Minutes of the BCS Fortran Specialist Group AGM 1997

The 1997 Annual General Meeting of the BCS Fortran Specialist Group was held at 11 Mansfield Street, London, at 11.15am on 15th May 1997.

Present:
	Donald Alcock	Retired
	Philip Galloway	Roke Manor Research Ltd
	Edward Golton	Retired (ex RAL)
	Carol Hewlett	London School of Economics
	Chris Lazou	HiPerCom Consultants Ltd (Chair)
	David Muxworthy	University of Edinburgh
	John Young	AWE Blacknest

The Chairman, Chris Lazou, opened the meeting by getting the members present to introduce themselves.

1. Apologies for absence:
Apologies for absence were received from Martin Harman, Miles Ellis, John Pelan, and Peter Crouch.

2. Minutes of previous AGM:
The minutes of the previous AGM, held on 11th June 1996 were accepted without correction and were signed by the Chairman.

3. Matters Arising:
Item 5 of previous minutes: Ted Golton is in communication with BCS HQ to ensure the accuracy of the membership list.

4. Chairman's Report:
Chris Lazou presented his report (circulated with the agenda in March) and the meeting accepted it as read. In it he highlighted the fact that information on current Fortran 90 compilers and those supporting HPF are handled exclusively through the internet and thanked Miles Ellis, David Muxworthy and Mike Metcalf and others for their contributions. The plan had been to have a Fortran Forum to inform users of the status of the Fortran 95 standard and Fortran 2000, and to get their views so they could be incorporated into the BSI position which is transmitted to the ISO WG5 meetings. Unfortunately, this had not been accomplished.

In 1996 the World Wide Web home page was set up for the BCS Fortran Specialist Group at http://www.etrc.ox.ac.uk/BCS-FSG.html [since replaced by http://www.fortran.bcs.org]. This linked to information maintained by Miles Ellis on WG5 and other Fortran standards activities. You can navigate and obtain the latest on Fortran on-line via BCS Web pages. This is replacing the written material which used to be circulated to our members in the past. An e-mail list has also been set up for members to share information.
[2010: The list has been closed and replaced by a Fortran SG members discussion area on the BCS web site.]
Miles was again thanked for maintaining the files and also doing the tracking.

Chris said that this was his last AGM as Chair of the group, and thanked everybody for their support during his tenure in the last five years. "Your support and loyalty to the Fortran Group in the forthcoming year is crucial if the group is to survive", he said. Fortran has a future and practitioner's inputs are essential in identifying practical needs and helping the future development of the Fortran language.

John Young on behalf of the FSG meeting thanked the Chair for his diligent work over the last five years.

5. Membership Secretary's Report:
The Membership Secretary, Ted Golton, presented his report stating that the Group has 162 members, 135 of whom belong to the BCS, and 27 non-members. This year several non-BCS members who have not paid were dropped from the list. Eight new non-members are not shown on the list and Ted is to ask HQ for clarification.

6. Treasurer's Report:
The Treasurer, Ted Golton, presented his report on the Group's finances. He tabled the final accounts completed to 30th April. The Group has three accounts: a Gold, a current, and an HQ account. The Chairman, Chris Lazou, then signed the audited accounts and thanked Ted for his contribution. Finally, the meeting agreed that BCS members would still not be charged for membership of the Group.

7. Election of Officers:
All the officers resigned and elections for new officers took place. Chris Lazou remained in the Chair as he was not standing for re-election. The officers for the year 1997-1998 are:

	Chairman	John Young
	Vice-Chairman	Miles Ellis
	Secretary	David Muxworthy
	Treasurer	Ted Golton

8. Any Other Business:
It was agreed that the mailbase information should be sent to members again to encourage participation. This information was included in the Chairman's report in section 4. of these minutes.

There was a discussion on the future of the specialist group. It was thought that, although much of the information formerly distributed at meetings and in the minutes was now available more readily via the internet, it would give the UK IT community the wrong signal on the future of Fortran to disband the group at this stage. There was still a role for the group in promoting Fortran and in organizing occasional events.

It was agreed that the FSG should aim to put on a Fortran Forum in the spring of 1998 to publicize and promote Fortran 2000. This new standard is scheduled for ratification in year 2002. Chris agreed to help organize the event so long as he was paid expenses and nominal fee for his time. John Young, the new Chair was to put this in writing. Members are asked to propose date, venue and speakers. John Young and David Muxworthy agreed to develop ideas for the Forum with Miles Ellis.
[Subsequently, in view of the Visual Numerics/NAG-organized "Fortran Futures 98" conference to be held on 14 & 15 May 1998 at the Ramada Hotel, Heathrow, it was decided that the FSG should not hold a separate event and should aim to collaborate with NAG.]
[2010: An extensive report on the conference is available from the FSG web pages.]

9. Date of Next Meeting (AGM):
The next meeting of the Group will be the 1998 Annual General Meeting and will be held on 7th May, 1998.

Links updated May 2010

Comments on this or any other of the Group's pages should be sent by email to the FSG Web Editor.