Annual General Meeting of the Society of Research Software Engineering at RSECon2022
Channel: Society of Research Software Engineering
Date: 2022-10-20

Meeting held in the Frederick Douglass Centre at Newcastle University on 2022-09-07.

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Additional Q&A:
Q: Regarding the dates of the conference: 
A: Scottish schools start at a different time to England so moving the conference would need to be mindful of this too. Unfortunately, as a small, young organisation without the stockpiles of funding of larger, well-established conferences we have limited ability to get the best conference dates. Venues are often booked up years in advance - and the Society just doesn’t have the bank account to take up those kinds of liabilities. Our attendance also has a large overlap with a wide range of domain-specific conferences, which is why we end up having to schedule outside of the August range of many academic conferences. Again, as a smaller, younger conference we simply don’t have the weight to force people to choose us over key domain conferences. Later dates are restricted by the return of students, and the availability of lecture theatres. This is further complicated by us wanting to move the conference around the UK to maximise accessibility, so having a new set of criteria every few years. It’s not a simple problem! If you want to help us solve it, please volunteer to be a Trustee!

Q: How many of the members are outside of the UK?
A: 65

Q: Can intl members legally be eligible to apply for funds from the Soc?
A: Yes! We regularly fund international projects, especially in countries that have no established RSE movement, or an emerging one (e.g. RSE Asia, RSSE Africa, RSE AUNZ). However, we are the UK RSE society so we have to balance this - our legal responsibility is to support RSE in the UK.

Q: Do we need to be a society member to be on the conference committee/be involved in a working group/be a trustee?
A: Yes. 

Q: Is the SocRSE involved in the movement to develop and recognise Research Infrastructure Engineering? e.g. https://n8cir.org.uk/supporting-research/rie/
A: The Trustees aren’t actively involved as we don’t have the capacity - but we’d welcome applications to the Events and Initiatives fund, or proposals for working groups to reach out to the RIE movement!

Q: Does the society have any interaction with UCU or other unions to ensure RSEs are represented by unions.
A: As a charity, we’re not quite sure where our limits on political involvement lie. We’ve yet to get legal advice on whether this would fall within our remit.

Q: A lot of networking post-conference pre-meal is pub based. Has an consideration been given to support socialising/networking away from a pub?
A: This is definitely something we’d like to consider. Things like boardgames evenings work well at smaller conferences like the Collaborations Workshop - however, as a 350-person conference it’s a lot harder to organise! For example, even getting pizza delivered to 200 people playing boardgames they brought from home would be a much bigger logistical challenge than hiring out a brewery or other events space. If you’d like to help us consider and plan alternatives, please consider joining the Organising Committee for the 2023 Conference.

Q: Would hiring admin support be a good use of Soc funds?
A: Absolutely! We’d very much like to hire someone to reduce the administrative burden - however, with our intentionally low conference and membership fees, we don’t make enough to hire someone. We’re looking into avenues like organisational membership that could provide the funding required, though this is constrained, ironically, by the lack of admin support.

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Timecodes:
0:05 Introduction and President's update, Matt Williams
13:43 Conference and Events, Teri Forey
18:44 Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, Marion Weinzierl
26:43 Membership, Jamie Quinn
28:32 Communications, Ian Cottam
31:32 Treasurer's report, Matt Williams
33:58 Close of voting
35:13 Q&A
52:36Voting results
53:40 In-person vote on additional trustee volunteer
57:29 Conclusions and close