Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Section of the American Folklore Society
American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, Milwaukee, WI
Meeting of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Section
Thursday, October 19, 2006, Hyatt Regency Hotel
1. The meeting was called to order at approximately 12:00 noon by co-conveners Polly Stewart and Craig Miller. Twelve people attended. A roster was circulated.
2. The minutes of the 2005 meeting were corrected in item 4d to read 1988 instead of 1998, and were then approved as corrected.
3. Reports and Announcements
Financial report (Polly). AFS manages the section�s finances and each year assesses our treasury, on a sliding scale, for the service. Last year AFS neglected to assess us and will do so belatedly in addition to assessing us for the current year. The exact total is not known but is estimated to be about $50. Our current balance is $719, out of which $100 will be taken to pay the winner of the 2006 student essay contest (see agenda item 4) and another$50 or so for the management fee. Any time someone joins the section (or renews membership), our balance goes up $5.
Encyclopedia. Polly announced for Mick Weems, who was unable to attend, that he has been talking with M. E. Sharpe Publishers about a possible Encyclopedia of LGBT Folklore.
4. Student Prize. Polly announced that we received one entry this year, a 35-page survey of scholarship on coming-out stories, by Sarah Moore of Memorial University of Newfoundland. The prize was awarded to the entry. [Polly will notify Ms. Moore of her winning the prize and will secure her mailing address and social security number (if this is required) so Tim Lloyd can send the $100 check. Polly announced she was stepping down from managing the student essay contest. Kay Turner volunteered to take the job.
5. Webpage updating and maintenance. This job is easy to handle, requiring only that one send prepared copy to AFS webmaster Jeff Borisch, jborisch@columbus.rr.com, who posts the copy. Items to be sent include updates on co-conveners, minutes of meetings, announcements (e.g., of the student essay contest), proposals for panels or other events at upcoming meetings, reports of events at earlier meetings, and the like. As co-convener, Craig Miller has been handling this duty, but it should be picked up by the new conveners once this year�s business is closed out. Craig expressed a willingness to consult with the new conveners on these matters.
6. Co-conveners for 2007. Polly and Craig are both stepping down, so two co-conveners are needed. The job: In about February, the co-conveners anticipate the upcoming Annual Meeting and notify the section membership about ideas for AFS programming that had been suggested at the section meeting the previous fall. [Note: These ideas are highlighted in boldface below, for reference.] During the Annual Meeting registration period at the end of March, the co-conveners request a section meeting time and place. Co-conveners in consultation with the membership prepare an agenda for the section meeting and conduct the meeting, one co-convener taking minutes. (The minutes, when submitted for posting on the section website, will serve as the Annual Report specified by AFS as a section requirement.) At the Annual Meeting, co-conveners attend the Conveners Breakfast hosted by Tim Lloyd, who brings the attendees up to date on AFS business and provides other information to take back to the sections.
Nominations. Mick Weems was unable to attend the section meeting but placed his name for co-convener. Eileen Condon was nominated from the floor. The two candidates were elected unanimously.
7. Other.
Items carried from last year: Jo Radner offered to manage the section�s listserv through American University. A university server would be superior to the commercial server, Yahoo, that we presently use. Elizabeth Adams, current LGBT section listserv manager, is also listserv manager for the AFS Women�s Section listserv housed at Indiana University, and said she would check with IU to see if the LGBT section could also be placed under the IU aegis. At time of section meeting the section�s listserv had 15 subscribers but there are many more who could be subscribing.
Ad hoc committee on gay-marriage statement. It was agreed that this initiative was meant for the Wisconsin gay-marriage referendum of 2006; there is now no point in pursuing it.
Oral History of LGBT Section (P. Stewart posting to listserv11/22/05). Apparently no section meeting records (agenda, minutes, roster) survive for 1984, 1989, 1990, and 1995-2001. The request is for people who attended during those years to attempt to reconstruct something of the meetings through memory and discussion. These materials would be written up and deposited in the AFS archives at Utah State University along with the documentary materials that have already been deposited as of June 2006.
Titles of papers on LGBT subjects presented at AFS since 2000 (P. Stewart posting to listserv 12/13/05). Joe Goodwin started a list of these in 1981 and maintained it until 2000, when he turned the task over to the Section. By consulting the AFS program book for the relevant year, John Bodner has prepared a list for 2002, but we remain in need of someone to do 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Cory Thorne offered to recruit a Memorial University student to compile this information.
Additional discussion continued on the following topics:
- Use of ethnographic research techniques to uncover causes of fear of gay marriage
- Older LGBT folklorists
- Possible ideas for AFS 2007 in Quebec
Presentation on the evolution of LGBT Studies in Folklore. Possible subject: Coming-out stories, acknowledging growth in our scholarship, from J. Levin�s sole conference paper in 1981 through to Sarah Moore�s lengthy 2006 survey of scholarship on the subject. An AFS drag show or party? Having a section dinner meeting instead of a hotel meeting?
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 1:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by the co-conveners
Craig Miller cmiller@utah.gov
Polly Stewart pxstewart@salisbury.edu
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