Fukuoka JALT heads into 2020
Our annual general meeting and officer election night was held on October 19, with the following changes being made to our line-up of officers:
J. Lake is choosing to step down as program chair, with Trevor Holster offering to take the position (unopposed).
Miki Tokunaga is coming into a member-at-large role, to assist with publicity for the chapter.
No other officer positions were nominated for, so, according to our chapter constitution, the Fukuoka JALT members present at the AGM were able to vote by a show of hands to approve of the officer appointments for the coming year.
Updated list of elected officer positions:
Chapter President: Steve Paton
Membership Chair: Soren Leaver
Program Chair: Trevor Holster
Publicity Chair: Bill Pellowe
Treasurer: Tim Pritchard
Updated list of appointed officer positions:
Social Chair: Miho Tani
Member At Large: Robert Chartrand
Member At Large: Dominic Marini
Member At Large: Miki Tokunaga
Each officer gave a short report, the write-ups of which are below.
Membership Chair: Soren Leaver
Membership over the past 12 months has been stable and has grown in comparison to the 12 months preceding it.
In the previous year, our lowest monthly membership number was 66, whereas this year it was 74. Likewise, the previous years max was 77, whereas this years it was 85. Finally, the previous year's average monthly membership was 69, whereas this year’s average was 80.
Treasurer: Tim Pritchard
PART 1: Total Balance
As of 31st March 2019, the end of the 2018 Fiscal Year (FY18), Fukuoka Chapter balance was 290,474yen, which was an increase compared to the previous year’s balance of 242,801yen at the end of FY17.
PART 2: Internal Examination
The Fukuoka Chapter passed the FY18 treasury examination.
PART 3: Current financial situation in FY19
As of 31st Sept, 2019, Fukuoka Chapter balance has a healthy 433,450yen. Our annual chapter grant from JALT in July 2019 was 180,819yen (calculated as Base Grant = 125,000yen + 706.57yen for every member; Fukuoka Chapter had 79 members as of April 1st 2018). This year’s grant was slightly larger than last year’s. Last year’s was 166,808yen (calculated with the same Base Grant of 125,000yen but with the smaller amount of 572.71yen for every member. Also, last year the grant calculation had six less members (73).
PART 4: Financial plans for the rest of FY19 and upcoming FY20.
We have sufficient funds to bring in at least two speakers each year from outside Kyushu. Where possible we hope to continue to save a considerable amount of money by using Elgala 6F (Daimaru, Kurume Satellite Tenjin Campus), thanks to Robert Chartrand who books on our behalf. Previously we often used the more expensive ACROS building.
Publicity: Bill Pellowe
I’ve been posting about our meetings to social media and relevant websites:
Instagram: Started April 20, 2019.
https://www.instagram.com/fukuoka_jalt
15 posts, 90 followers, 27 following
Twitter: Started November 2010,
https://twitter.com/FukuokaJALT @fukuokajalt
33 posts (post history only goes back to April 20, 2019), 123 followers, 33 following
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fukuokaJALT/
115 members. Posts include Events (our events added as “events” to Facebook)
Others:
JALT.org’s event calendar, ELT Calendar, and Fukuoka NOW classifieds section for events
Program Chair: J. Lake
This has been a great year for presentations for the Fukuoka Chapter. We have had fourteen different presenters and an event every month of this year. Our monthly meetings have served as a useful way for JALT members to develop professionally as teachers. We have had a diverse range of topics relating to motivation, teaching methods, applied linguistics research, technology, communication, and language teaching and learning.
President: Steve Paton
I took over as president in April, with the chapter’s year already mostly mapped out, speakers and venues booked, and no looming crises. I’m glad of that, as I’ve been on enough of a steep learning curve as it is.
As president, I represented the chapter at the June Executive Board Meeting in Nagoya. I was personally impressed to see the inner workings of JALT, which is, simply, a very good group of people putting in an enormous effort into making JALT as good an organisation as it can be. The bewildering array of committees, working groups, rules, by-laws, discussions, proposals, motions, and votes impressed me as being simply the necessary behind-the-scenes work that an organisation the size and scale of JALT needs in order to be legitimate, useful, and valuable to all members and stakeholders. Everyone working hard within JALT (and there are a lot of people working very hard) is only doing so for the sake of JALT being of professional and personal benefit to us all as members. I continue to be impressed by JALT overall.
With the chapter AGM over, it’s time to thank outgoing program chair J. Lake for his several years in the role. The chapter owes J. a debt of gratitude for compiling a comprehensive and diverse program of events and presentations. Thankfully, he’ll be staying on as member-at-large.
We also need to thank, in advance, incoming program chair Trevor Holster, and incoming member-at-large and assistant to the publicity chair, Miki Tokunaga. More hands on deck makes the work of each officer a little easier, and helps us run the chapter. I’ll be continuing to push for more Fukuoka JALT members to chip in as shadow/assistant officers. We’re all only in this to help each other, so the more of us doing a little to help, the better off we’ll all be!
In the next year, I’ll be making an effort to go through our chapter constitution and by-laws and come up with amendments to be approved by members at next year’s AGM. There are parts of the constitution and by-laws which don’t make a lot of sense, and they’re overdue for amending having not been changed since 2012. That will be quite an effort involving a lot of careful rewriting, consultations with the executive board, lots of publicity so as to achieve proper and appropriate levels of transparency, and, of course, approval by the requisite proportion of members. Keep an eye out for progress reports.
