Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology Business Meeting 18/4/2004

Minutes

The meeting was held at the conclusion of the 31st Australasian Experimental Pscyhology Conference (EPC'04), University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. The meeting opened at 14:00.

 

Attendance

There were 25 members at the meeting.

 

1. Conference Summary

Robert O'Shea (Chair of EPC'04) said:

He had been to the 1974 conference and had tried to recreate it. Running a successful scientific meeting on essentially a shoestring budget was possible only because of the hard work, the good will, and the enthusiasm of everyone involved in the conference.

He had tried to emulate Kate Stevens's wonderful organization of last year's conference. If EPC'04 had been the best ever, as avowed by Peter Wenderoth and Ross Day, it was only because Dunedin had some geographical and cultural advantages over Bankstown.

 

He thanked the sponsors of EPC'04:

The Department of Psychology for donating time and infrastructure

 The Assistant Vice Chancellor of the Division of Sciences for donating the conference rooms

The School of Business for donating the staff room (and atrium)

The Memory Research Theme [for supporting the student helpers]

The Ministry of Education for supporting the Keynote Address as a public education project (the address was open to the public)

The Dunedin City Council (DCC)

 

In applying for the grant from the DCC, Robert had said that conferees would get a taste of Dunedin and would be keen to return for a feast. He hoped that this would be true.

 

He thanked the members of the Organizing Committee:

Janice Murray who organized the meals and social events

Jamin Halberstadt who organized the student grants-in-aid and the programme book

Brent Alsop who organized financial matters including commercial attenders

Kerry Buchan who acted as a conference consultant (having previously organized 75 conferences)

Melanie Black who designed the web site and maintained it and the mailing list.

He thanked the student assistants, ably led by Karen Tustin. The members at the meeting showed their appreciation for the students' warmth, smiles, friendliness, and helpfulness with generous  applause.

He thanked John Wilden and Charlie Gilligan (technicians), Norma Bartlett (secretary), and Mike Miller and William van der Vleit (computer support)

He thanked David Badcock and the Society for making funds available for student grants-in-aid. This was the major innovation of EPC'04 and he hoped the grants would continue. The grants not only help students attend the conference, but look good in their CVs.

He thanked the convenors of symposia for attracting so many great

contributors to the conference, the session chairs for ensuring that

talks ran smoothly, and the speakers for communicating good science.

He gave one piece of advice for the organisers of next year's conference: To have potential contributors register in order to submit an abstract. This would ensure that submitters are "fair dinkum'', and cut down on the work created by uncommitted people withdrawing talks at the last minute.

He observed that it would be nice to have a Society web site, even if this meant setting aside some funds to found and maintain it. He had done a Google search for "Experimental Psychology Society'' and had found a wonderful model, that of the Oxbridge EPS, full of history and information. He opined that these days a web site is a necessary (although not a sufficient) condition for something to be real.

 

2. Student Prize

Robert O'Shea announced that the winner of best student presentation is John Cass. The prize is yet to be determined, but will probably be equivalent to free registration and an EPC'04 t-shirt.

 

3. Society Finances

3.1 EPC 2003

Denis Burnham gave a summary of finances from EPC'03. There was a  profit of $3525 that will go to the society.

3.2 Balance of accounts                                                                                           

David Badcock reported on the balance of Society accounts:

 

 

3.3 Operation of bank account                                                                                  

David Badcock outlined the current operation of the bank account: Two people have to sign to access it, one of whom has to be David Badcock because he is the registered public officer of the society. Traditionally the other person has been the Chair of the current

year's conference organising committee. The two signatories' typically being in different states [and potentially in different countries] means that it is especially difficult to do anything with the account. To resolve this problem, David Badcock proposed that

another signatory be John Hogben from University of Western Australia. Any two of the three signatories could then access the account. He undertook to consult with the Chair of the previous year's conference organising committee on operating the account. The meeting agreed to make John Hogben a third signatory.

Boris Crassini asked whether donations to the Society are tax deductible. David Badcock will determine whether this would be the case and, if not, what would be needed to allow the possibility.

 

4. Future conference locations

David Badcock gave the locations of (and people responsible for) future conferences:

University of Melbourne (2005) (Chris Davis, Phil Smith, Ann Castles)

University of Queensland (2006) (Ottmar Lipp, Jenny Burt)

Australian National University (2007) (Mark Edwards, Elinor McKone-subject to confirmation)

 

5. Other Business

5.1 Student-grants-in-aid

David Badcock invited comments about whether student-grants-in-aid should continue. After various comments, it was agreed to circulate a document in which some principles could be developed.

 

5.2 Reducing the number of streams?

David Badcock invited comments about whether to reduce the number of conference streams by reducing the duration of each talk. Various other options were advanced, including having poster sessions and extending the duration of the conference. Most were not in favour of shorter talks, although the desire to give students experience with

conference talks and the similarity of 10 minute talks to international conference format was noted. This issue was left to next year's conference committee to determine which format would be most appropriate given the time constraints on their programme.

 

5.3 Abstract details

Robert O'Shea said that revised abstracts for publication in Australian Journal of Psychology are due soon.  He will send an e-mail to remind presenters. He asked that changes be kept to a minimum.

6. Thanks

David Badcock noted that a successful conference always rests heavily on the hard work and commitment of a few individuals and warmly thanked the organizers, student helpers, and financial supporters of EPC'04 for the excellent experience they had provided for all

participants

 

David Badcock closed the meeting at 14:38.

 

Robert P. O'Shea

Ad Hoc Minutes Secretary

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