ANZABS

ANZABS AGM 2006

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Biblical Studies held at Knox Church, Christchurch, Friday, 8th December, 2006; 8.45 – 9.05 a.m.

Present: Paul Trebilco (chair), Alesana Eteuati, Mark Keown, Geoff Aimers, Tim Bulkeley, Kevin Waldie, Kathleen Rushton, Judith McKinlay, Laurel Lanner, Alice Sinnott, Don Moffat, Tim Meadowcroft, Gerard Ellis, Deborah Bower, Ken Booth, Tom Innes, John Douglas, Chris Caradus, Ren Kempthorne, Peter Carrell, Derek Tovey (minutes), Gillian Townsley (late).

Apologies: Lynne Wall

Minutes of the last meeting: The minutes of the last meeting were confirmed.

Forthcoming Meetings:

It was noted that in 2008 the International SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) Meeting would be held in Auckland, July 6- 11. This means that there will not be a separate ANZABS Conference that year, though an ANZABS-related meeting may be held during the SBL Conference.

The ANZABS Conference in 2007 will be held December 3 & 4, at the Bible College of New Zealand, Auckland.

Visitors in 2007
It was noted that the following persons would be visiting New Zealand in 2007.
Joel Green, in Auckland, 22-26 January.
Justin Taylor, in Auckland, Semester 1.
Craig Blomberg – July
John Webster – mid-year
Alex Awad – mid-February to July
Joan Chichester
Francis Watson – end of 2007.
(Terence Fretheim will be in Australia, should anyone wish to invite him across the Tasman).

Processing paper offers for future ANZABS Conferences.
There was a discussion about what strategy should be adopted in future should there be a large offering of papers, as happened this year. (All papers were accepted this year, which resulted in the fact that some papers had to be offered in parallel sessions). In the end, it was decided that it should be left to the conference organising committee to “play it by ear”; but that there should be a quota system (when required) to ensure that postgraduate students get a good opportunity to present papers. Further, it may be that those who presented at the previous year’s conference be asked to forego the opportunity to give a paper the next year, if too many papers were offered.

ANZABS Convening Committee for 2007
Paul Trebilco, Kevin Waldie, Mark Keown, Derek Tovey

Finances
It was agreed that the policy of not requiring a membership fee be continued for another year.
Kevin Waldie reported that there was about $700 sitting in the ANZABS account. It was suggested that this money should be used to sponsor people (perhaps a couple) from the Pacific to attend the 2008 SBL International Meeting. In order to build up funds for such a proposal, it was agreed that $10 should be added to next year’s conference fee.

Hypertext Bible Commentary
Tim Meadowcroft was reappointed to the Board of the Hypertext Commentary Bible project.

Colloquium
Derek Tovey (Book Review Editor) invited people interested in reviewing books for Colloquium to send him an email indicating their areas of interest. Tim Meadowcroft (co-editor) invited submission of articles. It was reported that arrangements were being made to make issues available electronically (on e.g. EBSCO).

Vote of Thanks
The meeting extended a vote of thanks to Ken Booth and Tom Innes for their work in preparing for and hosting this year’s conference.

posted by Derek Tovey @ 10:55 am