2021

I. Chapter President: Heather McCulloch

OVERVIEW

My local duties as chapter president were to help coordinate chapter roles, maintain group communication, and help out each officer whenever needed. JALT-wide duties were to attend Executive Board Meetings (EBMs) in Tsukuba in February and online in June. Also connected with JALT-wide duties were to communicate urgent matters to our community whenever necessary and encourage our members to vote during the AGM in order to meet quorum for validation of meeting. I regularly stay up-to-date with all JALT news through the EBM Net and Basecamp.

LOOKING AHEAD

1. I’d like to do more collaborations with other chapters.  This is a good time for us to work together, get to know other people and strengthen the community. 

2. I’d like to discuss the possibility of the return of the Summer Workshop.

3. I would like to consider and discuss the possibilities of having meeting at different times and different days.  

4. I would like to hear everyone’s opinion on ways we can further improve Gunma JALT.

II. Treasurer: Sylvain Bergeron

Beginning November 2020 until October 2021, the Gunma JALT Treasurer’s duties and responsibilities have included the following:

• Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, contacted invited speakers prior to online events to obtain bank account details for payment of honoraria via electronic bank transfer 

• Finalized payment of honoraria and the filing of electronic bank transfer receipts for invited speakers following each chapter meeting

• Confirmed budget allowance with chapter president and chapter editor prior to the publishing stage of the 2021 edition of Gunma JALT’s publication - Speakeasy

• Maintained inventory of JALT treasury-related stationery 

• Maintained monthly check and balance of chapter’s petty cash reserve

• Compiled and submitted a monthly revenue and expense report (MAS and OEC) to JALT Central Office (JCO) accounting section (due on 10th of each calendar month)

• Maintained regular (monthly) contact with JCO accounting section officer, Ms. Hideko Hayakawa and pair-treasurer, Ms. Cheryl Kirchhoff (Nagano JALT)

• Administered the deposits and withdrawals made via Gunma JALT’s chapter bank account

• Compiled, tabulated, and prepared the yearly 2020 End of Fiscal Year Examination Report (online and hard copy) in coordination with Gunma JALT chapter president and publicity chair (March 2021)

• April 2021 - Gunma JALT informed of having successfully passed the 2020 End of Fiscal Year Examination Report conducted by JCO 

III. Objectives for Academic/Fiscal Year 2023:

Continue to administer the chapter’s finances as well as maintain, coordinate, and administer payment of honoraria to invited speakers via Gunma JALT’s bank account and its online bank transfer system.  

IV. Program Chair: Raymond Hoogenboom & Heather McCulloch

We had a very good year in programs.  Joël Laurier and Raymond Hoogenboom collaborated and received great support from all other officers. One of our events, on August 21, was a collaboration between our chapter and the Testing & Evaluation SIG (TEVAL). 

JALT GUNMA CHAPTER PROGRAMS (2021)

• 2021/January 31st Online

“Support Diversity in the Language Classroom” by Yoshi Grote

• 2021/May 30th Online

“Questions and Issues Concerning Teaching English for Young Learners”  by Barbara Hoskins-Sakamoto 

• 2021/June 20th Online

“Ecological Language Education: Bringing Ecology to Bear on Professional and Pedagogic Practicea” by Michael Brown

• 2021/July 18th Online

“Voices of Asia: A Gunma and Ibaraki JALT Collaboration” by Mashraky Mustary, Zhou Xin, Dr. Pramila Neupane and Dr. Abdolla Dodangeh 

• 2021/ September 12th Online

“Practitioner Research and the Complexity of L+ Study Emotions”  by Richard Sampson 

• 2021/ October 24th Online

“Teaching English with Zoom as a Newbie: A Self-Reflection & Discussion on Problems, Solutions, and Activities”  by Duangsamorn Haruyama

• 2021/ November/December TBA

JALT Gunma Summer Workshop

JALT Gunma Summer Workshop

We were unable to hold the summer workshop for a second year in a row but we are still lookin forward to next year.

V. Facilities Chair (No report): Lori Ann Desrosiers & Hideto Harashima 

VI. Recording Secretary (No report)

VII. Membership Chair: Duangsamorn Haruyama

Responsibilities

This year, all Gunma JALT events are held online through Zoom. Membership Chair takes attendance for all distance meetings, manages monthly membership by sending renewal notices as well as thankyou emails. 

