ñ SEEKS MEMBER INPUT REGARDING ANNUAL MEETING
About twenty years ago, ñ split off from SBL and began holding our Annual Meeting separately, yet in the same locale and at the same basic time. This has been quite popular and successful. In that time, our meetings have grown and expanded both numerically and in the number of sessions. As a result ñ’s meetings now overlap with those of AAR/SBL on Saturdays. This overlap, coupled with the huge size of the AAR/SBL meetings, have caused hotel and meeting space in many venues to be unavailable for ñ’s meetings on Saturdays, and we have needed to find accommodations further away from the SBL hub. Therefore, this November we are meeting at our usual time, but 19 miles outside of San Antonio.
In future years, ñ will often, but not always, find itself on the “outside.” ñ needs to reevaluate these circumstances and make a decision regarding this situation. You may recall that we had similar discussions in the 1990s and 2007. There are several options open to us – but meeting close to SBL on Saturday every November is not one of them. The key issues are meeting days and/or time of the year, meeting venues, and meeting “partner/s” – if any.
To help resolve this issue an Ad Hoc Annual Meeting Committee has been established. This group is tasked with evaluating the situation in light of membership needs and desires and then bringing recommendations to the Board.
In the coming month, the Committee will disseminate a membership survey regarding the Annual Meeting, specifically asking about your interests and needs as well as your evaluation of the 2015 Meeting in Atlanta – where we were some distance from SBL (but connected by MARTA). Later, we will also receive input at and regarding the San Antonio Meeting. Please take the time to respond to this survey – the Annual Meeting is perhaps the most central aspect of ñ for many of us and its future is very important.
If you have questions or initial comments regarding this, you may contact the Chair of the Committee, Gary Arbino, at asormeet@bu.edu. Additionally, in the coming days you may be asked to participate on the Committee – please consider such an invitation as a token of respect and as an indication that you represent a segment of our membership whose input we want on the “ground floor,” and strongly consider joining our cadre.