Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

12020 Learner Development SIG Annual General Meeting
8:00 PM - 8:45 PM, extended to 9:25 PM; Room 5 on Eventzilla
Find us at https://jalt2020.eventzil.la/session/833
Facilitated by Koki Tomita & Tetsuko Fukawa
Taking part: Tim Ashwell, Andy Barfield, Blair Barr, Phillip Bennett, Oana Cusen, Dominic Edsall,
Malik Amir Feroze, Tetsuko Fukawa, Ellen Head, Ken Ikeda, Yuri Imamura, Kio Iwai, Patrick
Kiernan, Jen Morgan, Fumiko Murase, Maritess Oreta, Renee Renjel, Jim Ronald, Alison Stewart,
Koki Tomita, James Underwood
Apologies: --Minutes: Andy Barfield
I. Documents distributed and topics for discussion
II. People: Committee members and roles for 2021
III. Money: Treasurer’s report for 2019-2020 and draft budget for 2021
IV. Topics discussed at the AGM
A. Code of Conduct
B. Communication
C. CCLT6 Update
D. SIG membership list
Appendix A LD SIG Financial Summary, prepared for the November 2020 AGM
LD SIG Financial Summary, November 2020 AGM
2020 Draft Budget for Discussion

I. Documents distributed and topics for discussion● A link to the 2020 LD SIG Committee Review was shared. Thank you to all who
contributed.
● A review of 2020 expenditure, and a draft 2021 budget. Thank you to Patrick for
preparing this.
● A list of committee members and roles● Possible discussion topics for the AGM

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

2(i) The AGM opened at 20:00 with a welcome and thank you from Koki for attending, plus abrief discussion of whether to video-record the AGM or not as requested by the conference
organisers. Nobody had strong objections, so the AGM was video-recorded.
(ii) Koki screen-shared the LD AGM slides and gave a brief overview of the agenda, before wewent into break-out rooms for 10 minutes in small groups of 3 or 4 to break the ice and get toknow each other/catch up with each other.
(iii) We came back into plenary session from 20:15, and Koki went over procedural details,
asking people to type in Chat or raise their hands if they had a question or comment; Tetsuko
would keep an eye on people raising hands, so they would be noticed (most people, it seems,
could only directly see 3 or 4 other people during the screen-share).
(iv) Grant awarding ceremony: Kio Iwai welcomed and congratulated Malik Amir Feroze on
being awarded an LD conference grant for JALT2020, and mentioned that LD members would
be looking forward to reading his grant report in Learning Learning. People applauded, andMalik graciously accepted the award and gave his thanks.

II. People: Committee members and roles for 2021
(i) 20:18: Koki took us through the committee roles for 2021, screen-sharing who was stepping
up or stepping down, focusing towards various vacancies.
bracketed names = (members of the SIG, but not members of the committee)
double-bracketed names = ((not members of the SIG or the committee))Co-coordinators: Koki Tomita & Yoshio Nakai steps down; Tetsuko Fukawa steps up
Treasurer: Patrick Kiernan
Membership Team: Tetsuko Fukawa steps down; Andy Barfield steps up, inviting others tojoin to make a membership teamGrants Team: Sami Yoshimuta, Kio Iwai, and Masayo Kanno
Programmes Team: Blair Barr; Robert Morel steps down; Blair invites others to join to make aprogramme team (PanSIG, JALTCALL, JALT International)
Publicity Team: Ellen Head
Publicity Team Illustrator: Rob Moreau
Publications Team: James Underwood
Learning Learning Editorial Team: Lorna Asami, Andy Barfield, Ken Ikeda, Mike Kuziw, Yoshio
Nakai, Hugh Nicoll, Koki Tomita, & James Underwood; Fumiko Murase steps down

