Prior

President: Raymond Hoogenboom

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 Gifu in February and Nagoya 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 was on EBM-net until I got kicked off for calling people pompous windbags, which of course they are.

LOOKING AHEAD

    This year, all primary officers and people in other large roles. I have expressed intentions of stepping away from their current positions. Some have expressed intentions of stepping away from active involvement. I cannot say how much appreciation I have for the opportunity to work with you all. That said, we have a need for others to step up. Because we do not have people stepping up despite calls for such action, I am going to propose scaling down the programs to 6/year and putting both Speakeasy and Summer Workshop in suspension.

    Finally, I would like us to consider: 1) having some meetings each year on Friday evenings, and 2) having some meetings outside of Maebashi, such as in Tatebayashi or Takasaki.

    I will no longer fill the role of Chapter President, but I will be open to another role, but only if we scale down the operations.

Membership Chair: Heather McCulloch

    Responsibilities included greeting visitors and members at the door, taking attendance, processing new full and local members, renewing existing full and local members, managing monthly membership lists, notifying members of upcoming membership expirations and thanking members by mail upon renewal.

Managing Monthly Membership

    On the first Monday of each month, the most recent membership list is sent by email.  The Membership Chair sends this list to the President.  The President then updates the chapter mailing list accordingly and sends out notices and reminders of upcoming events based on the revised mailing lists.

Sending Welcome & Renewal Notices

    Once the Membership Chair reviews the most recent membership list, renewal notices to members whose memberships will expire in the next month are sent out, and welcome messages to members who have recently joined or rejoined are also sent.  If possible, personal information such as exact expiration date, SIG participation and chapter participation are included to make each member feel appreciated. Personalized welcome messages were not sent to first time visitors but should be considered in the future.

Attendance at Gunma Chapter Events

    Attendance at monthly meetings has been quite good, with most meetings attracting between 11 and 26 members and visitors.

Other Duties

    The Membership Chair arrived early to all meetings, helped set up the room and helped anyone who needed assistance. Information about JALT and SIG membership as well as upcoming events were created and displayed on the welcome desk in photo frames to keep visitors and members informed.

My Personal Philosophy of Being Membership Chair

    The Membership Chair is the personal side of JALT. Often this is the first face that visitors and members sees when they enter the room. When someone is greeted with a big smile and a warm “hello,” they feel like coming to a JALT meeting is worth taking time out of what could have been a relaxing weekend.  By using the monthly membership lists, I was able to remember names and know interests by SIG membership.  I tried to incorporate this information in conversations to make people feel more welcome.

Program Chair: Michele Steele (Reported by Raymond Hoogenboom)

    Michele brought in a good group of presenters who covered a diversity of interesting topics. She also secured Dr. Charles Browne as the keynote lecturer for our Summer Workshop. Other programs were delivered by committee, including two MyShare events (one in Saitama and one in Gunma) and the Summer Workshop. Overall, it turned out to be a busy year with programs, as seen below.

    The Summer Workshop, as usual, was also more work than we anticipated beforehand. It is always stressful not to know until near the end whether the workshop will be well presented and well attended. Furthermore, it is the final two weeks before the workshop that is when the organizers get busy preparing the program pamphlet, the venue, the travel, the accommodations, the payment process, the snacks, and the lanyards. This year, however, the rewards were worth the effort as the program was solid and the group chemistry was warm and friendly. Many attendees shared that this year’s Summer Workshop was special and that the isolation and intimacy was rare and precious.

    This will be the last Workshop at Kusatsu Seminar House, however, as the facility is being let go by the federal university system and returned to the Ministry of Forestry, who will likely tear it down. It cannot be avoided.

JALT GUNMA CHAPTER PROGRAMS (2019)

2019/January 27th at Maebashi Kyoai Gakuen College

    “Navigating the Discussion of ‘Challenging’ Topics in High School and University English Classes” by Marian Hara   [ATTENDANCE: 11]

2019/March 17th at Maebashi Kyoai Gakuen College

    “Digital ELT Tools for the 21st Century” by Paul Raine [Attendance: 16]

2019/May 19th at Maebashi Kyoai Gakuen College

    “Managing Special Needs Students in the EFL Classroom” by Jennifer Yphantides [ATTENDANCE: 27]

2019/June 9th at Maebashi Institute of Technology

    “Tech It From Us!” by Kayvon Havaei-Ahary & Jason Demsteader [ATTENDANCE: 11]

2019/July 14th at Saitama Shiritsu Sakuragi Community Center

    Fifth Dual Gunma-Saitama JALT MyShare Event   [ATTENDANCE: 10?]

• Raising Children in Bilingual Environments” by Isobel Hook

• “Trading Off, Not Trading Up: Perspectives on ELT in Eikaiwa and University” by Daniel Hooper

• “Inferences in ESL Contexts” by Heather McCulloch

• “The Effects of Translation Use on Advanced Student Attitudes”

by Azalia Zaharuddin 

• “How Do We Assess Communication?” by John Larson

2019/August 25th at Maebashi Institute of Technology

    Fifth Dual Saitama-Gunma JALT MyShare Event   [ATTENDANCE: 18]

• “The Montessori-Inspired Learning Centers at GKA Preschool” by Duangsamorn Haruyama

• “Making Discussion of Global Topics Accessible to L2 Students Through Performance-Based Assessment” by Tyson Rode

• “It’s Chat Time!” by Jeff Contreras

• “Analysis of Cloze Techniques in Self-Accessed Language Learning Contexts: A Review of Clozemaster and Apps4EFL” by Fuad Olajuwon

2018/September 7th and 8th at Kusatsu Seminar House

    The 30thAnnual Summer Workshop in Kusatsu   [ATTENDANCE: 18]

• “Vocabulary Acquisition Tools” by Dr. Charles Browne

  1. “The New General Service List Project: Meeting the Needs of EFL Learners, Teachers and Materials Developers” 

  2. “Free Corpus-based Word Lists and the Online Tools to Exploit Them”

• “Me, Myself, and Eye: Struggles of a Visually Impaired Student” by Heather McCulloch

• “The Effects of Overseas Study on High School Students’ Second Language Memory Ability” by David Coulson

• “How EFL Learners’ Usage of Communication Strategies is Influenced by Their Proficiency and Task Types” by Yuka Masutani

• “What is the Best Vocabulary Learning Strategy?” by Hiroshi Mikami

2019/October 20th at Maebashi Institute of Technology

    “The Strengths of Introverts in the Language Classroom” by Heather McCulloch   [ATTENDANCE:     ]

JALT INTERNATIONAL NON-VETTED PRESENTER

    This is a system to grant a chapter or SIG member with the opportunity to present at the JALT International Conference for her/his very first time. Our representative this year is Heather McCulloch. If anyone is interested in representing our chapter next year or knows someone who might be, please let us know.

REGIONAL CONFERENCES

This year again, the Regional Professional Activities Committee (RPAC) has been coordinating events across Japan to offer regional events. The goal is to further develop collaboration between JALT chapters and other groups. The idea is to have regional events to help chapters have bigger events and pool their resources, while avoiding the doubling off efforts that might occur in some parts of the country.

In recent years, Gunma JALT has discussed the possibility of collaborating with Saitama JALT to make the Nakasendo Conference a truly regional one. This issue is not currently on the table, especially as Saitama JALT was not able to produce any conference whatsoever this year. All discussion with them is moot at the moment.

Summer Workshop: Raymond Hoogenboom

The Summer Workshop was a team effort, with John, Michele, Harry Sylvain, and Heather all chipping in significantly. 

30th Annual JALT Gunma Summer Workshop – in Kusatsu

OVERVIEW

    Eighteen participants took part in the 30th edition of the Summer Workshop, headlined by Dr. Charles Browne, Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL at Meiji Gakuin University. This year’s theme was Vocabulary Acquisition Tools. In addition to Dr. Brownes’s two keynote lectures, there were four other presenters. Of the 18 participants (including the featured speaker), the majority stayed overnight at the Kusatsu Seminar House. This facility has been leased by the federal university system with Gunma University as the overseer, so the cost was very reasonable, which allowed us to run an economical event (¥10,000 yen each for lectures, lodging and 2 meals). This venue, however, will no longer be accessible as the federal university system will no longer lease it, and it will likely be torn down by its owners, the Ministry of Forestry.

    The summer workshop is a huge project which can be quite stressful as the deadline nears and we do not have presenters or attendees. Then we must surge in our promotion and reach-out and call-for. Once the participants are set, we must get to work on all of the preparations with accommodations, travel, payments, program, and other duties. It is quite intense and dominates a good part of the precious peaceful weeks leading up the upcoming semester and school year.

    It has been discussed that perhaps we should shelve the workshop until we get enough enthusiastic and active volunteers who want to take on the large task.

Publicity: Stephen Howes (Reported by Raymond Hoogenboom)

    The Publicity Chair maintained Gunma JALT's e­mail contacts list as well as the distribution of notices to these members and affiliated ("Outside") members from other JALT chapters, or non­current members of JALT. All contacts were kept up to date and identical in two different platforms, Gmail and MailChimp. 

    Within the MailChimp notices are links to Gunma JALT's specific Facebook page, Gunma JALT's Twitter feed and the official Gunma JALT website.

    Steven has expressed that he will not be Publicity Chair next year, unless we really need him.

