

• PR reports he has contacted and liaised with the new Jury members with the suggestion of adding Book chapters from edited volumes as a new award category and to set up a subcommittee who
  could screen submissions to avoid excessive workload for the jurors. All three Jurors welcomed the idea but agreed to include the book chapters in the same category as journal articles. The EC agrees.
• Also, the Jurors don’t think a subcommittee is necessary as they envisage that the book chapters should not add too much work; moreover, they’d prefer to assess the submissions as they are sent in to them, whereas with a subcommittee in place they should wait until the deadline and until the initial screening process is completed. The EC welcomes the suggestion and decides to keep the idea of the subcommitte only as a backup in case the submissions do eventually end up being too many in number, and following consultation with the Jury anyway.
• The Jurors also confirmed that they did not use a specific template or rubric to guide last year’s proceedings. Instead, they designed a spreadsheet used by each jury member to vote the quality of each publication (1-5), then tallied up the votes to determine the winners. They confirm they are happy to do the same this year too.
• The Jurors also agreed that the website should contain clear information and a Call for submissions.
• All Jurors gave expressed permission to provide their contact details for submissions.
• Finally, the Jurors agreed to revise the yearly time frame (and related deadline) for acceptable publications to 1 June/31 May to better accommodate their other commitments.
• ACTION – PR to draft text with info about SRN Awards, categories, submission protocol, jurors’ email and mail addresses, and revised deadline. This will be run by the Jury first, and then sent to RL for upload on the website. Once this is done, AK will publicize the Call on the FB page. This should be done within a couple of weeks.

6. Suggested items for February EC meeting

• a. Diversity and awareness
  b. Address membership in underrepresented regions
  c. Initiatives in specific regions (visibility, liaising, etc.)
  d. Elections: Call for nominations
• Approved.

7. Any other business

• There was no other business.

Date of next meeting: Monday 17 February, 9 pm UTC/GMT
Confirmed.
The meeting ended at 9:48 pm

Here you can find information about the Executive Council and its activities (below). The current members of the Executive Council are:

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Rosanne Welch, PhD, (Chair) serves as Executive Director of Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting where she created a set of History of Screenwriting courses (because ‘History of Film’ courses become History of Directors’ courses and thereby ‘History of Great Men’) and teaches courses in One-Hour Drama. Her television writing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. Welch edited When Women Wrote Hollywood (2018), named runner-up for the Susan Koppelman Award honoring the best anthology, multi-authored, or edited book in feminist studies by the Popular Culture Association. She co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia (named to both the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List and to the list of Best Historical Materials, by the American Library Association) and wrote Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Popular Culture. In 2016 Welch gave the talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the TEDxCPP (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JFNsqKBRnA). She also serves as Book Reviews Editor of the Journal of Screenwriting.

 

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Anna Weinstein, MFA, (Secretary) is an Assistant Professor of Screenwriting at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta. She serves as co-chair of the Film Area for the Popular Culture Association (PCA), and she is the founding editor of two book series: PERFORM: Succeeding as a Creative Professional (Routledge), which includes eight volumes to date, including Writing for the Screen (2017); and the forthcoming series SCREEN STORYTELLING (Bloomsbury Academic), which will feature volumes dedicated to the study of significant and/or underrepresented screenwriters’ works. Anna frequently publishes interviews with women filmmakers in Film International (Intellect). Her book Writing Women: Creating Complex Female Characters for Film and Television is forthcoming from Routledge, and she is leading a group of student scholars on a digital humanities project on women screenwriters, due to launch in 2023. Anna is currently developing several television series, including a fantasy based on The Jack Tales (1943) with producer Robert Mitas (Ratched) and director Jay Russell (The Water Horse). You can find her at Academia.edu and on her KSU faculty page.

 

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 Jan Černík, PhD, (Newsletter Editor) is Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Palacký University (Czech Republic). In research he combines an interest in the topics of Czech and Czechoslovak cinema, audiovisual industries, and screenwriting. He believes that in an exploration of audiovisual culture, we have to consider the applicability of our findings, which is an idea highly compatibile with the efforts of Screenwriting Research Network. Jan graduated in film studies and philosophy and received his Ph.D. degree in film history in 2018. You can find his publications at ORCID, Academia.edu and Research Gate.