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 20203

Learner Development Journal Steering Group: Dominic Esdsall & Tim Ashwell; Darren Elliott,
Alison Stewart step down; Tanya McCarthy steps up.
Learner Development Journal Issue 4 editors - ((Sabine Little)) & ((Michelle Golledge))
Learner Development Journal Issue 5 editors - Andy Barfield, Oana Cusen, (Yuri Imamura),((Jussi Jussila)), & (Riitta Kelly)
Learner Development Journal Issue 6 editors - Isra Wongsarnpigoon, Dominique Vola
Ambinintsoa, Phillip A. Bennett, André A. Parsons, and Stuart D. Warrington
Web Maintenance Team: Hugh Nicoll (main LD website), Darren Elliott (LD Journal website)
step down; Dominic Edsall steps up (LD Journal website)
Tokyo Get-Togethers: Ken Ikeda, Ian Hurrell, James Underwood
Kansai Get-Togethers:
Committee Members at large: Lee Arnold, Mathew Coomber, Dexter Da Silva, Oana Cusen,
Bill Mboutsiadis, & Mike Nix
Prolonged applause for people stepping down!
A huge thank you to you for all the incredible work that you have done for LD over the years!
(ii) Alison clarified that Dominic had taken over Darren’s role, and so he will be web-masteringthe Learner Development Journal site. Dominic will also act as the steering group liaison for
Issue 6, with Tanya McCarthy the liaison for Issue 7.
(iii) Andy mentioned he would welcome another person to join him for Membership so thatthey could work as a membership team.
(iv) Koki gave a brief explanation about the migration of the LD website to the main JALT site (itis currently hosted by Hugh). Koki thought that the LD website, once migrated, would be best
maintained by a tech savvy person. Blair mentioned that he would be interested in doing this,but first the site needed to be migrated. James added that as the site is Wordpress, it would not
be too complicated to manage. Andy clarified that Hugh had been in touch with Paul Collett,
JALT webmaster, about migrating the LD website, and that Paul should have more time for thisafter the JALT2020 conference.
(v) Koki asked Blair to explain the responsibilities of the programme team.
(vi) Renee Renjel asked Koki what his big vision was for learner development. Koki explainedthat he saw LD as a group that enjoyed talking together and discussing a lot, which generated asense of community, and that we want to continue to nurture that over the coming year.

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

4(vii) Blair explained that the SIG runs three forums at conference in Japan (PanSIG, JALTCALL,
and JALT International), and that the programme team needed to an initial call out in the next
few weeks for the 2021 forms at the PanSIG and JALTCALL conference. It was still not known
whether the conferences would be online or in person, but the basic tasks that the programme
does involve:● writing calls for presentations● drafting and developing forum summaries● being in contact with presenters.
Things usually go smoothly, and there is a fair amount of emailing with presenters. One memberof the programme team would take care of arrangements for the PanSIG LD forum, and anotherwould be responsible for the JALTCALL LD forum. The whole programme team would work
together on arrangements for the JALT conference LD forum.
(viii) Koki added that the committee is very supportive and looks for ways for people to work
together, so you are not left on your own.
(ix) Renee Renjel showed some interest in learner development and asked a few questions.

III. Money: Treasurer’s report for 2019-2020 and draft budget for 2021
See:

Appendix A LD SIG Financial Summary, prepared for the November 2020 AGM
November 2019 – October 2020 Revenues and Expenses
2021 Draft Budget amended and agreed at the AGM

November 2019-October 2020 clarifications
1. Revenues
2. Expenses
2021 Draft Budget for Discussion
1. The 2020 draft budget was drawn up by Koki Tomita and Patrick Kiernan.
2. Revenuesa. The annual grant from the JALT Central Office (JCO), PanSIG profit shared, and
CCLT are conservative estimates.
b. The CCLT revenue is dependent upon the number of attendees, as is the
PanSIG shared profit (in Niigata in 2020).
3. Expenses
a. Grants - points raised and/or discussed:● In 2020, 40,000 yen in grants went out (1 conference grant).

