1999 annual business meeting: Academy of Accounting Historians, Westin Hotel, Toronto, Canada, November 20, 1999

              1999 ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING
ACADEMY OF ACCOUNTING HISTORIANS
Westin Hotel, Toronto, Canada
November 20, 1999
Present. Edward Coffman, Eugene Flegm,
Richard Fleischman, Dale Flesher, Eldon
Gardner, Finley Graves, Sarah Holmes, Tom
Lee, Cheryl McWatters, Gary Previts, Alan
Richardson, Vaughan Radcliffe, John Rigsby,
William Samson, Jeanette Sanfilippo,
Kathleen Sinning, Elliott Slocum, Gary
Spraakman, Rasoul Tondkar, Thomas Tyson,
Richard Vangermeersch, Charles Wootton
Non-members in attendance: David
Cooper and Jeffrey Kantor
Tom Lee called the meeting to order at 2:00
p.m.
1. Approval of Minutes - the minutes of
the last Officers and Trustees meeting
were approved.
2. President's Report (Tom Lee)
• Tom expressed the opinion that a one
year term for President may not be
enough to allow for learning and
implementation of an agenda. His
theme this year has been the interna­tionalization
of the Academy. Key ini­tiatives
were the Comparative
International Accounting History
Consortium held in Tuscaloosa and
the Toronto Research Conference. He
has also tried to change committee
memberships to reflect the distribu­tion
of the Academy's membership. A
second theme has been the need to
generate support for and awareness of
the Academy and accounting history.
Tom has attempted to do this through
his presence at numerous conferences
and workshops. He expressed his
thanks to members of the Academy
for their support in this role.
3. Secretary's Report (Alan Richardson)
• Alan recognized the important role
that Kathy Rice (Academy adminis­trator,
University of Alabama) has
played in taking over many of the
Secretary's duties. He presented
membership reports that show a
decline in membership over the last
year. The decline was mostly attrib­utable
to the loss of US members.
The total decline was off-set by an
increase in institutional membership.
4. Treasurer's Report (Sarah Holmes)
• Sarah reviewed the year's financial
operations and distributed a set of
financial statements.
5. Nominations Committee (Gary Previts)
• Gary Previts, on behalf of the com­mittee,
proposed the following slate
of officers:
Past President — Tom Lee
President - Kathy Sinning
President Elect - Finley Graves
First Vice President — Bill Samson
Second Vice President — Alan Richardson
Secretary - Gary Spraakman
Treasurer — Sarah Holmes (Treasurer-elect
Cheryl McWatters)
Trustees — Tom Lee; Salvador Carmona;
Garry Carnegie; Peter Clarke
• There was a call for nominations from
the floor. There were none.
• Moved: to accept the slate of officers
and trustees. Motion approved
6. Other Business
• Vaughan Radcliffe moved that a com­mittee
be struck to revise the by-laws
of the Academy in order to improve
the transparency and accessibility of
Academy governance processes.
There was a vigorous discussion of
this motion. It was questioned
whether or not the problem alluded to
The Accounting Historians Notebook, April, 2000 15