 

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Isadora García Avis, PhD, (Membership and Inclusion Officer) is Lecturer in Audiovisual Narrative at the School of Communication Sciences, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (Spain), where she teaches modules on film and television narrative, screenwriting for television formats and transmedia storytelling. She obtained her PhD at the University of Navarra (Spain), with a doctoral dissertation on transcultural remakes in television. Her thesis was awarded the First Prize of Research in Audiovisual Communication, issued by the Audiovisual Council of Catalunya. Her main academic interests focus on adaptation studies, screenwriting, and television formats (more specifically, scripted series). Her research tends to have a transcultural scope, and it usually combines textual and hermeneutical analysis of audiovisual narratives with other qualitative methods, like in-depth interviews with screenwriters and producers. You can find her at Academia.edu.

 

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Rose Ferrell,PhD, (Website Coordinator) is an independent researcher, film / screenwriting practitioner and adjunct lecturer at one of Australia’s premier acting schools, the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), within Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. Rose has a background in film production as both a technician and creator of fiction and non-fiction, and as a leader / trainer in community arts film projects. As a screenwriter and researcher, Rose’s interests are in creative practice, screenwriter’s voice and cultural-national inflection in voice. Her writings have been published in the Journal of Screenwriting (Intellect, 2017), Transcultural Screenwriting: Telling Stories for a Global World (Cambridge Scholars 2017), the Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production (2019) and the Palgrave Handbook of Script Development (2021). She was editor of a special issue of the Journal of Screenwriting on Women in Screenwriting with Rosanne Welch, of Stephens College, Los Angeles, and is developing a book on the same theme, again with Rosanne. Rose’s latest work is a stage musical, Her Latest Flame, expected to be produced in 2022. You can find Rose on ORCID, Academia.edu and Research Gate.

 

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Clarissa Miranda, PhD, (Early Career Researcher Representative) is a Lecturer of Antonio Meneghetti College (Brazil). She achieved a Ph.D. in Letters at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (Brazil) in 2018. Her PhD thesis explores the intersemiotic translation of novels into movie scripts. She holds a Masters in Midiatic Communication at the same institution (2012) and a Bachelors in Journalism from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (2005). Clarissa has completed several short courses in screenwriting. As a screenwriter and producer, she developed documentaries in the fields of Arts, Music, and Architecture and has also worked on biopics. Nowadays, Clarissa is working on the adaptation of a Brazilian novel to a series, a project that has been selected for the laboratory of TFL TV Next. As an academic, Clarissa has published on Latin American screenwriters, with special interest in women in the field; biopics; and adaptation studies. She works as a lecturer for Antonio Meneghetti College in the field of Entrepreneurship; as international affairs assistant for Fundação Antonio Meneghetti; as a journalist for the magazine Performance Líder; as cultural manager for the Recanto Maestro Youth Orchestra; and as a freelance screenwriter. You can find her at Academia.edu

Minutes for SRN Executive Council meeting

Porto, 11 September 2019 at 1630 hrs

 

Attending: Paolo Russo, Anna Zaluczkowska, Margaret McVeigh, Christina Milligan

Apologies: John Finnegan, Carmen Sofia Brenes, Claus Tieber

 

Paolo Russo acting as Secretary and also Chair in the absence of Claus and Carmen.

 

1. Minutes from previous meeting:  Approved.
2. To pass on to new EC:   Nothing extraordinary to pass on.  
3. Agenda for the AGM:   Proceed with circulated agenda sent out 30 August.
4. Membership:   561 – up 68 from 2018 – mostly UK, Australia, US – also new members from e.g. Guatemala, Italy, Brazil.
   1. Suggested that new EC could work more on encouraging new members from e.g. Asian countries – ACTION POINT (New EC)
5. Executive Council:   No elections needed as nominations match number of retiring members.
   1. Three new members: Roseanne Welch, Rose Ferrell, Rafael Leal.
   2. New Early Career Researcher: Alexandra Ksenofontova – who already confirmed.
   3. Chair: Carmen Sofia Brenes to remain Chair.
   4. At next/first new EC meeting, discuss other positions – ideally Secretary from one of more experienced members
6. Conference format: numbers have increased over the years – from about 40 to start with, to about 180 people registered last year with about 120 papers delivered; this year expected to be about 110-115. 

Discussion over size of conference re number of papers in parallel and number of plenaries.

