held at the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene
28 Portland Place, London, on 16th May 2002.

The 2002 Annual General Meeting of the British Computer Society Fortran Specialist Group was held at 11.15am on Thursday, 16th May 2002.

1.  Apologies for absence:

Apologies for absence were received from Sammani Abdullahi, David Briggs, Miles Ellis, Martin Harman, Steve Morgan and Lawrie Schonfelder.

2.  Minutes of previous AGM:

The minutes of the previous AGM, held on 16th May 2001, were accepted as a correct record.

3.  Matters Arising:

There were no matters arising other than those on the agenda.

4.  Chairman's Report:

The chairman's annual report was tabled. The report was approved (proposed by John Young, seconded by Peter Crouch). The chairman drew particular attention to the successful reception held in July for delegates to the ISO WG5 meeting in London, to which all members of the Group were also invited. He also noted the BCS Re-Branding project, the effects of which had become more prominent during the past year.

He thanked colleagues for their assistance in the past two years but re-affirmed his decision to resign as chairman at this meeting.

5. Membership Secretary's Report:

The membership secretary was unable to attend. It was reported that the paper mailing for this meeting had been sent by BCS HQ to 227 members, of which two were formal entries for BCS and IEE HQ; there were 86 addresses in the bcs-fsg e-mail list.

It was thought advantageous to have as many members as possible accessible by e-mail but there was some difference of opinion on whether it would be appropriate to try to prune the lists of inactive or non-BCS members at this stage, given that a Fortran Forum was being proposed for later in the year and wide publicity was desirable.

The secretary was to ask BCS HQ for an up to date list of members' e-mail addresses. [This yielded a list of 149 names, but not all of the supplied e-mail addresses were valid]. It was thought that BCS Connect would eventually provide the necessary information on-line.

6. Treasurer's Report:

The treasurer presented accounts for the year; these were accepted (proposed by Peter Crouch, seconded by John Reid). The Group had three accounts: a Gold and a current account with total assets of £3,200.98 at 30 April 2002, plus a requested HQ allowance of £1,780 for the financial year 2002/2003 [this was confirmed after the meeting].

The budget was based on proposed expenditure of £400 for the AGM (room hire and speakers' expenses), £330 for stationery and postage, £500 to support a promotional event and £550 to support the ISO Fortran Convenor's activities.

John Reid, ISO Fortran convenor, thanked the Group for support in the past year. Although BSI provided some financial support to working group convenors for meetings outside the UK, there was none for meetings in the UK and Group funds had facilitated his attendance at the WG5 meeting in London last year. John said that he may not need the Group's contribution in the coming year but it could be of benefit to others participating in UK Fortran standardization work.

The treasurer reported that the Group had applied for £6,200 under the BCS Specialist Groups Development Fund Programme for enhancing UK input to Fortran 2000 standardization. Specifically, it would allow three people to attend each of the two WG5 meetings to be held during 2003, and it would pay the subscription to BSI for the BSI Fortran convenor for the calendar year 2003. Peter Crouch said that the BCS was concerned with raising the profile of the Society internationally. The meeting approved the principle of supporting this work. [Shortly after the meeting it was learned that the application had been successful.]

7. Web Editor's Report:

The web editor's annual report was tabled. The editor noted that the main activity in the past year had been to redesign all the pages to conform to the new BCS branding. He continued to receive few comments on the pages and was unsure as to whether this was due to lack of use. He was to check usage figures with the BCS webmaster. The report was approved (proposed by David Muxworthy, seconded by John Young).

8. bcs-fsg e-mail list:

It was reported that there had been 13 messages to the list in the past year. The secretary said that it may be necessary to find either a new list owner or a new list server during the coming year. Various possibilities were discussed, including BCS Connect.

9. Future Activities:

It was confirmed that NAG had no plans to repeat the Fortran Futures events held in 1996 and 1998.

It was decided to organize a Fortran Forum to publicize Fortran 2000. If it were held in late October it could be based on the ISO Committee Draft, which would then be out for public comment. It was envisaged that a room for about 100 people would be required from approximately 11am to 4pm. Venues in London and Birmingham were suggested, with a preference for the former, and Chris Lazou and Peter Crouch respectively were to investigate further. A fee should be charged to encourage attendance, although the main intention was to publicize Fortran rather than to make a profit. Peter Crouch would check what administrative assistance BCS HQ could give and what charge would be made.

John Reid would devise the programme, which was likely to be three presentations each followed by discussion. The main publicity should be in August, with an advert to 'watch this space' to be made as soon as practicable.

[The Fortran 2000 Forum has now been arranged for Wednesday 30 October 2002 at the Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU.]

10. Election of Officers:

All the officers resigned and elections for new officers took place. After considerable discussion, Peter Crouch agreed to become chairman, with Chris Lazou replacing John Young as vice-chairman. The other office-bearers were unanimously re-elected en bloc. The officers for the year 2002/2003 are thus:

David Muxworthy was to continue as Archivist.

11. Date of next Annual General Meeting:

No date was fixed for the 2003 Annual General Meeting. It was subsequently provisionally arranged for Thursday, 15th May, 2003.