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

5(i) (20:34) Patrick (treasurer) went over the SIG’s expenditures and income in 2020 and
explained the draft budget for 2021. The grant from JALT National had been about 20,000 JPY
less than in the previous year.
(ii) He estimated that the end-of-year 2020 balance would be about 131,986 JPY (with 200,000
JPY in reserves).
(iii) If we were to face a budget cut in 2021, some of its expenditures would need to be scaled
back (most likely grants as this is the bulk of the SIG’s annual expenditures).
(iv) Discussion of costs for CCLT6 followed. Ellen mentioned that holding CCLT6 online with
eventzil.la would not be free of charge. James clarified that the SIG would need to have aprofessional account with Zoom (costing about 27,000 JPY for one month) so that multiple
Zoom sessions could be run at the same time on Eventzilla. As for costs, Eventzilla charges a
low-flat rate per paying participant plus a percentage of each conference registration. Other
benefits of using Eventzilla include ease of online scheduling and secure handling of payments.
According to James, something like 20 teacher presenters participating should cover most CCLT6
costs.1(v) Patrick explained that he had drafted the budget for 2021 conservatively, going with anestimate of 150,000 JPY from JALT National. He talks through income and outgoings for nextyear, with the main expenses SIG grants (conference, research, project), plus funding for the
shadow coordinator to attend one of JALT’s Executive Board Meetings (EBMs).
(vi) Patrick added that doing things more online reduces costs overall, so he believes that it
would be possible to have 5 grants in 2021.
(vii) Blair asked whether the SIG is billed for taking part in online events (such as JALT2020).
Probably not, Patrick replied.

IV. Topics discussed at the AGM
Koki introduced “Topics for discussion.”1

Post AGM update from James: It seems that Zoom has changed its pricing policy and that for CCLT6 wewould need 4 or 5 pro licences (depending on how many presenters/and participants), and this would
cost a much more reasonable $59.96 or ¥6,313. See
https://zoom.us/buy?plan=pro&period=annual&from=pro EventZilla would cost: 1.9%+ $1.50 per
registration * (capped at $9.99). Putting this in terms of cost = Members (1000 yen charge): 19 yen + 158
yen = 177 yen, & non-members (1500 yen change): 28.5 +158 yen =186.5 yen. Which means that wewould have ¥823 to cover the cost of Zoom / and ¥1,314 to cover the cost of Zoom ...

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

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A. Code of Conduct(i) Referring back to an incident at the CCLT5 conference in December last year, Koki explainedthat he had been concerned about what LD should do if such incidents were to happen again.
He gave a brief overview of the JALT Code of Conduct, explaining that LD should follow the JALT
Code of Conduct in dealing with complaints, and that ultimately LD should refer any such
incidents to the JALT Code of Conduct team.
B. Communication● Should LD use Slack? Koki doesn’t know whether everyone reads his emails or not, so
Slack might be a better way for the committee to communicate with each other.
● Should the LD committee have online officer meetings every three months to check inabout what different people on the committee are doing?
● Should the committee use a shared LD calendar so that officers know what different
committee teams are doing, and what key dates in LD’s schedule are?
(i) Ellen commented that it has been difficult to create a regular publicity “newsletter” for LD
members as she has not been getting enough advance notice of different events, likeget-togethers. Now that the get-togethers are being done online nationally, rather than locally,
more planning is needed.
(ii) Andy suggested that we refer to publicity information as “publicity updates” or “publicity
circulars” to avoid confusing Learning Learning with them.
(iii) Ellen recalled the publicity updates called LD Wired that Heidi Nachi-Evans had produced(2006? 2007?) on a quarterly basis and sent out to LD SIG members. It was a couple of pages
long at most and kept people up to date about SIG events.
(iv) Ellen thought that we need to have more contact with LD members so that we could retain
their membership and maintain the membership level of the SIG. (There has been an overall
drop in the last year - see the 2020 committee review.)(v) Blair agreed that we didn’t need only to do the Tokyo get-togethers online, and Tim
wondered whether the online officer meetings could be open to SIG members. Granted thatsuch meetings might need to be careful about any sensitive matters, the general sense was thatthe committee should try to make its online meetings as open and inclusive as possible, with apre-meeting of SIG officers followed by an open public discussion.
(vi) A general sense of skepticism about using Slack was voiced.