1. 1. Based on past years, about 90 papers have felt about right for three days. No wish to be prescriptive but maybe 90-100 + 3 keynotes could be suggestion for future conferences.
   2. Is it time to have a four-day conference? Would accommodate 100 papers better – to be brought up at the AGM this year and introduced formally at 2020 conference
   3. Need to have space to encourage ECRs etc.
   4. Are posters a possibility eg? Or other formats? More types of pre-constituted panels?
   5. Discussion around good points (e.g. sponsorship) and bad (focus of discussion away from actual research) of involving the industry as in NZ 2017

 

1. Confirmation of Conferences for 2020-2023
   1. Oxford 2020 – theme: pushing boundaries
      1. Paolo briefs on Oxford and conference statistics in general:
         1. Looks like the SRN Awards have prize secured for next couple of years
         2. Cost of a conference tends to be between 12-18k GBP, including prizes for awards. 
         3. Registration fees tend to be around 90-110 GBP – staying pretty constant although what is included can vary (e.g. whether lunches and/or dinners are included).
         4. Discussion re whether late fee should be double ordinary fee – feeling is that it is a little too punitive – should be less.  
         5. Should we set up a fund for some free places?  Worry about how to administer and whether it is at all fair – how does one decide who gets the places?  Maybe a bursary of some sort? – ACTION POINT (new EC)
   2. Vienna 2021 (confirmed) – theme: global
   3. Missouri 2022 (confirmed, but formal letter pending) – theme: screenwriting and women – or perhaps gender – ACTION POINT: PR to circulate the proposal for 2022 to EC – so that letter of acceptance can be sent to RW
   4. Rio, Brazil 2023 (confirmed) – theme: different take on postcolonial/decolonization

• ACTION POINT – EC could think about publicising the new cycle of CfPs earlier than  they currently have been.

 

• ACTION POINT (new EC, PR) – Should there be a template for future conference organizers?  There is a feeling that this would be helpful – Paolo suggests he could provide it.

 

1. Membership fee: discussion re whether there should be a fee for belonging to the SRN?  Could be a small amount – say 10 GBP? Reprise of past discussions re running an organisation that takes in money – brings responsibilities with it.  Reluctance around the table re this. Further discussion re other ways to handle this and suggestion new EC continue exploring this. – ACTION POINT (New EC)
2. SRN Awards: ask the organizers of this year to announce.
   1. Need to publicise the awards more but they are new, so hopefully now people are more aware of them. – ACTION POINT (New EC)
   2. Agree that rotating the jury every second year feels about right.
3. Domain for SRN webpage is renewed for another two years from July 2019 – possibly after that things will need to be reconsidered.  New EC needs to think about this sooner rather than later.  – ACTION POINT (New EC)

 

Date for next meeting – informal meeting of new EC at conference after AGM.  Next formal meeting date to be decided once new EC gathers

 

Meeting closes 18:10.

 

 

First Meeting of new EC, SRN Conference Porto, September 13th, 2019

Start: ca. 7:50 pm          End: ca. 8:10 pm

Attending: Margaret McVeigh (MM), Paolo Russo (PR), Rafael Leal (RL), Alexandra Ksenofontova (AK), Rosanne Welch (RW), Rose Ferrell (RF)

1. The AGM elected Rafael Leal, Rosanne Welch and Rose Ferrell as new members of the EC for two years.
2. The EC inducted Alexandra Ksenofontova as ECR for one year.
3. The EC unanimously confirms CFB as Chairperson and PR as Secretary. MM takes over the Newsletter, aided by RW (formally nominated as Treasurer). RL will be Website Coordinator. RF will be in charge of Membership.
   1. Reminder that the Chair normally collects suggestions and sets the agenda of the monthly meetings, and the Secretary will write the minutes. In the absence of the Chairperson, the Secretary acts as temporary Chair, and another member of the EC will have to take minutes.
   2. RL to liaise with Anna Zaluzcowska to take over Website ownership.
   3. RF to liaise with PR to take over Membership/JISCMail ownership.
   4. RW to liaise with MM to plan Newsletter.
   5. AK has already liaised with John Finnegan; will continue to coordinate ECR activities and will support the communication, especially via social media.
4. The new EC has to find a fixed monthly date for the regular meetings. Follow up emails confirmed the third Monday (Tuesday for Australia) of each month, starting in October. 
5. The new members should send their bio and a picture to RL to be post on the website.

 

 

Minutes of Annual General Meeting, SRN, Porto, 13 September 2019 at 18:30

 

Apologies: Carmen Sofia Brenes, Claus Tieber

 

Acting Chair:  Paolo Russo

 

 

Minutes from AGM 2018:  Approved

 

Annual Report 2018-19 read by Chair

• Thanks to John  Finnegan for excellent service as Early Career Representative
• Statistics: 561 (+68/ 11.5%) from 51 countries (+4)
• Latin America, Asia, Africa underrepresented as yet
• Gender-balance remarkably balanced
• Membership has been formalised a little after discussion at last AGM
• Discussion re membership fees remains ongoing – if it is introduced, it should be kept quite low – there are fishhooks attached to charging fees
• Awards established this year
• Working groups: four at present – information is on the website – suggested that groups could raise their visibility at conferences – if people wish to establish a working group, this is encouraged – details of how to do this given out
• Early Career Representative activities reported including SRN one-day conference at Falmouth – and Script Department podcast which will soon be made available

