LD SIG 2021 AGM minutes 1

Learner Development SIG Annual General Meeting (AGM) Minutes
Saturday 13th November 6.30-7.40 PM
Taking part
Tim Ashwell, Andy Barfield, Blair Barr, Tim Cleminson, Aya Hayasaki, Ellen Head, Ken Ikeda,
Patrick Kiernan, YK (no name given), Dawn Lucovich (JALT president; joins for middle part),
Jenny Morgan, Theron Muller, Gabriela Schmidt (PanSIG2021 chair; joins midway), Koki Tomita(14 participants)
Led by: Koki Tomita & Tim Cleminson
Minutes: Andy Barfield

I. Introduction
i. Warm-up chat & introduction by Koki We decide to stay in the main session rather thanbreak out. Koki announces Aya Hayasaki as research grant awardee and that she will contributea grant awardee essay to the Spring 2022 issue of Learning Learning.
ii. Self-introductions by all present with Tim Cleminson starting off as the incoming
coordinator

II. Committee Review
A. Involving new members
Andy points out that 30 people have left the SIG and 40 new members have joined sinceNovember 2020, with the SIG membership total currently around the low 170s. What are someways in which we can involve new members? Tim C suggests targeting new members for
get-togethers, and later the suggestion is made to produce an issue of Learning Learningwith a strong focus on new members sharing short pieces of writing.

B. Surveying SIG members
i. Ellen asks whether there is any way to find out why people have joined the SIG andmentions that it might be useful to do a survey of LD members. Blair points out that the question
was raised in the forum in the morning (why you joined, what inspired you to join, and why),
and Tim C responds that they are great questions, but they need time to respond.
ii. Tim Ashwell asks whether the link to the Google Form used in the Forum could be sent
to LD members for their responses, as there was limited time in the forum for people to write.
People attending the forum had been more concerned with sharing comments andquestions with the presenters.

LD SIG 2021 AGM minutes 2C. 2021 Grant awardee(18.51) Aya Hayasaki joins and is welcomed by Koki. Aya introduces herself. She mentionedthat she really enjoyed presenting at the LD forum today and that she has been working on
LDJ7. She greatly appreciates all the support and warm welcome from LD, especially the fact
the SIG focuses on process.

D. Changes in key committee positions
Koki provides a brief summary of people stepping up and people stepping down in thecommittee, emphasising that LD needs to have a full slate of 5 core officers (coordinator,treasurer, programme, membership, publicity), otherwise we can’t be formally recognised as aSIG by JALT. For 2022 the positions of programme (currently Blair) and publicity (currentlyEllen) need new people, better a pair or trio working together, with initial support from Blairand Ellen respectively.

E. Tim C’s story & focusi. (18.55) Tim C makes an appeal for people to step forward and gave a brief presentation
through a series of visuals to share his story of how he became involved in LD and what hesees as important for the SIG as he starts out as coordinator. Tim thanked everyone for theopportunity to represent the SIG and for the support that he has received today. He seeslearner development as a vibrant community.
ii. When he joined the SIG, he was invited to contribute a Members’ Voices piece toLearning Learning and then got some really great feedback from Lorna Asami and MikeKuziw in the redrafting and development process. Tim attended CCLT6 last December andthen started joining Tokyo get-togethers and had a real sense of community.
Iii. If we think about our overall situation at the moment, Tim continued, we are probably
suffering from too much screen time and may feel that we have experienced a loss ofautonomy in our work (for example, by being asked to provide video-on-demand classes). We
may also have a sense of burn-out. For Tim the LD SIG has been a real source of strength.
Making connections to learner autonomy helping students become more autonomous, Tim said
that it’s all about interdependence and quality of communication.
iv. In the final part of his short presentation. Tim C mentioned that he has only been in LD ashort time so he doesn't fully understand the history of the SIG, so his priority over thecoming year is understanding the community and puzzling over what LD does.
v. Tim C feels that the spirit in which we do this is really important. Having a sense of joy about
what we do is key, together with the process of puzzling and the feeling of adventure that
we have in starting something new together. LD is a great mentoring community, and hewants to try to bring in more of our members and support them in similar ways to how hehimself has been supported.
vi. Koki thanks Tim and explains that he will help Tim C over the coming year in a shadow roleas the outgoing coordinator. Koki repeats that we need to recruit people for key roles.

LD SIG 2021 AGM minutes 3F. Treasurer’s reporti. (19:05) Patrick provides the treasurer's report, explaining that online-ness of the last year
has affected the SIG’s finances and kept costs down. (On announcing this, Patrick’s Zoom
connection dramatically went (!), and Koki continued the financial report for a few minutes until
Patrick could rejoin.)2021 REVENUEJALT National/JCO grant

57,736

Pan SIG

35,000CCLT630,472

Total

123,208

2021 COSTS
CCLT68,800

Research grant (x1)

40,000

CURRENT BALANCE

312,740 (+ the SIG has reserves of 200,000)

EXPECTED YEAR-END BALANCE

283,940 (not counting reserves)

ii. The key point is that the SIG has a healthy balance for the coming year, so we will be able tocontinue awarding LD grants, even if a return to face-to-face conferences in 2022 may
involve other costs (such as takkyubining LD display materials to and from conferencevenues). Tim C also mentioned that it’s important to publicise that diverse types of grants aredistributed. For example, smaller grants are available to fund LD members presenting at onlineand face-to-face conferences.