Something New

- All members need to reset passwords.

- No more email from Chie-san for a chapter membership list, Membership Chairs are able to access to see the membership list directly on each chapter JALT website. 

- Membership Chair was asked to join Basecamp (JALT) for making communication and sharing documents easier.

- A new welcome letter will be automatically sent out to new members by Junko-san.

Membership Report

Attendees for each meeting = 11-21 px (11-26 last year)

Total Gunma JALT members = 28 px (34 last year)

Local Membership = ?

Total JALT members = ? (2,203 last year)

VIII. Social Chair: Matt Potter

Similar to last year, the pandemic has greatly limited our options for socializing. The coffee machine is still brand new having only been used once in late 2019 and all the leftover food has since crumbled to dust. We had an online Petchkucha evening last December as our Christmas event. It was fun and I think all in attendance enjoyed themselves. Given the current situation it is almost certain that this year's end of year party will also be in an online format so we should brainstorm some ideas for games that we could play online. One idea could be to play pictionary using the whiteboard function on zoom. 

IX. Publicity Chair: Raymond Hoogenboom

As Publicity Chair, I maintained Gunma JALT's email contacts lists, both in our gmail account and on the Mailchimp application. To do this, I am in close contact with the Membership Chair (Duangsamorn), who sends me the official membership lists as well as the names and contact information of any "local member" sign-ups (which hasn't happened so much this year because of the pandemic).

For meeting notices, I mostly used the Mailchimp application, which is a marketing application, but works well for simple email notices. We so far have only been using the free version of Mailchimp, which has gone well enough. However, I am wondering whether we should invest in a basic paid subscription in order to expand on design possibilities and avoid the glitchy aspects of the free version.

On Mailchimp, we can see whether people open their email. It may come as a surprise that many of the emails are unopened. However, our mailing list is quite large (approximately 190 people), and some of the recipients are peripheral. That is, some may have come once 5 years ago, signed onto the mailing list, and never returned. I believe most of the active community are aware of the notices.

I also post our meeting on Facebook and onto the JALT Events Calendar. Ideally all notices and posts should be approximately 1 month ahead of the event, but this year some of my notifications and posts were only two or three weeks prior. I do not believe this had a negative effect. However, getting events posted on the JALT Events Calendar before the beginning of the month is helpful because then it gets onto the monthly Announcements from Publicity Director Bill Pellowe.

Roughly I work with two types of lists: Our membership list and the greater community list. For example, messages concerning voting matters would only be sent to voting JALT members, but meeting notices would be sent to the larger community.

Publicity Chair is a role I always enjoy, and I am willing to accept nomination for another year. However, if another person has a desire to take the role, I will be happy to fill any other role that needs help, while at the same time helping the potential newcomer into the Publicity role. 

X. Webmaster: Phillip Bennett

On September, 1st classic Google sites was discontinued. So the new Gunma JALT webpage can be access at this link: https://sites.google.com/view/gunmajalt/ .The website was updated once before each meeting in order to advertise it. Due to the pandemic meetings were still held on Zoom and were advertised as such on the website via a link to the Gunma JALT Facebook group. Lastly, the term “webmaster” has fallen out of use and other titles seem to be more suitable for this position. May I suggest the title, “website administrator”.

XI. Speakeasy: Matt Potter

This year's issue of Speakeasy is slightly smaller than previous editions but is significant for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it represents a return due to the fact that we missed an issue last year. Secondly, the inclusion of celebrations of Michele's friendship and contribution to JALT have made this issue quite unique and special. 

My goal for this year's issue was to balance the desire to create a space for people to write about Michele while also allowing others to publish content more closely related to language teaching.  Two contributors wrote touchingly about their friendship with Michele, while three others wrote interesting and informative articles related to their experiences and insights as language teachers. I think the final product has turned out well and I'm very grateful to all those who contributed to the project. Additionally, we also had a contributor from outside of the community (Claire Ryan) which I think is good as it suggests that people outside our local community are engaging with the publication. 

This was my first time working on a project like this and it has been a very rewarding experience. I'm as yet undecided as to whether I'd like to be the editor of Speakeasy for 2022.