Treasurer: Harry Meyer

Through the 2018-2019 academic year, the Gunma JALT Treasurer’s duties and responsibilities included the following:

• Preparing honorarium and receipts for invited speakers.

• Collecting receipts at monthly meetings from Gunma JALT officers and reimbursing them for chapter expenses.

• Compiling and submitting the monthly revenue and expense report to the JALT Central Office (JCO) accountant.

• Balancing the deposits and withdrawals from Gunma JALT and Shinsei bank.

• Preparing sufficient amount of funds prior to each meeting or special event.

• Attending the annual Gunma JALT Kusatsu Summer Seminar 2019.

• Receiving and managing participation and lodging fees for the Kusatsu Summer Seminar.

• Working with other Gunma JALT Officers to compile, tabulate and prepare the yearly (2018-2019) chapter fiscal end of year report.

*Consideration should be shown to Gunma JALT Officers working during coffee breaks at meetings – especially the treasurer, who is responsible for reimbursing individuals, accepting fees, and issuing receipts. The treasurer would also like to use the bathroom and get a coffee and snacks before the presentation resumes.

Facilities Chair: Lori Ann Desrosiers and Hideto D. Harashima (Reported by Raymond Hoogenboom)

    Gunma JALT has been quite fortunate that, thanks to Lori and Hideto, we continue to have access to free space at Kyoai Gakuen College and Maebashi Institute of Technology. Both venues are: friendly, accommodating, and generous; spacious with pleasant atmosphere; well equipped with computers, projectors, and Wi-Fi; centrally located in Gunma; and easily accessible by train and automobile. Both facilities have allowed us to use their computer and overhead equipment for our presenters. That we never have to pay enables us to save money that can be used to bring in presenters and publish Speakeasy, as well as to hold a small reserve of funds for times in need. Hideto, Lori, and sometimes Fujieda-sensei have made themselves available to be on the premises or have made sure someone else was there. We owe so much thanks to Kyoai and MIT, and to Lori and Hideto. Moreover, thanks to Gunma University we were able to secure Kusatsu Seminar House at a very reasonable cost for our Summer Workshop. This year, the reservation was done by Ray. John and Sylvain helped out a lot with checking the place out and deciding on rooms and other matters.

Social Chair:Sylvain Bergeron

For each monthly meeting as well as at the Kusatsu Summer Workshop, I prepared coffee, tea, and snacks for the break time. Furthermore, I set up the snack table, cleaned up the leftovers, and emptied the garbage.

    The Social Chair has the duty of keeping hot water pots at home so that they can be taken to the venue when Gunma JALT has meetings at places other than Kyoai Gakuen College. Social keeps coffee, tea and snacks at home with hot water pots. If supplies run low, the Social Chair will make additional purchases. He or she will give the receipt to Treasury for reimbursement.

Speakeasy: Steve Ferrier

    Speakeasy has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience for me this year. It was my first time to be an editor of any publication and I am especially indebted to John Larson for his help and advice along with other members of Gunma JALT and also to the contributors who wrote such interesting articles which made my job of reading and proofing a lot easier. I believe there is a place for Speakeasy in the coming years at Gunma JALT. It not only gives new researchers an opportunity to publish their first article(s), but it also provides a sense of community for Gunma JALT members. My question to other Gunma JALT members is whether there needs to be a printed version or should there only be a digital version in the future in which instead of an annual copy being distributed, there is a continued updating of the website when new articles come in.

    As for myself, I have moved to Saitama and I would find it difficult to attend meetings in person in the future. I am glad for someone else to volunteer to edit the publication (or website?). If no one comes forward, I am happy to continue in the role as editor next year, if Speakeasy is to continue.

Recording Secretary: John Larson

    With the help of Stephen in Publicity and Phill on Website, I reported on our eight regular meetings and our workshop this year. The reports are easy to make, but as a local member rather than a national one, I was unable to post these reports to the JALT homepage. Stephen has been very helpful in this regard and I thank him. I also sent a copy to Phill that he used to update the website. You can read the reports under Previous Meetings on our home page. If volunteerism is waning, I propose that the next Publicity Chair should take on the duties of Website and Reporter. The three jobs are intertwined and combining them would cut down on a lot of time-consuming back-and-forth. 

Webmaster: Phillip Bennett

    I updated the site twice for each meeting, once advertising it, and then again reporting on the meeting in question after it was over. This year we discontinued online registration for the Summer Workshop with no adverse effects to attendance.

    I am sorry not so have been very active in this group. I just started a new job this year and am living between Gunma and Chiba. One suggestion I have is possibly doing something similar to what we do in the SALC here at KUIS. They are called LAb Sessions (https://kuis.kandagaigo.ac.jp/rilae/lab-session-june-2019/)--it's basically an online mini-conference. This might be a way to addressing Speakeasy and the Summer Seminar by consolidating them into something new (e.g., Speakeasy Online Conference). I believe the software used for the LAb Sessions here is free. If that is not the case I am fairly sure something similar can be achieved via Google Hangouts.

Election Results

•    Chapter President - Heather McCulloch

•    Treasurer - Sylvain Bergeron

•    Membership Chair - Duangsamorn Haruyama

•    Publicity Chair - Raymond Hoogenboom

•    Recording Secretary - Raymond Hoogenboom

•    Social - Matthew Potter

President: Raymond Hoogenboom

OVERVIEW

This year Gunma JALT produced a full program of excellent presenters who covered a wide range of areas (See Programs). Average attendance at events, including the Summer Workshop, was 12, which was a good number to make events pleasant and worthwhile. 

My local duties as chapter president were to help coordinate chapter roles, maintain group communication, and help out each officer whenever needed. This year was especially demanding in that some of our officers had to vacate their positions midway. Because our original summer workshop chair relocated to another part of Japan, I took over the Summer Workshop duties with John Larson, Harry Meyer, and Sylvain Bergeron.  Also, Membership Chair moved away from Gunma during the middle of the summer and needed to vacate his position, which I have been doing since he left. The extra work itself did not trouble me as much as a lack of group participation did. It is just more fun to do things with others. And of course it is important to spread the know-how among the membership.

My JALT-wide duties were to attend Executive Board Meetings (EBMs) in Gifu in February and Tsukuba in June, and I will also attend the Chapter Presidents Meeting, the EBM, and the Annual General Meeting at JALT2018 in Shizuoka. 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. Finally, I kept up with the EBM-Net flow as much as possible, but perhaps not good enough. I promise to try my best to stay on top of matters both locally and nationally.

We were unable to have online elections this year because the application we had been using was no longer operating. We did, however, continue to hold elections at our Annual General Meeting on November 11th, 2018. For 2019, officers of JALT Gunma Chapter were chosen as follows:

• Chapter President - Raymond Hoogenboom

• Treasurer - Harry Meyer

• Program Chair - Michele Steele

• Membership Chair - Heather McCulloch

• Publicity Chair - Stephen Howes

• Website Editor - Phillip Bennett

• Recording Secretary - John Larson

• Speakeasy Editors - Richard Sampson & Steve Ferrier

• Facilities - Lori Ann Desrosiers & Hideto Harashima

• Social - Sylvain Bergeron

• Summer Workshop - Raymond Hoogenboom, Harry Meyer, Michele Steele, John Larson, & Stephen Howes

LOOKING AHEAD

In 2018, I hope we can maintain quality programs, continue our great publicity, attract more members and non-members to meetings, increase local and full membership, and maybe try new things such as collaborating with neighboring chapters. To do this we will need a greater active core of volunteers, however. 

I also would like to develop online elections and do the constitution adjustments necessary to better reflect the modern era.

Finally, I would like us to consider: 1) having some meetings each year on Friday evenings, and 2) having some meetings outside of Maebashi, such as in Tatebayashi or Takasaki.

I am of course honored to be nominated and chosen to serve as Chapter President of JALT Gunma Chapter in 2019.

Membership: Mark Deadman, Yoko Kamo, and Raymond Hoogenboom (Report by RaymondHoogenboom)

The Membership Chair greets and takes attendance at our reception desk during monthly meetings. Responsibilities also included processing new full and local members, and renewing existing full and local members who come to the meetings, and managing the monthly membership lists.

MANAGING MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP LIST

On the 1st day of each month, the most recent membership list becomes available on the officer resources page. Membership downloads the list and sends it to the Publicity Chair. The Publicity Chair updates the chapter mailing list accordingly and sends out notices and reminders of upcoming events based on the revised mailing list.

SENDING WELCOME & RENEWAL NOTICES

Once membership downloads the most recent membership list, renewal notices to members whose memberships had become overdue are sent out, and welcome messages to members who have recently rejoined are also sent.

ATTENDANCE AT GUNMA CHAPTER EVENTS

Attendance at monthly meetings has been quite good, with most meetings attracting between 10-20 participants.

2018 MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP

President: Raymond Hoogenboom

OVERVIEW

This year Gunma JALT produced a full program of excellent presenters who covered a wide range of areas. Attendance was up and down, averaging at approximately 13 participants per meeting. Whether or not we had many in attendance, we had great meetings and fun times.

My local duties as chapter president were to help coordinate the roles with each other, maintain group communication, and help out each officer whenever needed. 

My JALT-wide duties were to attend Executive Board Meetings (EBMs) in Gifu in February and Tsukuba in June, and I will also attend the Chapter Presidents Meeting, the EBM, and the Annual General Meeting at JALT2017, again in Tsukuba. 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. Finally, I kept up with the EBM-Net flow as much as possible, but perhaps not good enough. I promise to try my best to stay on top of matters both locally and nationally.

