Recent Minutes of Meeting of the Executive - University of Queensland, Brisbane, 18th January 2010
Tue, 01/26/2010 - 23:55 | by Anonymous
Present: Clive Moore, Grant McCall, Joycelin Leahy, Max Quanchi, and by conference telephone, Margaret Jolly, Chris Ballard and Helen Hill.
Chair; AAAPS President Prof Clive Moore chaired the meeting.
1 Agenda
An additional item was added to the previously distributed agenda;
Item 8: Melbourne conference 2010
2 Distribution of the Report
· Max Quanchi reported the report had been formally launched at the Mitchell Library in November 2009.
· All 350 copies of the report had been distributed to contributors, organizations noted in the report, members of the 2009 Senate Inquiry, DFAT, AusAID, embassies and consulates, parliamentary friendship groups, corporations and overseas associates. In the first three months, 1000 copies of the Executive Summary (8 pages) were also distributed. QUT had absorbed all postal costs so far.
· Additional 250 copies of the report were printed in December 2009.
· It was agreed to provide further copies on request utilising the postal facilities of UQ.
· It was agreed to sell copies at the Melbourne conference for $20 (cash) per copy, and in the future to sell copies on request for an amount to cover printing and postage and a small profit, say $30 or $40.
· 2 pop-up banners were also purchased along with 6 A2 size laminated posters for use at conferences and workshops.
· Samantha Rose operated an AAAPS stall at the Island Vibe Festival in October 2009, and AAAPS was represented by posters and copies of the Summary and report at a number of conferences in Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra in late 2009.
· Discussion followed on how AAAPS would be able to receive payments for book sales, memberships and conference registration. Helen Hill and Chris Ballard agreed to investigate PayPal as a financial system.
3 Centre
· A discussion ranged across the options of a CRC, a federally funded Centre of Excellence and a privately funded Pacific Studies centre. Chris Ballard suggested the first step should be to find funding for an “AAAPS Secretariat” which could be later expanded into a “centre”. ANU was proceeding towards a national CRC submission in 2011. It was agreed that the desired centre or secretariat, potentially to implement the 53 recommendations of the report, did not fit the research orientation of the funding for Centres of Excellence. Helen Hill suggested investigating the “virtual centre” mode of some existing organizations.
· It was agreed that Grant McCall and Max Quanchi would prepare a short briefing paper on a privately funded secretariat/centre, possibly to be submitted to either Westpac or ANZ or other large corporations with extensive Pacific interests, for the AGM, which would be discussed at an Executive Meeting to be held in Melbourne on the Thursday prior to the Conference.
4 Links to other institutions
· It was noted that AAAPS already had established links to institutions in the Pacific through the appointment of individuals as co-opted members of the executive, for example, with the University of New Caledonia and University of Hawai’i.
· It was noted that further consideration be given to establishing formal links through Vice-Chancellors, Centres/Schools, or through existing regional institutions, for example, PIMA, Forum Secretariat and SPC.
· Helen Hill agreed to investigate the links established by a similar-sized association for African Studies.
· Margaret Jolly agreed to investigate the links established by the ASAA, and to discuss links with Prof Kathy Robinson.
5 Political lobbying
It was noted that approaches to the Prime Minister, Ministers for Education and Foreign Affairs and Parliamentary Secretaries for Development and Pacific Affairs had not produced a positive response to the National Strategy report. Clive Moore is to meet with the PNG and Pacific parliamentary friendship groups in early 2010 to discuss the report and future lobbying strategies.
6 Communications
· Website: Samantha Rose was thanked for maintaining the website. It was agreed to leave the website located at Griffith University. The IT staffs at Griffith were also thanked for the service they continued to provide.
· Executive meetings. Attempts to have a face-to-face meeting in Sydney, and a Skype link up had failed. It was agreed to have further telephone link-ups, and a pre-AGM meeting (Thursday 8th April, 2.00 to 5.00 pm) and post-AGM meeting (Sunday 11th April, 2.00 to 4.00 pm) in Melbourne, and for the new executive to investigate further possible avenues for regular executive meetings.
· Email list. It was noted there were two email lists – the ANU list maintained by Katerina Teaiwa (with 363 members) and a website list (with c80 members.) It was agreed the two lists should be merged and a single new list created.
· Newsletter; Max Quanchi noted Newsletter No 2 would be distributed early in 2010.
· PacifiCurrents eJournal; Margaret Jolly was thanked for the high quality of Vol 1. Margaret noted that volume 2 and 3 would probably be merged and would be issued prior to the Melbourne conference.
· The next issue of PacifiCurrents will include obituaries for Ron Crocombe and Epeli Hau’ofa.
· The regular news updates in Philippe Saibiri’s Melanesian Nuis was noted for its significant contribution to awareness of Pacific affairs in Australia.
9 Conference 2010
Helen Hill reported on planning, including;
· abstracts were due in by February 8th
· a Conference dinner would be held at the Aboriginal Advancement League
· an ecumenical service to be held on Sunday along with other cultural events
· members of the local Pacific Island community were involved in the planning committee
· there would be some parallel sessions, determined after papers had been finalised
· hotel options were to be distributed soon
· booksellers and journal publishers were to be approached regarding a book stall or other displays
· conference bags were being investigated, possibly from a Pacific source
· Clive Moore indicated a possible transfer of a set pre-conference seed grant from existing AAAPS funds now held at UQ (after transfer from QUT), which would then be forwarded from proceeds of the 2010 conference to the 2012 conference organizing committee.
· Margaret Jolly was to investigate providing some residue APFRN Pacific node funding to support the conference.
The meeting closed at 12.15pm.