Opening: The meeting opened at 17.35.
Quorum: The meeting was recognised as a quorate, there being present the President and Secretary of the BCTCS, a local organiser for BCTCS 21, and at least ten other members of the BCTCS.
Apologies: None.
Previous minutes: The minutes of the Open General Meeting held at BCTCS 21 in Nottingham were approved. The following matters were discussed:
President's statement: Faron Moller stated that it was a splendid meeting, and that he was delighted with the large number of participants (122). Thanks were conveyed to Markus Roggenbach and Neil Harman for all of their work as local organisers. In addition to the 24 student places that had been funded by the three-year EPSRC grant which commenced at the last meeting, the President reported that he had been successful in obtaining an additional 24 student places for this years meeting, funded by EPSRC. He also reported that the LMS had generously provided a grant of 1250 pounds for the meeting, despite only 600 pounds being requested. As a result, it was possible to provide a further four funded student places at this years meeting. It was noted that around 10-12 students were not able to attend due to lack of available funding, either from EPSRC or their home department. Building upon the success of this years meeting, the President will be submitting a further one-year grant for an additional 24 student places at the next meeting.
ACTION: Faron Moller (supplementary EPSRC application for BCTCS 2007)
Treasurer's report: Stephan Reiff-Marganiec reported that the balance of the BCTCS bank account now stood at 4640 pounds, comprising the previous balance of 3865 pounds and the surplus of 775 returned from BCTCS 21 in Nottingham. Thanks were conveyed to Nottingham for returning such a healthy surplus, and to the President for securing substantial additional funding for this year's event. It was also reported that the mandate for the BCTCS bank account had now been changed to the effect that the current President (Faron Moller), Secretary (Graham Hutton) and Treasurer (Stephan Reiff-Marganiec) were the designated signatories to the account, with any two signatures being required in order to make a withdrawal.
Election of Postgraduate Student Representative: The President conveyed his gratitude to Joel Wright, postgraduate student representative for the previous year. Joachim Baran from the University of Manchester was nominated for the position of incoming postgraduate student representative by Gerald Luettgen and was seconded by Ranko Lazic. He was elected unopposed.
Report on arrangements for BCTCS 23: Sharon Curtis reported on the arrangements for BCTCS 23, which will be held on 2-5 April 2007 at the University of Oxford, with Sharon Curtis (Oxford Brookes) and Jeremy Gibbons (Oxford) as the local organisers. The event will be hosted jointly by Oxford Brookes University and the University of Oxford, with St Anne's College in Oxford as the venue. Invited speakers who have been confirmed so far include Steven Alpern, Julian Bradfield, Georg Gottlob, Martin Henson, Richard Jozsa, and Kristina Vuskovic. There will also be at least two further international speakers, to be nominated by The President. Based upon the large number of participants this year and the consequent large number of talks, it may be considered to make BCTCS 23 slightly longer in duration. The web site for the meeting is already in place, and promotional flyers were distributed to the participants.
ACTION: Faron Moller (international invited speakers for BCTCS 2007)
Choice of host for BCTCS 24: Hajo Broersma proposed an offer from The University of Durham to host BCTCS 24. The meeting voted to accept Hajo's proposal. Steve Matthews also expressed an interested in hosting BCTCS 25 in Warwick; this was noted, but the formal decision as to the location of this meeting will not be made until next year. Julian Bradfield also expressed an interest in hosting BCTCS in Edinburgh sometime in the future.
Any other business: None.
Learned Society for Computer Science: Samson Abramsky gave a presentation on the proposed Learned Society for Computer Science, covering the issues of current UK computing organisations, problems with the status quo, the functions of a learned society, some history regarding the proposal, and a summary of the current situation. Two associated documents were distributed as part of the registration pack for BCTCS: the initial letter that was emailed to 165 established researchers in the UK on 22nd October 2004, and the preliminary proposal that was published on the CPHC mailing list on 27th February 2006. The President then opened to the floor to the audience, for questions and comments. The primary issues that were discussed were the name of the society, its scope (from ICT as a whole, to academic Computer Science, to the theory subset), the role of science in the society, and the nature of the relationship to BCS, IEE (now IET), CHPC and UKCRC. The discussion concluded with a number of straw polls, the results of which were as follows:
Closing: The meeting closed at 19.15.
Graham Hutton
Secretary, BCTCS