I also have attempted, with perhaps a bit of success, to break ground in the area of online selection of our officers through use of an application called Ballotbin. Fifteen of our members voted online, and four additional members voted during our chapter’s Annual General Meeting (November 12). A total of 19 members voted in the election. This is a slightly more than 40% of the membership. Officers voted in for 2018 are as follows: Chapter President - Raymond Hoogenboom; Treasurer – Harry Meyer; Program Chairs – Barry Keith & Michele Steele; Membership Chairs – Mark Deadman (National) & Yoko Kamo (Local); Publicity Chair – Stephen Howes; Facility Chairs – Hideto Harashima & Lori Ann Desrosiers; Summer Workshop – Barry Keith; Website – John Larson; Speakeasy – John Larson; & Recording Secretary – John Linville.

The online election process will hopefully be developed and carried out more efficiently in 2018.

LOOKING AHEAD

In 2018, I hope we can maintain quality programs, continue our great publicity, attract more members and non-members to meetings, increase local and full membership, and maybe try new things such as bringing the International Conference to Takasaki or just collaborating with neighboring chapters. To do this we will need a greater active core of volunteers, however. 

I also would like to develop online elections and do the constitution adjustments necessary to better reflect the modern era.

Finally, I would love to start: 1) having some meetings each year on Friday evenings, and 2) having some meetings outside of Maebashi, such as in Tatebayashi or Takasaki.

Membership: Mark Deadman and Yoko Kamo

The Membership Chair takes attendance at our Chapter's reception desk during monthly meetings. Responsibilities also included processing new members and renewing existing members who come to the meetings.

MANAGING MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP LIST

On the 1st day of each month, the most recent membership list becomes available on the officer resources page. Membership downloads the list and sends it to the Publicity Chair. The Publicity Chair updates the chapter mailing list accordingly and sends out notices and reminders of upcoming events based on the revised mailing list.

SENDING WELCOME & RENEWAL NOTICES

Once membership downloads the most recent membership list, renewal notices to members whose memberships had become overdue are sent out, and welcome messages to members who have recently (re)joined are also sent.

ATTENDANCE AT GUNMA CHAPTER EVENTS

Attendance at monthly meetings has been quite good, with most meetings attracting between 10-20 participants.

2017 STATISTICS

• Number of current National Members as of December 2017: 42

• Number of current Local Members: 4

2017 Annual Membership Report (Members)

Month                     Members

            National Local Total

January     45         5         50

February     45         2         47

March     44         2         46

April             42         2         44

May             44         2         46

June     41         2         43

July             43         2         45

August     40         2         42

September  41         3         44

October     42         4         46

November   41         4         45

December   42         4         46

2017 Attendance at Meetings

MEETING    National       Local   Non-Members TOTAL

JAN 22     11          3     3                         17

FEB 13     10                1     1                         12

MARCH -------------------- No Meeting --------------------

APRIL 23     10         1     0                         11

MAY 14     12         3     2                         17

JUNE 11 -------------------- In Saitama --------------------

JULY 16     13         1     0                         14

SEPT 9, 10  14         2     5                         21

OCT 15     13         1     3                         17

NOV 12     10         4     0                         14

DEC -------------------- No Meeting --------------------

COMMENTS & OBSERVATIONS

The JALT central membership command center has had really big problems this year with issuing timely membership lists, delaying the sending of notices to members in our chapter. It seems to be getting better, but they have had a lot of trouble.

It has been quite time-consuming to issue reminders and thank you messages at the start of each month. We have preferred to issue these on an individual basis to add a touch of friendliness to the process, but have had to mass-issue them sometimes. We shall endeavor to do this much more in 2018.

Renewal notices have largely been sent ahead of time, we are trying to issue them with at least two months notification before the end of the members current expiry dates. People rarely reply, and it is difficult to know if they will resign. We don’t want to appear too pushy, so we haven’t issued too many reminders to ‘expiring’ members.

2018 ‘MEMBERSHIP-UP!’ PLAN

1. Stay ahead of membership expirations, issuing renewal notices at 3 months, and 1 month before the due date.

2. Continue to send individual notices, for renewals and resigning.

3. Drum up support from existing members to promote the chapter to co-workers and friends.

4. Encourage more Japanese part-time teachers to attend events, many of whom are members but rarely attend. 

5. Work with the Promotions Chair to advertise and promote our group.

6. Use social media to promote ourselves, asking national members to forward/post events on their homepages if they don’t mind.  

7. Appeal to the 260 members on Facebook to become regular members of the actual chapter itself.

8. Organize some light-hearted events in 2018 to encourage membership, or cement current membership. Ideas such as hiking, walking, and other outside activities, as per April worksheet about health and study.

Program: Michele Steele, Joël Laurier, and Barry Keith

MONTHLY MEETINGS

This year we tried to reduce costs in presenting our events. We did well in this domain, by contacting SIGs and asking them to provide us with speakers. The SIGs would provide the presenter and pay for their travel. Gunma JALT would pay the local presenter price to the presenter and pay for their lunch. This is a successful formula that works for both the SIGs and the chapter.

SUMMER WORKSHOP

Although the Summer Workshop in Ikaho is under the purview of the Programs team, this year the event was headed by Barry Keith (see Barry Keith report below). This year we had a theme (pronunciation) that went extremely well. With the plenary speaker giving one theory-based and one practical presentation, and the other four presenters giving short presentations based on the same theme, this was a very focused workshop. I recommend doing the same for next year. It would be nice to have a local presenter as the plenary to help promote our own members.

JALT GUNMA CHAPTER PROGRAMS (2017):

• 2017/1/22 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Richard Sampson

“Exploring Motivation with Students”

• 2017/2/12 at Maebashi Institute of Technology – Samuel Nfor

“Improving Pronunciation through an Applied Drama Project”

• 2017/4/23 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Steve Jugovic

“Insights from NeuroELT for you and your Classroom”

• 2017/5/14 at Maebashi Institute of Technology

Fourth Annual Gunma-Saitama MyShare Event

1) Jun Harada – “Revising Is Fun”

2) David Gann – “Rescuing a Dying Class: How to Utilize Card Trick Videos with Supporting Online Language Learning Resources to Develop 4-Skills Competence”

3) Kevin Miller – “Correlation Between Extensive Reading and Intuitive Grammatical Confindence”

4) Fuad Olajuwon – “English Self-Study: How Interactive Programs Boost Learning Imperatives”

• 2017/6/11 at Rental Space Holly in Saitama City

Fourth Annual Saitama-Gunma MyShare Event

1) Harry Meyer – “A Short Workshop for Intercultural Relations”

2) Yoko Kamo – “Using Kobanashi in a Beginner Level English Classroom”

3) Daniel Hooper – “Self-Access Learning in Eikaiwa: Attitudes, Reflections and Challenges”

4) Yoko Miyazaki – “An Activity Exploiting L1”

• 2017/7/16 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Anna Husson Isozaki

“Getting Into the Zone (of Proximal Literacy Development)”

• 2017/9/9~10 at Gunma University Ikaho Seminar House

The 28th Summer Workshop (in Ikaho)

1) Dr. Yasushi Sekiya – “Goals and models in pronunciation instruction for Japanese EFL learners in the era of English as an international language” and “What EFL teachers in Japan should know about pronunciation instruction - Towards informed practice”

2) Hideto Harashima – “What lies behind the differences of phonetic behaviors of the Japanese and the English Languages?”

3) Antonija Cavcic – “Za Katakana English (and why it won’t go away)”

4) Daniel Hooper – “Apps4efl: Engaging online tools for practicing pronunciation and listening (and everything else!)”

5) Yoshimi Ochiai – “Engage Your Students with Pronunciation Activities”

• 2017/10/15 at Maebashi Institute of Technology

Lee Thomas & Kayvon Havaei-Ahary – “Adapting Kagan Structures for Japanese Secondary School English Classes, Part 1: The Three-Step Interview”

• 2017/11/12 at Kyoai Gakuen College

Stephen Howes – “Developing a Writing Program in the High School & Junior High School Context”

JALT INTERNATIONAL NON-VETTED PRESENTER

This year, with a determined focus to find a presenter to take the non-vetted presented slot offered to every JALT chapter, we finally found someone. This is a system to give someone their first chance at a JALT International conference. We should do more to promote this to Gunma members.

This year, we also received interest for this presentation slot from non-Gunma JALT members. I recommend we only give this slot to Gunma JALT members to help promote our local talent and to help increase membership, even if it only one person a year.

REGIONAL CONFERENCES

This year the Regional Professional Activities Committee has been coordinating events across Japan to offer regional events. The goal is to further develop collaboration between JALT chapters and other groups. The idea is to have regional events to help chapters have bigger events and pool their resources, while avoiding the doubling off efforts that might occur in some parts of the country.

The Gunma JALT has discussed the possibility of possibly hosting the 2018 Nakasendo conference to make this conference a truly regional one. As this conference and the Ikaho workshop are held around the same time every year, the concern is that hosting two conferences would deplete our resources. The biggest fear is that, as the Ikaho workshop is the later of the two, it would aversely affect our workshop. 

