LLG 1991 Annual Meeting Minutes

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Minutes of the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Members of The Logical Language Group, Inc.

The third Annual Meeting of the Members of The Logical Language Group, Inc. was called to order on June 23, 1991 at 10:28 AM EDT.

Non-members in attendance at the annual meeting were:

  • Robert Chassell
  • Arthur Protin
  • David Twery

Roll call was taken of the members.

Members attending were:

  • Athelstan
  • John Cowan
  • Guy Garnett (present for part, proxy to Athelstan for part)
  • John Hodges
  • Nora LeChevalier
  • Robert (Bob) LeChevalier
  • Tommy Whitlock
  • Karen Stein
  • Tommy Whitlock
  • Art Wieners

Members not in attendance were:

  • John Parks-Clifford
  • Jeff Taylor
  • Albion Zeglin *

(* Note: Albion Zeglin resigned position on membership and board prior to this meeting.)

Robert LeChevalier certified that a meeting notice had been sent at least 10 days in advance of the meeting.

Reading of the Minutes:

  • MOVED: To waive the reading of the minutes of last members' meeting. - PASSED.

Report of officers - President:

Language status:

Gismu: Changes to the gismu list which were decided on last members' meeting have been made. "Share/distribute" has been withdrawn, so there are no outstanding issues. John Cowan suggested "spero" for "Esperanto"; further discussion and decision-making tabled until New Business.

Cmavo: John Cowan has an updated list. Suggestions "si'e" and the sumti non-raising cmavo are in doubt; otherwise the list is complete.

Grammar: There are approximately 28 proposals for changes, almost all of which are extensions or have null effect. Most of the changes derived from John Cowan's efforts to translate the grammar into EBNF (Extended Backus-Naur Form) and to produce a parser. We now have a parser; it incorporates all proposed changes.

Semantics: There has been much discussion of various points on the computer net.

Phonology/Morphology: There has been a proposal for extension of the morphology for names (John Cowan). Another proposal was to allow "n" or "l" in place of "r" to glue on an initial CVV-form affix, even if the following letter was not an "r".

Textbook:

Textbook writing is bogged down. Lesson 1 has still not been completed, although some work was done on it in the past few weeks. Part of the problem is due to remaining proposed changes.

There has been a suggestion that the writing of the textbook be delayed for the purpose of putting out a "reference manual/dictionary" consisting mainly of the accumulated language definition material with explanatory material tying it together.

Legal Status:

We won the Trademark case against Jim Brown, but he has appealed. We are defending. We owe $4000-5000 to the lawyers. We expect that it will be $2000-3000 more to bring us to the end of the appeal.

Report of officers - Secretary/Treasurer:

Minutes book status: From last board meeting, only 3 signed copies (out of 5).

Financial Report: The financial report was given by Robert LeChevalier.

This year so far, we have taken in $5630 and spend $8075; This includes the California visit by Bob & Nora, and the lawyer contributions and payments.

Without the California visit and lawyer items, we have taken in only $1900 and spent $4300; This included more than $1000 in donated money.

For voluntary balances, we have received only $800, and spent $2500.

Our spending is only at half the rate as last year.

One year of JL costs about $20-25 at the 10-cents/page rate.

Committee Reports:

The two committees appointed last year were dissolved earlier this year, and ad hoc committees were appointed by Robert LeChevalier with deadlines for reporting.

Electronic Distribution Committee:

Copy of policy was handed out.

Header for electronic distribution got bogged down in wording and was never completed.

Finance Committee:

Fund Raising: $3500 raised from fund-raising letter, which constituted half of income for year. May just have been early payments rather than additional, based on money coming in since.

Volunteer credits & non-payment policy: Still working.

Logfest activities: Suggested activities to have available included:

Translating (Sayings, Guide book, Tarot, Careers game, Tense examples, Helsem's poetry).

Using Lojban (Card games, Poly-glot game, graffiti board, conversation with available mentoring, 20-questions, UI examples)

Demos of computer programs (Flashcards, Random sentence generator, Lujvo-making)

Technical Discussions (Tense, Cleft place structures, BAI)

Election of Board of Directors:

  • MOVED: To delay election of Board of Directors until after members' election. - PASSED.

Old Business:

Negotiations with the Institute:

Agreements made at members meeting authorizing the split were re-read. It was noted that we never got a positive response to our proposals.

Discussion of "Do we still want to reconcile?" and "What would our aim be?"; the latter especially in the light of the fact that we have both gone public already.

Art Weiners wishes it noted in the minutes that he would not vote the same on item #3 (at that member's meeting) now as he did then.

Much discussion and motions/amendments on actual wording of policy regarding reconciliation. The original version was:

  • MOVED: That:

A) The policy of LLG be to continue to express an expressed desire of reconciliation with JCB and the Institute. B) There no longer be any special authority given to the pronouncements of JCB or the Institute about the language. and C) Lojban is Loglan.

Much of the discussion was on point C: over whether they could/would be considered "fighting words"; whether we would be seen as not believing that "Loglan" is validly applied to our language. The sense of the attendees seemed to be that we did indeed believe that "Lojban is Loglan" (or at least "... a Loglan"), but that, if they might be considered fighting words, they would be counter-productive in a policy that expresses a desire for reconciliation. This is all the secretary's reading of what happened, put in for the benefit of those who were not present in order that they understand the areas of controversy; there may be differences of opinion with this reading.

The final result was:

  • MOVED: That:

A) Expending resources towards a reconciliation with JCB or the Institute is not a good use of resources at this time, but we remain open to such a reconciliation should their position change in the future. andB) There no longer be any special authority given to the pronouncements of JCB or the Institute about the language. - PASSED.

