President's Report 2001

Dear EUROCALL members,

As President of EUROCALL I am pleased to submit the following report. In addition to my own activities on behalf of our association, this report reflects the activities of members of the EUROCALL Executive as well as the EUROCALL office at Hull.

For the past year, three activities need to be mentioned in particular: preparations for EUROCALL 2001, WorldCALL 2003, and EUROCALL's involvement in the EXPOLINGUA 2001 in Berlin in November.

As most of you will have seen, the main focus of activities was the preparation of EUROCALL 2001 at Nijmegen. We had an executive meeting there in March, visiting the site, and were very impressed with the high standards both in venue and technical facilities. As expected, preparations were going according to schedule, and this year's conference was indeed yet another highlight amongst the EUROCALL conferences. A word of thanks, therefore, to the Nijmegen team for the excellent work they put into this effort. Pre-conference workshops, the conference itself, and the fair and exhibition provided a perfect opportunity to find out about the latest developments in CALL and TELL.

A second focus for some of us representing EUROCALL on the WorldCALL steering committee was, of course, the decision on the date and venue of this important event planned for 2003. Two very strong bids were submitted, which did not make the job of selecting a venue an easy one. After long and careful deliberation via the web and sometimes face-to-face meetings, the decision was reached that WorldCALL 2003 will be held in Canada at Banff (in Alberta) from May 7 - 10, 2003. A word of thanks is due here to our former president Graham Davies, who headed the steering committee and handled the decision-taking process in the best possible manner. If you would like to be alerted to important WorldCALL information such as the dates for the conference, travel information, calls for papers and workshops, etc., visit the WorldCALL website and register on the announcement list.

As far as WorldCALL is concerned, it was also discussed amongst the representatives of the organisations and associations which are involved in the preparations for the 2003 conference to set in motion efforts to set up a formal umbrella association for all associations around the world in the field of CALL and TELL. Discussions regarding the stated aims and constitution of the WorldCALL association, and how best to progress towards its establishment, are ongoing. This association will not replace any of the existing organisations, but will, as an umbrella, most likely take a similar shape to that of the International Applied Linguistics Association (AILA).

One other important matter - very much in line with my proposal to get EUROCALL more involved in events at local and regional levels - is EUROCALL's involvement in this year's EXPOLINGUA in Berlin on November 16 - 18, 2001. We are officially preparing and hosting a CALL Workshop at this major exhibition, and our national representative for Germany, Stephan Pohlmann, and I are busy preparing the programme. We will both moderate the full-day event planned for the Saturday of the exhibition. While this will not generate funds for EUROCALL, it is a tremendous opportunity to give our organisation exposure and publicity not just in Germany, but also beyond as quite a number of colleagues from neighbouring countries (and further away) attend this event. EUROCALL is being heavily advertised via the EXPOLINGUA website, by means of printed exhibition brochures, and during the exhibition itself. I had several meetings with the project manager of the organisers in Berlin, discussing the details, and it looks like this may become more than just a one-year involvement. Our expertise is recognized by the organising body (ICEF), and it is appreciated that we put together a programme which bridges the gap between academic research and development and commercial developments.

In view of the way membership figures have developed, this type of activity is very important. Such involvement in regional events might generate new members, but it proves to those who already hold a EUROCALL membership that our association has a lot to offer both at international and regional levels. There is an urgent need to boost membership numbers, to ensure the financial stability of the association. The executive is, therefore, now initiating moves which will improve the quality of our services even further. One such activity is that we are preparing a survey of the needs and wishes of members, to be conducted via the Web. As far as the academic standards of our publications and conferences are concerned, we are preparing a document providing guidelines for authors of CALL presentations and publications. Robin Goodfellow (whom I thank very much for this effort) has put together a first draft, which is to be revised by the Executive Committee.

Obviously, relationships with our partner organisations are very important for us as an association. Luckily, I was given a travel grant by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to attend CALICO 2001 at Orlando and was thus able to represent EUROCALL there. I was made very welcome, and the relationship between these two organisations is very good. CALICO has adapted and adopted a North American version of the policy document which resulted from the research and development colloquium I hosted at my home institution (Essen University) in 1999, and this is being advertised as the result of this important cooperation between CALICO and EUROCALL as well as IALLT. Graham Davies attended this year's IALLT conference, representing us there, yet another indication of the fact that liaison and rapport between the major organisations in the field are very, very good. Please refer to the policy document in any suitable context. The European version and CALICO's adapted version are both now available.

One further issue needed our attention. You may remember that the elections at Dundee were conducted in a somewhat disorganised manner. I have therefore outlined a proposal to the executive to streamline the process of electing members of the Executive Committee in future. The executive had an intensive debate on this via our mailbase, and I put together a proposal based on these deliberations. The executive at the Nijmegen meeting accepted this, and the new procedure will be implemented at the 2002 conference. Full details of the arrangements will be posted on the EUROCALL website in advance of the nomination process, but a few core points should be mentioned here.

One important aspect is access to the AGM. With regard to this we will in future hand out voting/access cards to members prior to the meeting, thus making access and the checking of voting rights much easier. In order to avoid lengthy presentations of candidates at the AGM, and to ensure maximum transparency and democratic procedure, we will provide space and guidelines for "electronic canvassing" on the EUROCALL website. Ballot papers will be prepared and handed out to those entitled to vote in advance of the AGM. Access to a suitable number of ballot boxes will be checked on the basis of a show of voting card, thus ensuring speedy and orderly voting.

One other decision was reached by the executive as a move towards avoiding a situation where the whole Executive Committee would be due to stand for re-election in 2003: I myself as the President and Graham Davies as an elected member of the Executive will stand for re-election in 2002. This move will ensure, in the interest of continuity, that we will not in the future have a situation where both President and Vice-president need to be (re)elected in the same year. As a further move to ensure continuity, in 2003 the four members of the Executive who are scheduled to do so will stand down. Of the four candidates elected then, those with the third and fourth lowest number of votes will serve for two years only, thus creating a system whereby in the future two members of the committee will stand down each year. This might sound a bit complicated, but by proceeding in this way we will in future avoid a situation where the complete executive of EUROCALL needs to be elected in one single year. This was the intention in the original constitution and in the terms of office specified then.

Finally, to sum up the main points of this report, I would like to reiterate the following points:

To finish, I would like to thank the EUROCALL executive and the staff at our office in Hull for their support in my first year as President of EUROCALL. Also, I would like to thank all members of our organisation for their commitment to the field of CALL and TELL. I do hope that I have been able to justify the confidence expressed by voting me into office last year and promise to continue running my term of office in the best interest of EUROCALL.

Essen, August 2001
Bernd Rüschoff