28TH ANNUAL JALT GUNMA SUMMER WORKSHOP – IN IKAHO

OVERVIEW

Twenty-two participants took part in the 28th edition of the Summer Workshop, headlined by Dr. Yasushi Sekiya, Director of the MA TESOL program at Kanda University of International Studies. This year’s theme was teaching of pronunciation and In addition to Dr. Sekiya’s two keynote lectures, four other presenters shared their expertise and techniques in teaching pronunciation. Of the 22 participants (including the featured speaker), 11 stayed overnight at the Ikaho Seminar House. This facility is owned by Gunma University, so the cost is very reasonable, which allows us to run an economical event (¥10,000 yen for lectures, lodging and 2 meals). The advantages are cost and location in a quaint hot spring resort, but there are a few drawbacks, e.g. no air conditioning, no Internet connection, and the room can be a bit cramped when full. The evening meal was poor, so we need to work with the staff to make sure we get a healthy but satisfying meal.

CHANGES & RECOMMENDATIONS

One change this year was that at-large presentations were vetted by a team of reviewers. This means that a slate of important dates (opening of early-bird registration, abstract submission, notification of acceptance date, and registration deadline) must be decided and then coordinated by the Program Chair and team. This new system worked relatively smoothly and helped the presenters better prepare for their talks. I recommend that we continue to vet at-large presentations to give our participants the best workshop possible.

As mentioned above, there is no Internet connection, neither LAN nor wireless. Some presenters wanted to demonstrate online resources and the lack of internet was a problem, so we should lobby Gunma University to install Internet in the future (as they have already done at the Kusatsu Seminar House).

Another first for the 2017 workshop was an on-line registration system set up in conjunction with the website administrator. This worked well enough, but can be improved next year. In addition, payment was made available via bank transfer or direct payment during a regular monthly meeting. The bank transfer is the least popular payment method, though several participants wired money in advance. Most paid in cash at a monthly meeting held in April, May, June, and July. Payment at the door was also accepted but at ¥2,000 extra.

Regarding receipts, the Treasurer prepared them in advance and this makes registration go smoothly. We might consider removing the cost of meals from the package, as people who are reimbursed by their institutions cannot generally claims meals. Another issue is: do we want to offer a one-day fee? Note that Gunma University collects a ¥1,000 facility for those who do not stay overnight. It is easier for the Treasurer to have the money wired into the bank account because then the money does not become cash on hand.

CONCLUSION

According to the post-survey, respondents were satisfied, they enjoyed the event, found it stimulating and useful, and thought that it ran smoothly. Apart from the Internet problem and the poor quality of the evening meal, this workshop was a success.

Publicity: Stephen Howes

 The Publicity Chair maintained Gunma JALT's e-mail contacts list as well as the distribution of notices to these members and affiliated ("Outside") members from other JALT chapters, or non-current members of JALT. All contacts were kept up to date and identical in two different platforms, Gmail and MailChimp. Gmail has been the long-standing communication device between Gunma JALT and other parties, where as MailChimp has become the preferred method of disseminating poster-style advertisements of upcoming Gunma JALT workshops, the Ikaho Summer Workshop, Gunma JALT co-hosted events, and miscellaneous announcements from our chapter and JALT National.

Within the MailChimp notices, there were links to Gunma JALT's specific Facebook page, Gunma JALT's Twitter feed and the official Gunma JALT website. As Publicity Chair, I created an event for each workshop that took place throughout the year and then posted photos from that event afterwards.  Other members were also able to upload photos directly to this page as valuable evidence and feedback.  The Twitter account for Gunma JALT was used as another means of advertising workshops, sharing professional development links and communicating with the increasing number of connections to JALT, English education in Japan and education in general.  In an effort to increase public awareness of Gunma JALT workshops, I also sent through the details of workshops to the ELT Calendar website, which allows events to be embedded into subscribers Gmail account calendars

NEXT YEAR:

I would like to create more of an impact nationally to highlight the quality of the professional development at our chapter.  I would like to maintain the current format of disseminating information via MailChimp, however I would like to improve the graphic design by including more interactive features, such as polls and questionnaires.  I also think that Twitter could be a useful tool to broaden the publicity of Gunma JALT throughout Japan, hence I would like to increase the number of followers and the number of outgoing tweets sent from Gunma JALT.

Treasurer: Sylvain Bergeron

Throughout the 2016-2017 fiscal/academic year, the Gunma JALT Treasurer’s duties and responsibilities have included the following:

• With Membership, noted regular attendance at Gunma JALT monthly meetings 

• Prepared honorarium and receipts for invited speakers

• Collected receipts at the monthly meetings from Gunma JALT officers i.e., Social Chair, Program Chair

• Compiled and submitted a monthly revenue and expense report to the JALT Central Office (JCO) accountant (due on the 10th of the month)  

• Maintained regular contact with the JCO accounting section and pair branch treasurer – c/o Brett Milliner, Treasurer, JALT Yokohama Chapter (as of April 2017) 

• Balanced the deposits and withdrawals from the Gunma JALT Chapter Shinsei Bank account

• Prepared a sufficient amount of funds prior to each meeting or special event

• Attended the annual Gunma JALT Ikaho Summer 2017 Workshop

• Received and managed participation and lodging fees from Gunma JALT Ikaho Summer 2017 Workshop participants via online and onsite payment methods 

• Prepared all necessary funds and participants’ receipts prior to the Gunma JALT Ikaho Summer 2017 Workshop

• Compiled, tabulated and prepared the yearly (2016-2017) Chapter Fiscal Year Budget Report (online and hard copy) with JALT Gunma Chapter President (May 2017)

NEXT YEAR

Gunma JALT Ikaho Summer 2018 Workshop

Keep making improvements to our chapter’s registration, online and onsite payment procedure. There may be a need to hold a discussion with chapter officers regarding the possibility of imposing a cancellation fee for no-shows.

Facilities: Hideto D. Harashima, Lori Ann Desrosiers and Barry Keith

President: Raymond Hoogenboom

As chapter president, I mostly coordinated communication between and among officers and other members whenever necessary. My primary task was to make sure things were getting done at all ends and that everyone knew what the others were doing. I also participated in the Executive Board Meeting (EBM) in Osaka on February 6 and 7. At this meeting, members of the Board voted on a new chapter grant distribution system, which allocated approximately ¥180,000 to Gunma JALT for 2016. I did not attend the EBM on June 25 and 26 in Hiroshima. During that meeting, our group was represented through power-of-attorney by Joël Laurier, one of our program chairs. During that EBM it was decided that local memberships are to be administered financially by individual groups completely independent of JALT National. Moreover, I will attend the EBM during JALT2016 on November 27.

I also helped with planning, preparation, and execution of our 27th Annual Summer Workshop in Ikaho, which was a modest success. Thanks to our program chairs, Joël Laurier and Michele Steele, we were able to secure presenters and offer a quality program. Other members on the Ikaho team were Barry Keith (facilities), Sylvain Bergeron (budget), Stephen Howes & John Larson (publicity & newsletter), & Yoko Miyazaki (snacks). Very special kudos goes to Joël Laurier for handling participant registration and accommodations. The atmosphere was lively and positive. Everyone did excellent work, and we hope we can do it again in 2017.

The onsen resort town of Ikaho was a new location for our summer workshop. The venue — Gunma University’s Ikaho Seminar House — was not costly, yet it was cozy and practical. The staff was considerate and friendly. If we book the same venue next year, some areas to consider are more strategic placement of overnight guests into sleeping quarters in order to better distance social patter from sleeping quarters, simpler dining menu with fewer dinner plates to deal with, and a carpooling system.

All in all, I would say it was a good year for Gunma JALT. We had 11 events. Some events were large, a few were well-attended, and all were good.

NEXT YEAR:

I would like to help fulfill our group’s goal of implementing online elections. JALT National has advised us that they are in favor of online elections for all chapters, and that in the coming year we will be allowed to do so without constitutional amendment. However, they would like our chapter and others to update our constitutions, with regard to elections and whatever other aspects are in need of updating, in the coming year in order to be ratified and take effect affect by 2018.

Updating the constitution will require a minimum number of officers to sign on a petition to change the chapter constitution, a review of proposed changes before 2017 JALT Gunma Chapter AGM, and an actual vote on ratifying the changes during the AGM. 

With online elections, the entire membership will have the option of voting anonymously online during a decided time period before the yearly AGM. I believe online elections: 1) give all members the opportunity to cast votes, which is our right as paying members, and 2) could encourage more involvement from group members who either usually do not come to meetings at all or enjoy the group from the periphery.

Another goal I would like for our group is to elicit more involvement from membership, especially from those native to our host country, Japan. Japanese members account for nearly half of our overall full membership. Active involvement from Japanese members has been a concern among JALT groups nationwide and has been discussed at length during EBMs. Some possible reasons Japanese members might be reluctant to be involved might be linguistic and cultural. As English is the official language of JALT meetings and administration, native speakers of English are advantageous and can potentially dominate communication and decision-making. Furthermore, native Japanese university professors tend to lean toward membership in JACET, which is administered and presented in Japanese, while native Japanese primary and secondary school teachers can be involved in a their own academic societies that use the Japanese language — if they have time off from all the pedagogical, administrative, and/or extra-curricular duties of their own jobs. 