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

7(vii) As for the shared calendar that Koki briefly demonstrated, Dominic suggested that thiswould work well if we are all doing a shared project, but it is probably too much for everyone tokeep updating regularly.
(viii) Tim suggested the calendar would probably work best if it were supported by regularonline meetings between SIG officers.
C. CCLT6 Update(i) James updated the meeting about preparations for the CCLT6 conference. The deadline for
proposals had been extended to 30th November, and the conference would be held online
with Eventzilla. A new format in which students and teachers can present together would be
added soon, and the idea of having panel discussions was being considered too, so that
contributors to an issue of the LDJ might talk about their research.
(ii) Andy suggested that it is good to try and keep things simple, and from reading some of theguidelines for presentations he wondered whether they were getting a little regimented. How
could an online CCLT keep some of the slightly anarchic spontaneity of face-to-face CCLTs? He
had found it difficult to see how his students would fit into presenting for 5 or 6 minutes as theywould want to talk more about what they were doing.
(iii) Patrick mentioned that his students were concerned they couldn’t fit in with the theme of
the conference, so they weren’t sure whether they would be able to take part or not.
(iv) James clarified how the panel discussions would work, and Andy suggested that it would be
important to contact potential panelists.
(v) There some further discussion. James explained that with things being online it wasnecessary to have clear guidelines for presenters, especially students, and it was difficult toknow what was best to do here. Also, the number of people who had expressed interest so far
in taking part was rather low.
D. SIG membership list(i) Tetsuko asked whether access to the SIG membership list would be discussed.
(ii) Koki replied that it would be better to discuss this another time when SIG officers next meet
online.

The meeting closed at about 21:25.

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

Appendix A LD SIG Financial Summary, prepared for the November
2020 AGM

LD SIG Financial Summary, November 2020 AGM

November 2019 – November 2020 Revenues and Expenses
Current (2020 Nov 2)
Bank balance¥205,036

Reserve¥200,000

Total¥ 405,036

REVENUS

Face-to-face

Annual grant from JCO¥150,000

CLT5 Conference event fees

¥ 157,697
TOTAL

EXPENSES¥ 177,697
Face-to-face

JALT National 2019¥19,800

CCLT 5¥48,000

Bank transfer fee¥629

Website maintenance¥10,000

Research Grant¥40,000
TOTAL
Balance (15 November, 2020)¥ 118,429¥ 264,304 (+¥200,000 reserve)

Expenses, November 2019, expected
JALT National expenses?

Hosting of CCLT6 online¥30,000 ?

Web site maintenance (and migration?)

?
Total

¥30,000 +8

Minutes of the Learner Development SIG AGM, 20 November 2020

Balance (1 December, 2020, estimated) ¥131,966 (+200,000 reserve)2020 Draft Budget for Discussion
Current (2020 Nov 2)
Bank balance¥304,304

Reserve¥200,000

Total¥ 405,036

REVENUS

Face-to-face

OnlineAnnual grant from JCO (30% reduced scenario)¥150,000¥150,000PanSIG profit shared¥50,000¥0

CCLT 7¥20,000¥20,000

TOTAL Revenue¥220,000¥170,000

Face-to-face

OnlinePublic Relations (Grants)¥200,000¥200,000

EBM attendance for shadow coordinator¥60,000¥0

Website maintenance¥10,000¥10,000

Get-together room fees + CCLT7¥50,000¥0

JALT, PanSIG, JALT Call (table fee, postage)¥20,000¥0

Miscellaneous¥10,000¥10,000

TOTAL Expenses¥350,000¥220,000

TOTAL REVENUE over EXPENSES-¥130,000-¥50,000EXPENSES¥1,966¥81,966
Balance (1 December, 2021, estimated) (+ 200,000 reserve) (+ 200,000 reserve)

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