TEI-C Business Meeting Minutes (Evanston; Friday, 24 October 2014, 9:00-10:40)

TEI-C Business Meeting Minutes (Evanston; Friday, 24 October 2014, 9:00-10:40)

Called to order by Elena Pierazzo (EP) at 9 a.m. EP welcomed us and pointed us to agenda on the website, which she summarized. EP asked electors to vote if they haven't done so yet.

Report of the chair of the Board of Directors

EP noted that around 100 people registered for this conference, which is good for a conference held in North America. Board wants to understand better why we usually have half the attendance in North America than in Europe. They welcome ideas.

EP noted that, for the 2015 conference, there was an open call for host sites, with a few submissions. As previously announced, it will be held in Lyon.

EP explained how hosting has worked in the past. Sometimes they approach institutions to ask them to host (to be strategic) and sometimes go with those who've responded to a call. The TEI-C gives a $7,000 subsidy towards expenses of conference, plus administrative infrastructure like registration.

EP noted that for the first time in a few years, the TEI-C has spent money on activities that we think will benefit the members. (Some money had been banked over the past few years.)

Report of the chair of Technical Council

James Cummings (JC) summarized the role of the Council and membership for 2014.

JC thanked outgoing members. He reviewed the meetings since last members meeting and those planned through end of 2014. He said that the Council is planning a face-to-face meeting in Estonia in conjunction with a TEI outreach event.

Summarized topics debated by Council this year. Torsten Schaßan asked JC to comment on "considerations for a roadmap" for P6. JC summarized considerations, especially in relation to Birnbaum Doctrine. Still no timeline developed; no concrete plans. Martin Holmes (MH) mentioned the wiki pages for ideas for P6.

James summarized changes in P5 2.6.0 and 2.7.0. Reminded us to how to ask Council to change the TEI Guidelines.

Report by the SIG coordinator

JC explained that he has been serving as SIG coordinator. He summarized the role of SIGs in general and of the current SIGs. Gave reports from SIGs on their activities.

EP said that we think the SIGs are the most exciting part of the TEI. She noted that in the past there was a call for SIG grants based on a budget of $5,000 a year, but said that now SIGs should just approach Board with a proposal regardless of cost.

Report on TEI Simple

JC reported that the TEI-C is a partner in this project that runs Sept. 2014 to July 2015. All output of the project is open source. Anyone can join the email list. JC summarized other partners, staff members, objectives of the project and its deliverables. He gave more detail on the plan for creating the customization and the extension to the ODD language needed to express the processing model. He gave timeline for work that remains. He reviewed a few FAQs and answers about the project.

Report on TAPAS

Julia Flanders (JF) announced that TAPAS has finally launched. Summarized this free benefit of TEI membership and explained that TAPAS hopes to benefit the TEI-C in return by helping it recruit members. She noted that Northeastern University has made a 20-year commitment to preservation of the content. JF reviewed the features of TAPAS for users. She thanked people and funders involved in the project.

JF said that they recently received a new NEH grant to create an XSLT-aware backend to TAPAS using Fedora, Hydra, and eXist. This should bring some new features: an API to access the TEI data, adding XML-aware searching, and adding visualization tools that take advantage of the XML data. TAPAS plans to sponsor "code-along" events where people can get help from TAPAS staff. There's a prioritized list of features to develop pending resources. JF invited more ideas and encouraged us to try TAPAS and spread the word.

EP noted that TAPAS workshop at this conference was first to reach full registration.

Report on the Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative

John Walsh (JW) said the editors had published issue 6 since the last conference. Issue 7 is to be published soon and will be the last edited by Susan Schreibman, whom he thanked for establishing the journal and editing it so long. Issue 8 is to follow -- the first edited by John -- and will be the largest issue yet, which led to an expanding of the reviewer pool. The editors plan to publish articles on a rolling basis rather than waiting till they're all ready. They will advertise articles individually. A CFP has been circulated for issue 9: submissions are due Jan. 16, 2015.