All in all, it seems the same loyal members have been stepping up over the past few years. Some of our officers may have reached their limits in terms of what they will be able to do or want to do. Thus we need more involvement in each office. It has been discussed among ourselves over the past year that there are three possible ways of doing this:

1. A system of shadow chairs, who would first assist closely and then take over an office when the primary chair is ready to step down;

2. A system of assistants who take on smaller roles to aid the serving chairs;

3. A system of co-chairmanships in which each position is occupied equally by one native Japanese member and one non-Japanese member. In this model, the group might be more approachable for Japanese newcomers. Although this model could be administered at the local level, in the eyes of JALT National only one person can hold an office and should ultimately be held responsible for the performance of that office.

Membership: Barry Keith

The Membership Chair takes attendance at our Chapter's reception desk during monthly meetings. Responsibilities also included processing new members and renewing existing members who come to the meetings.

Managing Monthly Membership List

On the 1st day of each month, the most recent membership list becomes available on the officer resources page. Membership downloads the list and sends it to the Publicity Chair. The Publicity Chair updates the chapter mailing list accordingly and sends out notices and reminders of upcoming events based on the revised mailing list.

Sending Welcome and Renewal Notices

Once membership downloads the most recent membership list, renewal notices to members whose memberships had become overdue are sent out, and welcome messages to members who have recently (re)joined are also sent.

Attendance at Gunma Chapter Events

Attendance at monthly meetings has been quite good, with most meetings attracting between 10-20 participants. Our Summer Workshop in Ikaho had better attendance than 2015 in Kusatsu.

Program: Michele Steele and Joël Laurier

The Program Chairs procure presenters and venues, and they organize monthly meetings. This year’s program consisted of the following events:

- 2016/1/24 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Yuka Kusanagi

“Gundoku Workshop:  Integrating a Performing Art into Foreign Language Education”

- 2016/2/28 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Chiyuki Yanase

“Story-based approach: exploring the world of stories with your young learners”

- 2016/3/20 at Rental Space Holly in Saitama City

“Third Annual Saitama-Gunma MyShare Event”

(featuring David Gann, Joël Laurier, John Larson, Daniel Hooper/Jacob Reed, & Raymond Hoogenboom)

- 2016/4/3 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Reiko Yoshihara

“Accidental Teachers: The Journeys of Six Japanese Women from the Corporate Workplace into English Language Teaching”

- 2016/5/29 at Kyoai Gakuen College

“Third Annual Gunma-Saitama MyShare Event”

(featuring Mark Deadman, Sandra Wigmore & Florence Ito Valderama, and Jonathan DeNardis)

- 2016/6/26 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Nicole Gallagher

“Exploring Critical Thinking with my Students”

- 2016/7/24 at Maebashi Institute of Technology – Alison Stewart

“Exploratory Practice”

- 2016/9/3~4 at Gunma University Ikaho Seminar House

The 27th Summer Workshop in Ikaho

--Junko Yamanaka: “What Should Every Teacher Know about Extensive Reading?” and “Developing Critical Thinking and Language Skills”

--David Gann: “Critical Thinking Skills Instruction through Deception”

--Daniel Hooper: “Success Closer to Home: Utilizing near peer role models to empower English conversation school students”

--Ming Qu: “Japanese Teachers and Students’ Attitudes towards Peer Assessment”

- 2016/10/9 at Kyoai Gakuen College – Christopher Madden

“Using Facebook to Enhance Motivation”

“Two Videos That Could Change the Way You Teach and Live: Back to Boot C.A.M.P.”

- 2016/10/23 at Gunma University – Anne Burns

“Gunma JALT / Gunma University Action Research Workshop”

- 2016/11/13 at Maebashi Institute of Technology – Barry Keith

“Reading Faster = Better Comprehension? Evidence from a Coordinated Curriculum”

This year, Programs implemented a Google Page that the Co-Program Chairs, the Publicity Chair, and the President shared. It helped the two co-program chairs with scheduling. It also helped keep a log of scheduling. It went well but it was not consistently used.

We continued our annual MyShare events with Saitama JALT, and we also hope to continue the events for the upcoming year. 

A feedback form was developed this year to offer more opinions to the voting system for the Best of JALT selection. It seemed to go well but I was often absent and the system was not continued. I would recommend continuing it.

Our first summer workshop in Ikaho was a special treat. Michele was finally able to realize her dream of inviting Junko Yamanaka to present as keynote, and Joël did a great job procuring other presenters and organizing accommodations.  We had good attendance and the venue’s close proximity to the city gave more people the option of attending for only one day. We should continue with this venue. Due to the support of our Gunma JALT team, the event was well planned, things ran smoothly, and there were no problems.

NEXT YEAR:

The system is smooth running and the Gunma JALT team will remain mostly intact so I think we are in good hands. The planning of the Ikaho summer workshop will have to begin early again to ensure even more success.  Joël thinks we should approach neighboring chapters to co-host. 

Publicity: Stephen Howes

The Publicity Chair maintained Gunma JALT's e-mail contacts list as well as the distribution of notices to these members and affiliated ("Outside") members from other JALT chapters, or non-current members of JALT. All contacts were kept up to date and identical in two different platforms, Gmail and MailChimp. Gmail has been the long-standing communication device between Gunma JALT and other parties, where as MailChimp has become the preferred method of disseminating poster-style advertisements of upcoming Gunma JALT workshops, the Ikaho Summer Workshop, Gunma JALT co-hosted events, and miscellaneous announcements from our chapter and JALT National. The Gunma JALT workshops were advertised in a bilingual format, with the abstract and biographies of guests translated into Japanese by Yukari Yano and Kenji Kawai. Their professional and timely contributions were of great assistance. 

Within the MailChimp notices, there were links to Gunma JALT's specific Facebook page and the official Gunma JALT website. The Gunma JALT website is administered by John Larson, and the Facebook page can accept contributions from anyone invited to the group. As Publicity Chair, I created an event for each workshop that took place throughout the year and then posted photos from that event afterwards.  I also created a Twitter account for Gunma JALT and used that as another means of advertising workshops, sharing professional development links and communicating with the increasing number of connections to JALT, English education in Japan and education in general.  In an effort to increase public awareness of Gunma JALT workshops, I also sent through the details of workshops to the ELT Calendar website, which allows events to be embedded into subscribers Gmail account calendars

NEXT YEAR:

I feel as though the exposure of Gunma JALT has increased over the past year, however I would like to create more of an impact nationally to highlight the quality of the professional development at our chapter.  I would like to maintain the current format of disseminating information via MailChimp, however I would like to improve the graphic design by including more interactive features, such as polls and questionnaires.  I also think that Twitter could be a useful tool to broaden the publicity of Gunma JALT throughout Japan, hence I would like to increase the number of followers and the number of outgoing tweets sent from Gunma JALT.

Treasurer: Sylvain Bergeron

During the 2015-2016 academic year, the Gunma JALT Treasurer’s duties and responsibilities have included the following:

• Attended monthly meetings regularly

• Prepared honorarium for invited speakers

• Collected receipts at the monthly meetings from other Gunma JALT officers i.e., Social Chair, Program Chair

• Compiled and submitted a monthly revenue and expense report to the JALT Central Office (JCO) accountant 

• Maintained regular contact with the JCO accounting section and pair branch treasurer

• Balanced the deposits and withdrawals from the Gunma JALT Chapter bank account

• Prepared a sufficient amount of funds prior to each meeting or event

• Attended the annual Gunma JALT Summer 2016 Workshop

• Received and managed participation and lodging fees from Gunma JALT Summer 2016 Workshop participants

• Prepared all necessary funds and participants’ receipts prior to the Gunma JALT Summer 2016 Workshop event

• Compiled and tabulated the yearly Chapter Fiscal Year Budget Report with fellow Gunma JALT officers (May 2016) 

Next Year: 

Keep bringing improvements to our chapter’s registration, fee and payment procedures with regard to the Gunma JALT Summer 2017 Workshop. 

Facilities: Hideto D. Harashima and Lori Ann Desrosiers

• Kyoai Gakuen College – 5 events

• Maebashi Institute of Technology – 2 events

• Gunma University – 1 event

• Rental Space Holly, Saitama – 1 event

• Gunma University’s Seminar House in Ikaho – 1 event

Social: Yoko Miyazaki, Renée Sawazaki, and Junko Hoshino

For each monthly meeting, Social Chairs prepared coffee, tea, and snacks for the break time because we believe that these coffee breaks helped enhance communication among attendees.  At least one Social Chair attended each monthly meeting, set up the snack table, cleaned up the leftovers and emptied the garbage.  One social Chair has the duty of keeping hot water pots at home so that they can be taken to the venue when Gunma JALT has meeting at places other than Kyoai Gakuen College. 

Social keeps coffee, tea and snacks at home with hot water pots.  If  Social Chairs think that coffee, tea, and snacks are not enough, they will make additional purchases.  He or she will give the receipt to the chair of an account. 

Social Chairs also attended at Ikaho meeting.  To celebrate the end of the calendar year, social chair organized a formal dinner party at the beginning of December.

Newsletter: John Larson

Newsletter Editors received and reviewed papers submitted to Speakeasy, contacted authors and worked with them to edit their submissions. Edited submissions were then published online and input into the template for physical publication at the end of the year.

The primary challenge for Speakeasy has always been, and continues to be, a lack of submissions. In order to overcome this, two ideas have been proposed. The first was to strongly suggest to presenters at our Summer Workshop that write-ups of their presentations would make lovely additions to Speakeasy. The second was to publish submission online as they are received and promote them via social media. It is still not known whether these two ideas will generate enough interest for Speakeasy to make it’s December publication deadline.

