held at 11 Mansfield Street, London, on 15th May 2003.

The 2003 Annual General Meeting of the British Computer Society Fortran Specialist Group was held at 11.15am on Thursday, 15th May 2003.

1.  Apologies for absence:

Apologies for absence were received from Sammani Abdullahi, David Briggs, Ian Chivers, Rosie Denham, Miles Ellis, Martin Harman, Phillip Kraven and John Young.

2.  Minutes of previous AGM:

The minutes of the 2002 AGM were accepted as a correct record subject to the correction of the day of the meeting, which was held on Thursday 16th May 2002. The minutes were approved (proposed by Chris Lazou, seconded by John Reid).

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 Reid, seconded by Chris Lazou). The chairman drew particular attention to the Forum held in October. It was considered to be very successful despite the small attendance. John Reid pointed out that it was probably the largest such meeting held anywhere in the world.

The chairman also drew attention to, and explained the reasons for, the proposed changes in BCS governance and in membership rules and urged all members to vote in the EGM to be held in September, whether they were for or against the proposals.

He thanked all colleagues for their assistance in the first year of his chairmanship. He was in turn thanked for all his work and particularly for bringing to realization the long-discussed proposal to hold a Fortran Forum.

5.  Treasurer's Report:

The treasurer presented accounts for the year; these were accepted (proposed by John Reid, seconded by Chris Lazou). The Group had three accounts: a Gold and a current account with total assets of £2,343.53 at 30 April 2003; bids for the third account, the HQ allowance which was the main source of Group funding, had not yet been requested by HQ for the current financial year.

The treasurer noted that the Forum made a loss of approximately £500, but would have broken even had only ten more people attended. The other principal expenditure arose from the decision by the committee to fund a member to attend the ISO Fortran meeting in August 2002. This was partly in consequence of the BCS Specialist Groups Development Fund Programme supporting the Group to send three members to the two subsequent ISO Fortran meetings, in 2003.

The chairman noted that support of development of Fortran 2000 was one of the most important group activities.

The Group non-member fee of £10 had been waived for the past several years. This was because of the difficulty of collecting it and because it was thought unreasonable to charge an fee for receipt of two mailings and a few e-mail messages each year. It was decided (motion proposed by Peter Crouch and seconded by David Muxworthy) to abolish the non-member fee.

6.  Membership Secretary's Report:

The membership secretary was unable to attend as he was attending a family funeral; Peter Crouch had sent condolences on behalf of the Group. It was explained that BCS HQ kept the definitive set of members, using postal addresses, of which there were 227 at the latest report. The e-mail list bcs-fsg@jiscmail.ac.uk was maintained by the Group's officers and did not have e-mail addresses for all of the 227; moreover it had a few e-mail addresses for people who were not on the postal address list. This rather loose system had been brought largely under control during the year but more needed to be done. It was thought that the new BCS Connect system (below), using a single database, would eliminate possible confusion.

7.  BCS Connect:

A letter had been sent on May 9 to all members by Lynne Sturgess (Connect Development Manager) on behalf of the chairman. This was to apprise members of the BCS Connect system which contained a database of Group members and which offered electronic distribution and discussion facilities for the Group officers and for Group members in general, whether or not they were BCS members. Members would also be able to edit their own contact details.

It was decided that the current web form for potential new members should be redirected to send details to BCS HQ rather than to the Secretary and that Lynne Sturgess should be asked to contact also those members for whom only the e-mail address was known.

It was decided that the bcs-fsg mailing list would be closed on 31 December 2003, after due warning that it had been superseded by Connect facilities.

8.  Web Editor's Report:

The web editor's annual report was tabled. The editor noted that Group's web pages had received an honorable mention in the Specialist Groups Publication Awards competition, which had been won by the Nursing SG. He had requested access figures from the BCS Webmaster but had as yet received no details; he was to repeat the request.

The pages were checked using the W3C validator to achieve as wide browser independence as possible. The report was approved.

9.  Future Activities:

Discussion of future activities was deferred to be held over lunch. Topics raised included another Forum to promote the revised Fortran standard and collect suggestions for the next revision, one to promote the teaching of Fortran in higher education and consideration of promoting Fortran for use in the BCS Programming Competition. It was also suggested that future activities could usefully be discussed on the new BCS Connect system once it was established.

10.  Election of Officers:

All the officers resigned and elections for new officers took place. Peter Crouch agreed to continue as chairman (proposed by John Reid, seconded by David Muxworthy). Sam Ellis and Alistair Mills were nominated as secretary and treasurer respectively (both proposed by Peter Crouch and seconded by David Muxworthy). Chris Lazou resigned as vice-chairman and was replaced by David Muxworthy. The other office-bearers were unanimously reelected en bloc. The officers for the year 2003/2004 are thus:

David Muxworthy was to continue as Archivist.

11.  Other Business:

Dr Abdullahi of UAE University had offered to be the Group's representative in the Middle East and Africa. It was decided that while he could publicize the existence of the Group on a personal basis, he could not be its formal representative. Meanwhile the chairman would check if there were any official BCS representation in the UAE. (Since the meeting it has been established that there is no official BCS representation in the Middle East or the Gulf. The chairman has e-mailed Dr Abdullahi to thank him for his offer and convey the above information.)

Peter Crouch presented David Muxworthy on his retirement as secretary and treasurer with an inscribed commemorative plaque to mark his association with the Group over "one third of a century". He also thanked David for all his work on behalf of the wider Fortran community.

12.  Date of next Annual General Meeting:

No date was fixed for the 2004 Annual General Meeting. It would probably be held in the second or third week of May 2004.