G. Welcome to Dawn Lucovich
Dawn Lucovich, JALT President, joins the AGM and is welcomed. Dawn explains that she isthere to listen to part of our AGM and see what the LD SIG is focusing on.
iii. Note: Next year’s JALT2022 conference will be in Fukuoka (12-15 November; theme:Reflections and New Perspectives), with PanSIG2022 at the University of Nagano (8-10 July;
theme: (Re)imagining language education; Koki is the conference chair).
iv. The deadline for individual proposals for the PanSIG conference is 20th December 2021:
See https://pansig.org/cfp for more information.

LD SIG 2021 AGM minutes 4III. Announcements
A. LDJ7
i. As one of the Learner Development Journal 7 editors, Ellen shared how excited she is about
LDJ7. She mentioned that the LDJ7 editors may rely on the Journal Steering Group as they are
not that experienced as editors. Aya continued by focusing on the theme of LDJ7,Challenging the Conventions in Learner Development Research. They had at first planned
to put the focus on learner autonomy, but decided in the end to have a broader focus.
ii. Andy commented that it is great to have a variety of genres for LDJ7 (“papers” and“practice-related reviews”) and mentioned how this is a strong feature of LDJ5 (narrativeaccounts and practice-related reviews) with writers experimenting in the way they write.
iii. Ellen explained that the LDJ7 editors (Aya Hayasaki, Ellen Head, and Ryo Moriya) have all
been writers for previous issues of LDJ. In their experience they really appreciated having thechance to talk with other writers as part of the process. Aya and Ellen felt that a uniquefocus will emerge from the discussions and collaboration over time.
iv. Ellen mentioned that the editors had talked about making a video Call for Contributions, toexplain more about the philosophy of LDJ. She felt there is a certain ambiguity and tension
in focusing on process and conforming to journal-like quality in the writing, and that was
something they will have to navigate as they go.
v. So far the editors have had a couple of Zoom meetings among themselves and with thejournal steering group. They are also trying to encourage another person to join them as aco-editor.
vi. There has been a little delay with sending out the CfP to LD members (although it was“leaked” to the AUTO-L listserv). Ellen is concerned about the SIG sending too many
messages to SIG members, so the LDJ7 editors decided to wait until after the conference toannounce the CfP to SIG members.
vii. Tim Ashwell mentioned that it would be good to send it soon so people have plenty of timeto think about it. (The deadline for proposals is 31st January 2022.)
viii. Ellen observed that the quality of Learning Learning is so high that it will be interesting
to see how everything goes for LDJ7.

B. Welcome to Gabriela Schmidt
Gabriela, 2021 PanSIG chair, CEFR & Portfolio SIG coordinator, and long-time LD SIG member,
joins the AGM and is welcomed.

C. Creating Community: Learning Together 7 (CCLT7)
i. Tim C gave an update on preparations and plans for CCLT7. In the past CCLT has beenpresentation based, and this year we are looking to something different, more discussion
based, with students sharing a story and puzzles about their learning lives over the lastyear.

LD SIG 2021 AGM minutes 5ii. LD members will be there to facilitate the students’ discussion: Students will be in groups offour, with one teacher as facilitator.
iii. The aim is for students from different schools and universities to have discussions witheach other.
iv. 12th December Sunday afternoon for 2 ½ hours - 3 hours or so, hosted by Ian Hurrell inZoom.
v. Tim Ashwell explained that Ian has drafted an email and Google Form that people areproviding feedback over the weekend. More information will be going soon to LD members.
vi. One aim this year is to try and keep the event low maintenance.
vii. Teachers may also share stories and puzzles and form their own discussion groups.

D. Publicity messaging
i. Ellen asked whether the next CCLT7 message to SIG members could be combined with theLDJ7 CfP.
ii. Tim C agreed that the question of information overload is very important to keep in mind inmessaging LD members.
iii. Ellen responded that it will take ongoing discussion between different teams in thecommittee to get their publicity needs coordinated.
iv. Tim C asked whether LD could have a publicity team as quite a lot of chapters do this and it
would be good if the role could be shared in LD. Making messages visual is very importanttoo.
v. Ellen replied that it depends on what people want to do.
vi. Andy clarified that LD did use to have a publicity team (Rob Moreau, Mayumi Takizawa,and Kie Yamamoto). He explained that Rob Moreau, LD SIG illustrator, is always willing todesign a logo for different LD events, but he is no longer involved in publicity messaging.

E. SIG logo
i. (19:32) Tim C suggested that the SIG logo is of a certain time, and it might be good for theSIG to update and create a new logo.
ii. Ellen thanked Jenny for representing LD in a joint event with Hiroshima Chapter in Octoberand reminded the committee that joint events with other chapters or SIGs are a good way ofstimulating our thinking about LD and increasing participation. She thanked Jim Ronald in
absentia for publicising and funding the event, which was attended by between 30 and 40people.

F. Communication tool: Basecamp
i. Koki gave a brief introduction to Basecamp, a project management and teamcommunication tool, which different parts of JALT have been moving to for theircommunications.

LD SIG 2021 AGM minutes 6ii. Koki and Tim C would like to see LD shift committee communications away from email toBasecamp.
iii. Please email Koki if you would like to join Basecamp!

IV. Thank yousi. Koki started to wrap things up and say his goodbyes and hand over formally to Tim C.
ii. On behalf of everybody present Andy expressed immense gratitude to Koki for everythingthat he has done in the last 4 years as SIG coordinator: We all owe Koki our great thanks.
Applause for Koki and many thank yous.
iii. Koki then made Tim C the host of the meeting, and left.
iv. On behalf of everybody present Tim Ashwell welcomed Tim C and thanked him for taking
the reins as LD SIG coordinator. Applause for Tim and many thank yous.
v. Around 19:40 the AGM closed and moved into informal socialising chatter anddiscussion.