This year volunteer proofreaders (an idea submitted at the 2015 AGM) have made editing submissions much smoother. Hopefully this system will continue in the future.

Recording: John Larson

The Recording Secretary attended and summarized Gunma JALT meetings. These summaries are sent to JALT National for publication in TLT and are also uploaded to our website. 

Proposed: Change Bylaws to reflect reality (suggested by Joël Laurier)

Starting July 2015, summaries of previous meetings are no longer in the print version of TLT (noted in 2015 report). Currently in Gunma JALT Bylaws Section II, Subheading 6, the description for Recording Secretary reads, "The Recording Secretary shall be responsible for recording the minutes of the Executive Board meetings and the Annual General Meeting. He/she is also responsible for reporting on regular meetings and other activities and having those published in "The Language Teacher”. Proposed that the underlined text be deleted.

Luckily, the Japanese version of our Bylaws has no mention of "The Language Teacher” and so does not need to be amended.

Website: John Larson

The Website Editor maintained Gunma JALT’s website. After each meeting was announced, a new webpage for that meeting was created with all the necessary information. The same information was used to make an event in the JALT Event Calendar. After each meeting finished, the webpage was updated with the meeting summary. Also, a meeting report was created on JALT.com. All told, there were about 20 updates to the webpage this year.

Election

The election this year was full of ideas about the future, both big and small.  Our officer positions were decided unanimously as follows:

President: Raymond Hoogenboom

Membership: Mark Deadman, Yoko Kamo

Program: Michele Steele, Joël Laurier, Barry Keith (Ikaho)

Publicity: Stephen Howes

Treasurer: Sylvain Bergeron

Facilities: Hideto Harashima, Lori Ann Desrosiers, Barry Keith (Ikaho)

Social: Yoko Miyazaki, Junko Hoshino, Barry Keith (Barista)

Newsletter: John Larson

Recording: John Larson

Website: John Larson, Stephen Howes

Chapter Operations Overview

If Gunma JALT’s 2015 year could be summed up in one word, it would be “innovative”. iPads and corpora, flipped classrooms and blended learning - Gunma JALT’s annual event schedule was chock-full of cutting-edge classroom ideas. The pinnacle of this progressive plentitude was no doubt our annual Kusatsu Workshop where m-learning guru Mark Pegrum ushered us into a future of HUD contact lenses and nano-bots in our bloodstream. We truly live in heady times.

Looking to the future, Gunma JALT will need this innovative spirit. The hard financial realities of the past decades have finally caught up to us, and we will soon need a strategy that cuts costs without sacrificing the services that our members value. There is no doubt, however, that the members and volunteers that make Gunma JALT great will rise to the challenge.

President: John Larson

The President coordinated and communicated with other officers to make sure Gunma JALT was running smoothly. He represented Gunma JALT at the national meetings. He organized our local AGM and put together our Chapter Report. This year the job of President has been easy due to the positive contributions made by all Gunma JALT officers.

Special thanks to members Morijiro Shibayama and Mikio Iguchi who, while not part of this report, were instrumental in Gunma JALT's Annual Workshop in Kusatsu.

Membership: Barry Keith

The Membership Chair took attendance at the Chapter's reception desk during monthly meetings. His responsibilities also included processing new and renewing members to (Gunma) JALT. 

On the 1st day of each month, the most recent membership list becomes available on the officer resources page. The Membership Chair downloads the list and sends the relevant data to the Publicity Chair. The Publicity Chair then updates the chapter mailing list accordingly and sends out notices and reminders of upcoming events based on the revised mailing list.

Once the most recent membership list has been downloaded, the Membership Chair sends out renewal notices to members whose memberships have become overdue, and welcome messages to members who have recently (re)joined.

Gunma Chapter Membership Increase

Gunma JALT membership has experienced a slight increase. In January 2015 our chapter had 49 Members and currently (October 2015) we have 53 Members. Attendance at monthly meetings has been quite good, with most meetings attracting between 15 and 20 participants. However, the Kusatsu Seminar was not well attended this year and we did not meet the minimum required number to break even on the event.

New Membership Fees

In 2015, JALT raised its membership fees to pay for rising costs. This was the first increase in more than 17 years. Here are the new rates:

Regular Member - ¥13,000

5-Year Membership - ¥52,000

Joint Membership - ¥10,500 each

Group Membership - ¥8,500 each (5 or more members)

Student Membership - ¥7,000

Senior Membership - ¥7,000

Local Membership     - ¥4,000

New Registration Procedures

JALT is changing our membership registration system. New and renewing national members are urged to register through JALT’s online page. In this way, clerical errors can be avoided in most cases and the Treasurer and Membership Chairs’ duties will be greatly simplified. Here are the current ways to join JALT:

- Through on-line registration on the JALT website

- By postal remittance (yubin-furikae) forms in TLT

- In cash at meetings (local members must use this option)

Proposed: Tracking Meeting Attendance and Membership

One possible future project is keeping a monthly record of meeting attendance and membership so we can have a better visual understanding of how our membership fluctuates, especially after the rise in membership fees. 

Proposed: Interviewing Local Membership

This national project was begun by JALT Central Membership Chair Fred Carruth. The purpose of the project is to better understand why people join JALT and how we can better serve them. It involves a short questionnaire (preferably done in a tête-à-tête interview). JALT Central will compile all the membership chair reports into a comprehensive profile of our membership.

Program: Michele Steele and Joël Laurier

Programs Chairs find speakers and organized Gunma JALT's monthly meetings. This year, the Program Chairs tried to offer diversity in the presentations, while remaining fiscally responsible. Gunma’s distance from the bigger cities continues to be a source of concern as presenters coming in from afar do put a bigger strain on the chapter’s budget. Despite this, with the positive collaboration of other Gunma JALT officers, this year's Program Chairs have been able to bring in quality speakers. The range of presentations varied from classroom practice ideas and how to set up an English conversation space, to more theoretical research-based presentations. A concern of note is that no matter what the presentation topic or the presenter, attendance does not vary much.

This year Gunma JALT and the newly renamed Saitama JALT rejoined forces to host a My Share event in each prefecture in back to back months. Both events were well attended and it allowed us to form more solid ties with Saitama JALT.  We were invited to join the Nakasendo Conference as a sponsor organization but we did not join the conference as a sponsor this year. With more advance warning in 2016, maybe we could play a bigger part in the conference.

This year's new system of speaker reimbursement really seemed to simplify things. It was unnecessary to remind speakers to get a receipt for their travel, and this no doubt made things easier for the treasurer, who didn't have to deal with exact travel amounts, and report them to JCO or the auditor.  We now offer 

10,000 yen for Gunma-based speakers

20,000 yen for Kanto-based speakers and

30,000 yen for all others. 

Speakers can decide which means of transportation they wish to use, the remainder of which is their honorarium.

Proposed: Program Survey

A survey will be passed out at the beginning of the 2015-2016 term to more accurately assess the interests of the Gunma JALT community. 

Proposed: Best of JALT Voting System

The merits of having a more balanced voting system for the Best of JALT award has been discussed. A system of voting should be in place by December. 

Proposed: Kusatsu 2016 Outline by December

There are bigger program challenges on the horizon. In addition to the regular monthly meetings, the Program Chairs will be charged with the big task of finding featured speaker(s) for the Kusatsu workshop. Discussions about next year’s Kusatsu Workshop have already started. By December we should have a firm plan of where we will have the conference and who the plenary speakers will be.

Proposed: Gender Equality in Presenters

While we should always strive to invite the best speakers possible, Gunma JALT should also aim for achieving a balance in presenters representing educators both male and female.

Publicity: Raymond Hoogenboom and Kayvon Havaei-Ahary

The Publicity Chair maintained Gunma JALT's e-mail contacts list and notified all of our contacts — including the entire JALT Gunma Chapter membership, JALT membership from other prefectures, and contacts who are not members of JALT — about upcoming monthly meetings, the Kusatsu Workshop, and other miscellaneous announcements from our chapter and from JALT National.  He also posted our meetings onto our Facebook page after the departure of Kayvon Havaei-Ahary, whose job situation necessitated a move to another prefecture.

As of October 1 2015, there are 53 members of our chapter receiving e-mail notices. There are also have 123 contacts, either from other JALT groups or are not JALT members, receiving meeting announcements and some other notices.

The usual structure of meeting announcement is as follows:

1. Title of event, time and date, abstract, bio, and location (plus link to location).

2. Fees for regular meetings (JALT members-FREE; first-time visitors-FREE, students-FREE, and repeat visitors-1,000). Sometimes special events have been open to all at no cost.

3. Email Contacts for chapter president, the program chair for event, the treasurer, and publicity co-chairs.

4. A bilingual description of JALT.

Also, Gunma JALT now has small bilingual promotional fliers to bring to special events (such as ALT conferences) and to our meetings.

Proposed: It is hoped that Gunma JALT can begin sending out notices from a more advanced email marketing service such as MailChimp.

At the AGM it was also proposed that Gunma JALT start sending out meeting notices in Japanese as well as English.

Treasurer: Sylvain Bergeron

The Treasurer’s role is a very important one. This type of work is best suited for individuals who have an eye for detail, enjoy working with numbers, who are good at respecting deadlines, and maintaining good communication with all parties involved.