Recess declared. Meeting suspended from 12:55 AM to 1:40 PM.

New Business:

Adoption of an Electronic Distribution Policy:

Proposed electronic distribution policy read.

Discussion/suggestions:

What is a "dictionary"? Why in class B?

Consider amending policy in 6 months?

Distribute on-line, but also print (and charge for printed copies). The electronic community is the most active community. Until we have at least 2000 people, we need to draw in more; each added person is potential money for hard-copy.

Experience of Free Software Foundation may not be transferable because of the differences in type of product.

What category is the mini-lesson? (Result - Public domain).

  • MOVED: To adopt the electronic distribution policy as presented, with the amendment of item 3 to "All materials except ... and other language definition materials...". - PASSED.

Business phone and computer Network support:

Costs for the Net access (UUnet) would be $30 per month plus some amount per hour connect charges. Business phone would be $18.02 per month plus 10 cents per call; there is a one-time charge of $100 for installation.

Consideration of re-baselining grammar:

  • MOVED: To a) Adopt the 28 proposed changes to the grammar. b) Freeze the grammar until the end of the textbook review period. - PASSED.

Voluntary Credit Policy:

Athelstan presented a framework for allowing voluntary credits and asked that it be approved in spirit. It provided for voluntary credit to be given for:

  • Adding to the corpus of literature
  • Relieving administrative burdens
  • Recruitment of funds
  • Technical work
  • Adding significantly to the number of speakers (e.g. teaching a class)

John Cowan added: Contributing to the diversity of lojban speakers (to help provide for foreign speakers).

Discussion:

Only apply credit to the limit of extra funds available, and only if needed. This was generally agreed to.

Who submits the proposed people? Who prioritizes the list?

  • MOVED: To adopt Athelstans Voluntary Credit framework with details to be worked out. - PASSED. Voluntary balance system:

Proposal to evolve toward a subscription basis for JL in a 6-month to 1 year time range:

a) Fundraiser, asking for indication "do/don't" want to receive JL. Must be signed in writing; non-signers are subject to being dropped at our discretion. This will help if we need/want to go to 2nd-class for postage.b) If the form is sent back signed, or if the person has a positive balance, we will not drop them to LK at first. Later only positive balances (after voluntary credit applied) not subject to drop.c) Possibly also keep negatives (after voluntary credits applied) who respond to each issue; as loan-credits that we would expect to get repaid sometime. Maybe 1-issue slack instead?

Problems:

May lose 3rd class bulk rate. But if small difference, can send a few to ourselves. Also, may wish to go to 2nd class, but that requires $275 initially to apply; postage rate less that 3rd class afterwards.

  • MOVED: That we move towrard a subscription basis for JL. As a goal, all JL subscription would be paid for by subscribers, voluntary credits or specificly directed donations. - PASSED.

Discussion: Support for non-US lojbanists; voluntary credit applies.

  • MOVED: That we approve the resignation of Albion Zeglin. - PASSED.

Albion had earlier requested resignation from both the Board of Directors and the Membership in a phone call to Bob LeChevalier, with Nora LeChevalier as witness.

Proposed bylaw amendments: (see agenda for wording)

  • MOVED: That we accept proposed Bylaw Amendment #1 - PASSED.
  • MOVED: That we accept proposed Bylaw Amendment #2 - PASSED.
  • MOVED: That we accept proposed Bylaw Amendment #3 - PASSED.
  • MOVED: That we accept proposed Bylaw Amendment #4 - PASSED.

Our administrative expense, other than legal fees, is only $40.57 so far - less than 1%.

  • MOVED: That we accept proposed Bylaw Amendment #5 - PASSED.
  • MOVED: That we accept proposed Bylaw Amendment #6 - PASSED.

There was also a motion that we change the "10 days" notice for meetings to "15 days". However, since this was not on the agenda and not all members are present, the motion was withdrawn. However, we agreed that for the next meeting we would give 15 days notice. And, at the next annual meeting we would propose as changes to the bylaws:

  1. at least 15 calendar days notice for the members' meeting.
  1. at least 15 calendar days notice for all other required notices.
  1. Change the agenda order such that the voting on new members be done just after the committee reports and before the election of directors.

There was also a discussion of what membership involves and whether we should be trying to get at least one foreign member.

Gismu changes/additions:

Discussion of possibility of gismu for Esperanto.

Discussion of element words; which need gismu and which don't.

  • MOVED: That, for "neon", the keyword remain the same, by the meaning be changed to "inert gas". - PASSED.
  • MOVED: To put out a "reference-manual/dictionary" as higher priority than the textbook (after Chapter 1 of the textbook is done). - PASSED.

[[This was a result of discussions during LogFest weekend. It will put the reference materials all in one place & bound together for ease of use; it will also give us a product with minimal work (just updating existing documents).]]

Election of Directors:

John Cowan was proposed as an addition to the Board of Directors.

  • MOVED: To elect to the Board of Directors those currently on the Board plus John Cowan. - PASSED.

Discussion of proposal brought up during LogFest of submittor/LLG requirements for proposing/helping-with new lujvo. Proposal ultimately removed.

The third Annual Meeting of the Members of The Logical Language Group, Inc. was adjourned at approximately 4:50 PM EDT, pending call to John Parks-Clifford (pc) for his votes.

Later call to pc: He abstains on all issues.

I certify that the above motions were presented to all members present for discussion and approval, and that all motions were approved as noted. I further certify that these minutes are an accurate representation of the second Annual Meeting of the Members of The Logical Language Group, Inc.

Nora LeChevalier

Secretary/Treasurer