Minutes of the
THE BRITISH SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY
Annual General Meeting
University of Northumbria
5th July 2011
Present:
Mike Hough (Outgoing President), Loraine Gelsthorpe (Incoming President), Andrew Williams (Treasurer), Kate Williams (Executive Secretary), Mark Simpson (Chair, Conference Committee), Nic Groombridge (new Prizes Committee Chair), Susie Atherton (new Postgraduate Committee Chair), Anthea Hucklesby (Chair, Women, Crime and Criminal Justice Network), Peter Squires (Chair, Public Relations Committee), Anne Logan, Vicky Kemp. Charlotte Bilby, Neal Hazel, Xuan Niu, Michelle Miao, Jianhua Xu, Megan O’Neill, Malcolm Ramsay, Hazel Croall, Stephen Parrott, Ruth Chigwada- Bailey, Pamela Davies, Bankole Cole, Catherine Appleton, Steve Tong, Marisa Silvestri, Charlotte Harris (BSC), Mandy Ross (BSC), Misri Divyashree, Jake Phillips, Hanneke Mol. Anna Barker, Rachel Southworth, Nicholas Lord, Hiroaki Ono, Daniel Bear
ORDINARY BUSINESS
1. Apologies for absence
Apologies had been received from Allan Brimicombe, Simon Mackenzie, Chris Lewis, Malcolm Cowburn, Andrew Millie
2. Report of the Directors
The Report of the Directors was submitted to the meeting and approved.
3. President’s Review of 2010/11
Outgoing President Mike Hough highlighted the key events and activities of the year. He spoke of the risks the Society faces in the current financial climate and the need to find a place for one of its main money generators, the annual conference, in the face of competition from the ESC, ASC and other criminological conferences. He welcomed in this regard the recent expansion of the specialist networks in the Society – with three new networks Women, Crime and Criminal Justice, Learning and Teaching and Policing joining the successful Youth Criminology and Youth Justice and Crime and Justice Statistics Networks.
The Society’s journal Criminology and Criminal Justice continues to thrive and has recently been rated for the first time by the Thomson Reuters Social Sciences Citation Index – at 0.37 not a high rating but this would to be expected for a first rating. The publication continues to bring in a good rate of royalties.
Mike Hough said he has committed much of his time as President to lobbying work with public bodies such as the British Academy, ESRC, Home Office Ministry of Justice, HEFCE and HESA to improve the status of criminology as a discipline and the BSC as an important academic grouping. He welcomed the announcement of 14 criminologists onto the three main REF 2014 Panels to which criminologists submit their work, an improvement on the last research assessment exercise. Recently the BSC had joined forces with the Academy of Social Sciences to produce a Crime version of the AcSS’ Making the Case series which showcases social science research which has had a policy or practical impact.
Administratively, the Society was well served by the newly renamed Executive Director Charlotte Harris and the Office Administrator Mandy Ross and Mike thanked them for their work.
4. Treasurer’s Report for January 2010 to December 2010
The Treasurer reported that the Society was in a relatively healthy financial position with no immediate need to increase the subscription rates although the Society would continue to look at alternative forms of income generation.
Direct Debit announcement. The Treasurer said that although the direct debit system had been introduced in 2008 for membership subscriptions there were around 150 outdated standing order payments still being received by the Society. These generated an administrative and accounting burden and it had been decided by the Executive Committee that there would be no further refunds of standing order payments from 2009 and 2010 after September 30 this year. This will be announced on the website, in the ebulletin and in individual letters to as many of the people involved as can be identified. Standing orders can only be stopped by the payer not by the payee.
5. Receipt and adoption of Statement of Accounts and Balance Sheet for the period January 2010 to December 2010
Agreed by members present
6. Elections
The Executive Secretary confirmed that there were no contested posts and therefore the following people were confirmed as elected:
Chair, Prizes Committee – Nic Groombridge (St Mary’s University College. London)
Chair, Postgraduate Committee – Susie Atherton (De Montfort University)
Chair, Ethics Committee – Malcolm Cowburn (Sheffield Hallam University)
Chair, Professional Affairs Committee – Azrini Wahidin (Queen’s University, Belfast)
SPECIAL BUSINESS
7. Minutes of the last AGM 13th July 2010
These had been sent to all members and were accepted as an accurate record.
8. Matters arising
There were no matters arising.
9. Conference matters
The Conference Committee chair reported that last year’s conference at Leicester had been successful for the Society both academically and financially and Northumbria was also going very well. The 2012 conference would be at Portsmouth University and, in a bid to give local organising teams more time to plan, a venue for the 2013 conference had also been chosen – Wolverhampton University. An invitation to tender for the 2014 conference would be published in the autumn.
10. BSC office and administration – including constitutional amendments
The incoming President said that the current Society administration worked very well and she thanked Charlotte and Mandy for their work.
A number of minor amendments to the Constitution identified by the Company Secretary Chris Lewis had been previously published on the BSC website and members were asked to agree them. None of them altered the workings of the Society but eliminated ambiguity or deleted anachronisms. The amendments were agreed.
11. Regional groups and specialist networks
The regional groups continue to provide events throughout the year and country to members and none-members regionally. A new splinter group of the North East group – the Yorkshire and Humberside group – had had its inaugural meeting in May. As mentioned previously the Society’s networks were also expanding.
12. Any other business
Loraine Gelsthorpe, the Incoming President thanked the Society for electing her as President and said she considered it an honour and challenge to continue the good work of her predecessors in the role. She said as a result of their work she thought the Society was in a good position to build on increasing the visibility, vision and voice of the Society and discipline of criminology. She commented that she had just been at a good session at the conference with the Home Office and Ministry of Justice and could see some possibilities for action there and she was keen to work on the Society’s relationship with government as well as with other professional services. She also said she wanted to look at other learned societies and examine the services they offered members. She finished by saying she would welcome ideas on how best to have a voice and influence.
Pam Davies, head of the organising committee at Northumbria University, asked for the holders of the eight bursaries offered to postgraduate students to attend the conference to introduce themselves. These were Misri Divyashree (SAGE International), Jake Phillips (Howard League) , Hanneke Mol. Anna Barker, Rachel Southworth, Nicholas Lord, Hiroaki Ono and Daniel Bear (sponsored by the Home Office, Policy Press and Routledge).
13. Date and venue of the next AGM
University of Portsmouth: time and date to be confirmed but within window 4-6 July 2012.