The Gunma JALT Treasurer’s responsibilities include the following tasks:

• Attending monthly meetings regularly

• Preparing honorarium for invited speakers

• Collecting receipts at the monthly meeting from other officers

• Compiling and submitting a monthly revenue and expense report to JCO

• Maintaining regular contact with the JALT Central Office’s (JCO) accounting section and pair branch treasurer

• Balancing the deposits and withdrawals from the Gunma JALT bank account

• Preparing a sufficient amount of funds prior to each event

• Attending the annual Gunma JALT Summer Workshop

• Receiving and managing participation and lodging fees from Kusatsu participants

• Preparing all necessary receipts prior to the Kutsatsu event  

• Compiling and tabulating a yearly Chapter Fiscal Year Budget Report by May

Facilities: Hideto D. Harashima and Lori Ann Desrosiers

Gunma JALT monthly meetings were held mostly at Kyoai Gakuen College with MIT and Chuo Kominkan being used on a few occasions. Kyoai is the best site, as it is located in the center of Gunma, free of charge, and with easy access from the station. 

Some speakers requested a computer room, and on some occasions because of the lack of communication beforehand, the room was left in disorder, and it caused trouble to the lessons that followed. Speakers who use computer facilities should maintain the previous conditions after the presentation, and if he/she made any changes to the settings, he/she should let the person in charge of the room know about it without delay. 

Kusatsu Summer Workshop was held at the same place (Skyland Hotel) as the year before. Instead of relying on the equipment provided by the hotel, we prepared our own projectors and a screen, and it went much smoother than the last year. Providing two projections using two screens during the presentations was an interesting challenge and it paid off. It seemed most participants were satisfied with the facility and food.

Proposed: Kusatsu Venue Discussion

Facility arrangement for monthly meetings next year will probably be the same as this year. However, it is known that JACET is no longer planning to come to Kusatsu for their summer seminar, which gives us no good reason to keep using Skyland Hotel. We may go back to the national Kusatsu Seminar House. Discussion will be needed on this issue.

Social: Yoko Miyazaki and Renée Sawazaki

For each monthly meeting, Social Chairs prepared coffee, tea, and snacks for the break time because we believe that these coffee breaks helped enhance communication among attendees.  At least one Social Chair attended each monthly meeting, set up the snack table, cleaned up the leftovers and emptied the garbage. One Social Chair has the duty of keeping hot water pots at home so that they can be taken to the venue when Gunma JALT has meetings at places other than Kyoai Gakuen College.

Social Chairs organized a dinner party after the first meeting in April to celebrate the beginning of the academic year, and a more formal dinner party at the beginning of December to celebrate the end of the calendar year. This year, Gunma JALT held the April party at Curry Mahal, which is only a 5-minute drive from Kyoai Gakuen College. The Year-End Party was held at Intimano, a lovely restaurant in downtown Maebashi with exquisite food, drinks and service.

Proposed: Eat More Curry Together

As Curry Mahal offers plentiful food and drinks at a reasonable price and is a family-friendly restaurant, it is hoped we can continue this tradition and encourage families of members to join up to foster a true “Gunma JALT family” feeling.

Newsletter: Harry Meyer and Kayvon Havaei-Ahary

Newsletter Editors received and reviewed papers submitted to Speakeasy, contacted authors and worked with them to edit their submissions, and posted them in the template.

Last year the staff of Speakeasy engaged in a deep debate on what direction the publication should take and more fundamentally on the topic of “What is the Speakeasy?” The consensus was that Speakeasy should be a place where language teachers could discuss their profession in an atmosphere where they were free to write in a relaxed fashion; that is to “speak easy” about their profession. This has resulted in a complex balancing, where the editors had to grapple with how strict to make submission standards. Should papers be rejected that would otherwise contribute to the knowledge and understanding of English teaching in Japan because they were not written to a high academic standard? Most of our contributors this year come from outside of academia and so have varying writing skills.

Proposed: Shift Speakeasy to a Magazine Format (or not)

For next year Speakeasy should be changed from a journal to a magazine. This way we can relax writing standards and allow more voices to be heard. Conversely, Speakeasy could maintain high admission standards and reject submissions early on without any hesitancy.

Proposed: Encourage Kusatsu Presenters to Publish

I recommend giving Kusatsu presenters the option of publishing their presentations in the Speakeasy as they have done in the past.

At the AGM it was proposed that the Newsletter Editor request proofreader volunteers from among the other officers. Officers present were positive about this idea and expressed willingness to cooperate.

Recording: John Larson

The Recording Secretary attended and summarized Gunma JALT meetings. These summaries are sent to JALT National for publication in TLT and are also uploaded to our website. Starting in July, summaries of previous meetings are no longer in the print version of TLT. Instead there is a webform on JALT.org into which they are entered.

Website: John Larson

The Website Editor maintained Gunma JALT’s website. After each meeting was announced, a new webpage for that meeting was created with all the necessary information. The same information was used to make an event in the JALT Event Calendar. After each meeting finished, the webpage was updated with the meeting summary. All told, there were about 20 updates to the webpage this year.

Proposed: Abandon Paid Webhosting Plan

As many may remember, Gunma JALT’s website encountered some trouble at the beginning of August last year (2014). This prompted a search for a new webhosting service. The results of that search were as expected: there are many free website services, but they all have the same problem - their administration is done automatically by computers, and sometimes computers make mistakes. It is likely one of these automated mistakes led to our site being taken down last August. Paid website services give us safety and control over our website, but they cost money - some as much as 1000 a month. Also as expected, changing from Google Sites to another webhost would require a great deal of work. Though a change to a paid webhost was considered last year, in light of JALT’s current financial situation such a change is no longer prudent.

Election

The election this year saw lively and friendly debate about a range of important topics. Our officers next year were decided as follows:

President: Raymond Hoogenboom

Membership: Barry Keith, Kenji Kawaii

Program: Michele Steele, Joël Laurier

Publicity: Kayvon Havaei-Ahary, Kenji Kawaii, Yukari Yano, Stephen Howes

Treasurer: Sylvain Bergeron

Facilities: Hideto Harashima, Lori Ann Desrosiers

Social: Yoko Miyazaki, Renee Sawazaki, Junko Hoshino, Terry Bircham

Newsletter: Kayvon Havaei-Ahary

Recording: John Larson, Raymond Hoogenboom

Website: John Larson, Raymond Hoogenboom

Chapter Operations Overview

If Gunma JALT’s 2014 year could be summed up in one word, it would be “communicative”. This year, Gunma JALT's conviviality and camaraderie was apparent in several aspects of our group. Well-attended meetings and well-prepared speakers gave rise to many interesting discussions. Officers and other volunteers exchanged emails, phone calls and opinions to suss out how best to serve our members. And after a three-year hiatus, our journal Speakeasy made a phoenix-like return and was distributed to our entire membership both physically and, for the first time, digitally. Thank you, members and friends of Gunma JALT, for making this chapter what it is.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

President: John Larson

The President coordinated and communicated with other officers to make sure Gunma JALT was running smoothly. He represented Gunma JALT at the national meeting in June, while Treasurer Barry Keith and Program Chair Michele Steele attended the other two in his stead. He organized our local AGM and put together our Chapter Report. 

This year the job of President has been easy due to the positive contributions made by all Gunma JALT officers.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Membership: Sylvain Bergeron

The Membership Chair took attendance at our Chapter's reception desk during monthly meetings. His responsibilities also included processing new and renewing members to Gunma JALT.  He was also involved with verifying the monthly membership list, forwarding renewal notices to members whose memberships had become overdue, and following-up with fellow chapter officers. 

Compared with last year, this year’s Gunma JALT membership has experienced a slight increase. At the beginning of 2013, we had approximately 48 registered members, as of October 2014, we have 53. Attendance at monthly meetings has been quite good, with most meetings attracting between 15 and 20 participants.

Special thanks go to President John Larson, Treasurer Barry Keith and Publicity Chair Raymond Hoogenboom for stepping-in and overseeing the membership reception desk when the Membership Chair was not available.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Program: Michele Steele, Joël Laurier (regular meetings) and Morijiro Shibayama (Kusatsu)

The job of Program Chair is a busy one, but is also very rewarding. The Program Chairs not only recruit speakers for monthly meetings, they also serve as the hub which connects Facilities, Treasury, Social and each monthly presenter. As one would expect, directing communications between all of these different people can be challenging, but it’s also a great opportunity to have in-depth conversations with the presenters, and to make and maintain friendships and professional ties.

This was a good year for Gunma JALT programs. Both regular meeting Program Chairs procured quality speakers with a wide range of topics such as book publication, ALT roles in area schools, classsroom and vocabulary learning. Several of our presenters this year came from outside Gunma, and this has brought about a good amounf of traffic on our Facebook page. This higher awareness of Gunma JALT will hopefully bring more presenters to want to come here. Summaries of all of our programs this year, and previous years, can be found on our website at https://sites.google.com/site/gunmajalt/previous.

Proposed: Gunma JALT should seek more local speakers, and speakers next year. 

Rationale: These presenters usually bring a higher turnout.

At the AGM, it was also proposed that Gunma JALT should seek presenters whose topics might be useful for teachers of primary and secondary students. 

Rationale: with the adoption of English as a subject in elementary schools, elementary and secondary educators are increasing and also seem underserved in the area of teacher development.

Results: Both ideas were received well and there were no objections.