Our annual general meeting and officer election night was held on October 19, with the following changes being made to our line-up of officers:
J. Lake is choosing to step down as program chair, with Trevor Holster offering to take the position (unopposed).
Miki Tokunaga is coming into a member-at-large role, to assist with publicity for the chapter.
No other officer positions were nominated for, so, according to our chapter constitution, the Fukuoka JALT members present at the AGM were able to vote by a show of hands to approve of the officer appointments for the coming year.
Updated list of elected officer positions:
Chapter President: Steve Paton
Membership Chair: Soren Leaver
Program Chair: Trevor Holster
Publicity Chair: Bill Pellowe
Treasurer: Tim Pritchard
Updated list of appointed officer positions:
Social Chair: Miho Tani
Member At Large: Robert Chartrand
Member At Large: Dominic Marini
Member At Large: Miki Tokunaga
Each officer gave a short report, the write-ups of which are below.
Membership Chair: Soren Leaver
Membership over the past 12 months has been stable and has grown in comparison to the 12 months preceding it.
In the previous year, our lowest monthly membership number was 66, whereas this year it was 74. Likewise, the previous years max was 77, whereas this years it was 85. Finally, the previous year's average monthly membership was 69, whereas this year’s average was 80.
Treasurer: Tim Pritchard
PART 1: Total Balance
As of 31st March 2019, the end of the 2018 Fiscal Year (FY18), Fukuoka Chapter balance was 290,474yen, which was an increase compared to the previous year’s balance of 242,801yen at the end of FY17.
PART 2: Internal Examination
The Fukuoka Chapter passed the FY18 treasury examination.
PART 3: Current financial situation in FY19
As of 31st Sept, 2019, Fukuoka Chapter balance has a healthy 433,450yen. Our annual chapter grant from JALT in July 2019 was 180,819yen (calculated as Base Grant = 125,000yen + 706.57yen for every member; Fukuoka Chapter had 79 members as of April 1st 2018). This year’s grant was slightly larger than last year’s. Last year’s was 166,808yen (calculated with the same Base Grant of 125,000yen but with the smaller amount of 572.71yen for every member. Also, last year the grant calculation had six less members (73).
PART 4: Financial plans for the rest of FY19 and upcoming FY20.
We have sufficient funds to bring in at least two speakers each year from outside Kyushu. Where possible we hope to continue to save a considerable amount of money by using Elgala 6F (Daimaru, Kurume Satellite Tenjin Campus), thanks to Robert Chartrand who books on our behalf. Previously we often used the more expensive ACROS building.
Publicity: Bill Pellowe
I’ve been posting about our meetings to social media and relevant websites:
Instagram: Started April 20, 2019.
https://www.instagram.com/fukuoka_jalt
15 posts, 90 followers, 27 following
Twitter: Started November 2010,
https://twitter.com/FukuokaJALT @fukuokajalt
33 posts (post history only goes back to April 20, 2019), 123 followers, 33 following
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fukuokaJALT/
115 members. Posts include Events (our events added as “events” to Facebook)
Others:
JALT.org’s event calendar, ELT Calendar, and Fukuoka NOW classifieds section for events
Program Chair: J. Lake
This has been a great year for presentations for the Fukuoka Chapter. We have had fourteen different presenters and an event every month of this year. Our monthly meetings have served as a useful way for JALT members to develop professionally as teachers. We have had a diverse range of topics relating to motivation, teaching methods, applied linguistics research, technology, communication, and language teaching and learning.
President: Steve Paton
I took over as president in April, with the chapter’s year already mostly mapped out, speakers and venues booked, and no looming crises. I’m glad of that, as I’ve been on enough of a steep learning curve as it is.
As president, I represented the chapter at the June Executive Board Meeting in Nagoya. I was personally impressed to see the inner workings of JALT, which is, simply, a very good group of people putting in an enormous effort into making JALT as good an organisation as it can be. The bewildering array of committees, working groups, rules, by-laws, discussions, proposals, motions, and votes impressed me as being simply the necessary behind-the-scenes work that an organisation the size and scale of JALT needs in order to be legitimate, useful, and valuable to all members and stakeholders. Everyone working hard within JALT (and there are a lot of people working very hard) is only doing so for the sake of JALT being of professional and personal benefit to us all as members. I continue to be impressed by JALT overall.
With the chapter AGM over, it’s time to thank outgoing program chair J. Lake for his several years in the role. The chapter owes J. a debt of gratitude for compiling a comprehensive and diverse program of events and presentations. Thankfully, he’ll be staying on as member-at-large.
We also need to thank, in advance, incoming program chair Trevor Holster, and incoming member-at-large and assistant to the publicity chair, Miki Tokunaga. More hands on deck makes the work of each officer a little easier, and helps us run the chapter. I’ll be continuing to push for more Fukuoka JALT members to chip in as shadow/assistant officers. We’re all only in this to help each other, so the more of us doing a little to help, the better off we’ll all be!
In the next year, I’ll be making an effort to go through our chapter constitution and by-laws and come up with amendments to be approved by members at next year’s AGM. There are parts of the constitution and by-laws which don’t make a lot of sense, and they’re overdue for amending having not been changed since 2012. That will be quite an effort involving a lot of careful rewriting, consultations with the executive board, lots of publicity so as to achieve proper and appropriate levels of transparency, and, of course, approval by the requisite proportion of members. Keep an eye out for progress reports.