 

Action plan has been circulated and will be put up on the website – members invited to get in touch with any feedback

Action plan 2019-20: Approved 

 

Report on progress of publication of articles from Milan 2018 

• Comunicazioni Sociali special issue just out with some articles
• JoSc just out featured some articles
• Members encouraged to submit articles from this year’s conference
• JoSc Special Issues: upcoming issue dedicated to women/gender – CfP has gone out
• Media Aesthetics and Media Usage book series brought to members’ attention
• Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting series reminded to members
• New Peter Lang series brought to members’ attention

 

Conferences:

• Number of panels and papers shown in graph – real growth
• Four-day format proposed
  • Comments on timing of conferences for US members difficult (start of school year). Difficulty for US members re timing would be even harder if event were four days; but other US members see no significant impact compared to three days
  • Or start halfway through first day which Oxford 2020 may/will do
• Discussion re whether to have one day for ECRs, rather than full four-day event
• Discussion re whether abstracts should be peer-reviewed – also re need to ensure abstracts are well focused – and whether number of papers should be limited
• Upcoming conferences
  • 2020 – Oxford Brookes, UK – Weds 9th – Sat 12th September – theme: Pushing Boundaries
  • 2021 – Vienna, Austria – theme: Global – likely early October
  • 2022 – Columbia, Missouri, US – theme: Gender/Women – likely early Sept
  • 2023 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – theme: Decolonising screenwriting

 

Elections: (Ronald Geerts election officer)

• New ECR: Alexandra Ksenofontova
• New members: Rosanne Welch, Rafael Leal, Rose Ferrell
• EC needs to ensure call for nominations well publicised and early enough each year.

 

Annual Report 2018-2019:  Approved.

 

Awards:

• Jury: Jill Nelmes, Janet Steiger, Tom Stempel
• $500 US prize for Best Monograph
• $100 US prize for Best Article (prize money donated anonymously)

Awarded to:

• Monograph:  JJ Murphy – Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, pyschodrama, and the screenplay
• Article: Rakesh Sengupta – Writing from the margins of media: Screenwriting practice and discourse during the first Indian talkies
• Eva Novrup Redvall will join Janet Steiger and Tom Stempel on next year’s jury
• Brief discussion re whether languages other than English could be submitted. ACTION POINT (New EC)

 

Meeting closes at 19:45

 

 

 

Minutes SRN EC Meeting

Wednesday 19 June 2019 at 21.30 Vienna Time

Attending: CSB (chair), CT (minutes), PR, AZ, CM, JF

 

1. Approval of the minutes 190529 (last meeting)

accepted

 

2. Next Conferences:

Discussion about news on the next SRN Conferences: Oxford Brooks (PR), themes of the approved Conferences could be a bit repetitive. Acceptance letter has been sent to Vienna, not yet to Sao Paolo.

A tendency towards more global approaches as in the proposals for Vienna and Sao Paolo and also in the planned theme for Oxford (boundaries) is seen as a move into a direction we always wanted to take and a chance to address new members.

In terms of content the only way to avoid repetitions, as well as a senseless competition for keynote speakers, is for the organizers to get in touch with each other at a very early stage and discuss their plans.

CSB will contact Sao Paolo and tell them that we have accepted their proposal, but we are not yet sure about the year (2023 or 2022). PR will contact the organizer for the proposed conference in 2022.

 

3. Awards:

The EC received an offer to financing the two awards in Porto 2019. Discussions about the pros and cons. Unanimously decision to accept the offer. Just have to make sure that we are able to give future award winners the same prize.

After the deadline for nominations on June 15^th, the jury received 6 nominations for articles and 5 for books.

Award documents will be prepared for Porto.

 

4. Payment of the Domain name renewal of SRN web-page.

20 pounds per year (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5), per account (we have two: http://screenwritingresearch.com/and http://screenwritingresearchnetwork.com/). Ian requested the School of Media and Communication of Leeds to pay this, as before. (CSB). They accepted for the next two years. The collaboration will be announced on our website.

 

5. AGM and Elections

The EC will prepare the AGM and the election and will inform members in due time.

 

6. Other business

PR is offering some interesting information about the statistics of our conferences. To be discussed in detail in Porto.

 

Next meeting: Porto, Wednesday 11 September 4.30 (Porto Time) in person.

 

End of meeting: 22:30 pm Vienna time