Committee Meeting Minutes for 1984

Minutes of the meeting of the Committee of the British Mathematical Colloquium held in Hiatt Baker Hall, University of Bristol on Wednesday April 11th , 1984, at 8.30 p.m.

Members Present: I. T. Adamson, A. R. Camina, J. W. S. Cassels, A. W. Chatters, P. M. Cohn, H. R. Dowson, D. J. H. Garling, J. R. Hubbuck, T. W. Körner, C. J. Mulvey, D. R. Oates, J. O'Connor, A. R. Pears, H. E. Rose (acting for B. Bollobas), J. C. Shepherdson, J. P. Sproston.
  1. Prof. Cassels was elected Chairman and Dr Bollobas was elected Secretary (with Dr Rose acting Secretary for this meeting only).
  2. The minutes of the meeting held in Aberdeen in April 1983 were read and agreed. There were no matters arising.
  3. There was a general discussion concerning the finances of the BMC. A letter had been received from the London Mathematical Society suggesting that the balances should be run down from their present figure of £7000+ to about £5000 over a period. The Committee did not fully agree. It was suggested that the Cambridge Organising Committee should aim for level funding or possibly a slight deficit. Dr Mulvey suggested that if money was available some financial encouragement should be offered to research students, possibly by reducing their conference fee. The Committee left this with the Cambridge members to consider.
  4. Future meetings. The Secretary had written to Prof. Burgess, University of Nottingham, concerning the possibility of a BMC there in 1989, and an acceptance had been received. This will need to be confirmed for the General Meeting in 1985 (in Cambridge). Further, an offer to host the BMC had been received from the University of East Anglia and it was felt that this should be taken up for 1990. Also, the possibility of a BMC at the University of Bath should not be forgotten.
  5. There was a long discussion concerning the 1985 programme.
  6. At the General Meeting earlier in the day, the rule that there should be no questions or discussion after the evening lecture was referred to the Committee for further consideration. The Committee felt that there should be no change in this rule. Some reasons were:
    • if a long discussion ensued then members might be late for dinner, or to catch a train;
    • there was always the possibility to discuss points with the speaker over a drink later;
    • there was a danger that any discussion would soon become very specialised and this would not be helpful for the general audience, and
    • we did not wish to offend our international guests by either too aggressive questioning or total silence.
  7. The committee unanimously passed a vote of thanks to the Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer of the Organising Committee for their hard work in preparing the Bristol meeting.
The meeting closed at 10.25 p.m.

H. E. Rose.