JW noted that during the last year, the TEI Journal Encoding Package was released, thanks to work by MH and Ron Van den Branden. This should facilitate authoring and submission in TEI format. JW explained that though Ron's term will end, he's agreed to stay on for another term. JW thanked the Board and members for support and Susie Lorand for her ongoing work in copyediting the journal.

EP asked whether there be a call for papers from this conference. JW replied that there will be, though he invited authors to submit to issue 9 if the theme is appropriate for their topic.

Report from the TEI Social Media Coordinator: "Branching Out: Growing the TEI's Social Media Tree"

Paul O'Shea (PO) introduced himself and the objectives of the position. He explained his strategy for outreach and reported on increases on hits to TEI Wordpress blog and followers of @TEIConsortium on Twitter since he began in May 2014.

PO summarized the experience with first TEI Chat (with the SIG on Correspondence).

PO plans to do another and is considering organizing a THATCamp TEI pre-conference event before TEI conference in Lyon.

EP extended a special thanks to Paul for the increase in attention to the TEI-C that we've seen.

Report of the Treasurer for fiscal year 2013

EP summarized current membership figures, noting a big increase in Individual members (especially in the past year due to the benefit for workshop participants). She summarized the status of revenue: nearly all is from dues, which are fairly stable.

EP reviewed conference funding model.

EP reviewed operating expenses from the 2013 fiscal year (ending December 2013). We saved $20,000(?) over the previous fiscal year.

EP explained that in FY2013 the TEI-C spent only $6,000 on projects, which is not enough for a non-profit like the TEI-C. We risk being audited. In FY2014 they expect to spend more like $40,000 on TEI Simple, TAPAS, infrastructure, and jTEI. That's more of what you'd expect for an organization with our revenue.

EP reviewed pie charts showing the breakdown of expenses ($83,000) and income ($100,000).

For FY2014, income is expected to be flat, but expenditures will spike, though 2/3 of them will be one-time. As long as income remains flat, we can afford to invest about $25k a year in projects. Alternatively, we could invest money in an endowment to earn about 10% a year in interest. In the future, we might be able to cover some operating expenses on the interest.

Kevin Hawkins asked what counts as a project in the budget. EP replied that it's things that aren't core activities in the Bylaws: Board meetings, Technical Council meetings, and organizing members meetings. She noted that we will need to invest in TEI-C website soon: its infrastructure is crumbling.

EP added some addition comments from John Unsworth on his plans as treasurer.

Syd Bauman (SB) asked where the free membership for workshop participants was advertised. Elena and James noted this was on members.tei-c.org in June.

SB asked whether you still get free Individual Membership for registering for conference, noting that some people had mentioned to him that they didn't get that. EP asked them to check with John Unsworth.

Results of elections

David Sewell closed the elections system and reported the results computed by OpaVote. EP thanked members of the community for participating.

Discussion of the future of the TEI-C

EP said that the Board has discussed financial investments for our future. She said the Board wants to consider supporting both major projects (like TEI Simple) and small projects.

EP said she feels strongly that we need more women on the Council. Is the Council off-putting or too techie? Is there something we can do to make women feel more welcome? She encouraged women to run for election and all of us to nominate them in the future. She found her two mandates on the Council to be very rewarding.

JC said that he certainly tried to nominate some, but they declined the nomination. He seconded Elena's exhortation.

Elisa Beshero-Bondar asked how much technical experience you should you have to consider running? EP replied that while there's a technical component to serving on Council, there's more to the work than that including writing and revising prose for the Guidelines and understanding how the TEI is used. JC added that incumbent Council members will teach all new members what they need. MH added that it's really important to have fresh perspectives on the Council. There was further discussion of mentoring and nominations.

EP introduced Glen Worthey (GW) to speak about possibility of establishment of a "conference code of conduct". GW explained that this is a North American phenomenon related to efforts to make women (and everyone) feel welcome in a community. EP invited us to continue the discussion later.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:40 a.m.