There was also quite a bit of discussion about our workshop in Kusatsu. Our perennial workshop coordinator informed us that this year would be the last which he could volunteer. It would be extremely difficult for one person to do everything that he was previously responsible for, so after much discussion it was agreed that the next Kusatsu workshop would be headed by a panel of officers including but not limited to the president and program chairs. The panel will also liaise with the head of JACET's seminar.

Publicity: Raymond Hoogenboom and Makiko Shimizu

The Publicity Chair continued maintenance and expansion of Gunma JALT's email contact list, although not aggressively. If people came to meetings, he recorded their e-mail addresses and made sure they received meeting notices. We currently have 52 members and 116 non-members who receive our notices.

Meeting notices were sent out three times per meeting: The first notice was detailed (containing all necessary information such as title of event, abstract of presentation, bio of guest presenter, time, place, etc.) and usually went out soon after the preceding meeting. The second notice was identical to the first and went out a few days prior to the event. The third notice was a short reminder on the morning of the event. All meeting notices went to both members and non-members. Unless notices went into some spam boxes of our members, it is safe to say our membership community was well informed.

The usual structure of meeting notices is as follows:

• sometimes a short friendly introductory message preceding the title of event

• title of event

• time, date, location, & name(s) of presenter(s)

• abstract of presentation/workshop

• biographical information on presenter(s)

• address & guide to location

• meeting fees

• JALT Gunma logo

• list of officers & e-mail

• English & Japanese explanations of JALT

The Publicity Chair also sometimes forward shortened versions of announcements from JALT National to the wider Gunma JALT community.

Proposed: Explore moving Gunma JALT’s announcement service from Gmail to MailChimp.

Rationale: As an alternative to the limited options offered by Gmail, the Publicity Chair is currently exploring how to use an email marketing service called MailChimp. MailChimp offers many more design options and may be less prone to landing in members' spam folders. This is a work in progress which he hopes to achieve before the end of the year. There was a concern raised over whether MailChimp is a trustworthy receptacle for our member's private information. The Publicity Chair assured the attendees he would confirm MailChimp's privacy policies before continuing.

Proposed: Design and distribute bilingual fliers and posters.

Rationale: The Publicity Chair is also designing some general bilingual fliers and posters for JALT Gunma. Although Gunma JALT had good turnouts at meetings this year, it would be nice to attract more primary and secondary school teachers. Bilingual fliers may be an effective way to accomplish this.

At the AGM both of these ideas were met with approval, and there were no objections. The Publicity Chair made it known that both of these ideas are likely to be works-in-progress for some time. 

Treasurer: Barry Keith

The Treasurer kept track of the money coming in and going out of Gunma JALT. For each event, he used chapter funds to pay for the speaker’s honorarium, transportation, lunch and group refreshments. Also, the Treasurer collected dues from the Membership Chair for national, local and one-day memberships. In addition, he made monthly financial reports to JALT National by inputting the income and expenses in an Excel spreadsheet. Finally, the Treasurer complied all the year’s financial records for the annual financial examination in April. Gunma JALT is in good shape financially. We have approximately as much money as we have had in previous years. We could survive for at least a year on our supplemental funds even if we were not to receive our annual grant from JALT National.

One major change in 2014 has been the elimination of the annual examination. Instead, treasurers are now asked to provide a monthly accounting of revenue and expenses. This means there will be no annual examination and this greatly alleviates the treasurer's burden compared to years past.

Proposed: Stop reimbursing speakers separately for transportation. 

Rationale: Currently, we pay an honorarium and ask for the speaker to provide receipts for transportation. The speaker is reimbursed the exact amount. To simplify the process, Gunma JALT should pay each invited speaker a flat fee, from which the speaker can then cover their own expenses. This would greatly simplify the accounting process and alleviate the amount of paperwork.

Proposed: Eliminate the one-day membership fee. 

Rationale: The purpose is to encourage as many participants as possible, such as ALTs and public school teachers in our community. Repeat visitors will be encouraged to join our organization as either local or national members. If they feel they are getting a good value, they should have no objections to joining. The one-day member ship fee is not a significant source of revenue and may be hindering participation from people in our community. 

At the AGM the first proposal regarding speaker reimbursement was generally accepted without objection. The second proposal however, proved to be more contentious. Some were concerned that offering meetings for free to non-members would cause current members to question the value of their memberships. Another concern was that a system that offered free meetings might be abused. In the interest of time, the implementation of this proposal was put on hold pending future discussion among the officers via email.

Facilities: Hideto D. Harashima and Lori Ann Desrosiers

Facilities Chairs arranged and coordinated meetings in a variety of places such as Kyoai Gakuen and MIT on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Kusatsu Summer Workshop was held in a new venue this year: Kusatsu Skyland Hotel. Being unsure of the situation there, Facility Chair Hideto Harashima provided most of needed equipment. The hotel did indeed have a projector but not a screen. However, quick thinking and two sheets of paper did the job. The loud-speaker system was not satisfactory and the room was not air-conditioned, but it was equipped with some electric fans. Over all, Kusatsu Skyland Hotel was more comfortable than the venue Gunma JALT previously used, but the dining room was not very appropriate for a "party" atmosphere.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Social: Yoko Miyazaki and Renée Sawazaki

The Social Chairs prepared coffee, tea and snacks for break time at Gunma JALT monthly meetings.  They kept hot water pots at home so that they could take them when Gunma JALT had meetings at places other than Kyoai Gakuen College, where two pots are kept.  They tried to make sure at least one Social Chair attended and set up the snack table at each meeting, as these coffee breaks help enhance communication among attendees. The Social Chairs also organized the year-end party at an Italian restaurant in Maebashi. The cherry blossom-viewing picnic planned in April was unfortunately cancelled as the weather didn't cooperate.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Newsletter: Barry Keith (publication), Harry Meyer (submissions) and Terry Dassow (design)

The Submissions Editor accepted submissions to Speakeasy, proofread them, contacted the authors with requests for clarification and made suggestions for the revision of papers. He contributed to the letter from the editors, communicated with other members of the Speakeasy team regarding the layout (font type and size, spacing, which articles were to be published first, whether to include biographical information and chapter records), the character of Speakeasy (what kind of publication it would be), whether it would be color or black and white (based on available financing), and contributed to the proofreading of the final drafts.

The Publications Editor handled communications between the printer and the design editor. He also negotiated with the printer in order to preserve the professionalism of Speakeasy's new design without breaking the bank. Lastly, working in concert with President John Larson, he received the printed copies and made sure they were distributed to Gunma JALT members.

With help from the other members of the Speakeasy team, the Design Editor completely overhauled Speakeasy’s graphic design and brought it into the modern age. Using various modern publications as models, and after fielding many different trial designs, she molded the submissions received from the Submissions Editor into an elegant and professional journal, both online and in print. This hard work will pay dividends for years to come as the current design can serve as a template for Speakeasy 27 and beyond.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Recording: John Larson and Yoko Kamo (photography)

The Recording Secretary attended and summarized the contents of most of Gunma JALT meetings this year with Program Chair Joël Laurier taking up the slack. These summaries were sent to JALT National for publication in TLT and were also uploaded to our website.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Website: John Larson

The Website Editor maintained Gunma JALT's website and Facebook page. After each meeting was announced, he created a new webpage for that meeting with all the necessary information. The same information was used to make events in Facebook and in the JALT Event Calendar. After each meeting finished, he updated the webpage with the meeting summary. All told, there were about 20 updates to the webpage this year. Gunma JALT's Facebook group is moving along nicely, though it would be nice to have more participation.

Proposed: Consider moving Gunma JALT’s website to a paid provider.

Rationale: Gunma JALT's webpage is currently hosted for free using Google Sites. It is a simple but serviceable design and has served us well for over four years now. However, at the beginning of August, it was suddenly taken down by Google. Gunma JALT is in no way breaking any rules or guidelines of Google Sites, and it is impossible to say why the site was taken down. After many attempts to contact someone at Google to ask them about the situation, the website was reinstated. There was no explanation for the downtime, and there was no communication from Google whatsoever about the issue.

It is probable that not many members use Gunma JALT's website, but it still is a valuable resource as an archive of past events. The lack of recourse if Google were to decide to remove our website permanently is concerning. There are many free website services, but they all have the same problem - their administration is done automatically by computers, and sometimes computers make mistakes. The Website Editor proposes Gunma JALT consider using a paid website service for the safety and control it gives us over the website. Switching to a different provider will be a huge initial burden for the next Website Dditor, and yet it is probably worth the effort. It would be a tragedy to lose all of our archives irrevocably to a computer mistake that can't be undone. Such a service would cost less than ¥1000 a month for everything Gunma JALT needs. 

There were no objections to this plan at the AGM, but there was one reservation made prior to the AGM. The reservation was that the safety and control achieved by moving the website to a paid provider wouldn't be worth the monthly fee Gunma JALT would have to pay. So instead of fully moving forward with this plan, the website editor suggested creating a website using a free-trial period to check the feasibility and value of such a move before making the proposal again at a later date.

Election

The election this year was very positive, with all volunteers accepted unanimously. Our officers next year were decided as follows:

President: John Larson

Membership: Barry Keith

Program: Michele Steele, Joël Laurier

Publicity: Raymond Hoogenboom, Kayvon Havaei-Ahary

Treasurer: Sylvain Bergeron

Facilities: Hideto Harashima, Lori Ann Desrosiers

Social: Yoko Miyazaki, Renee Sawazaki

Newsletter: Harry Meyer, Kayvon Havaei-Ahary

Recording: John Larson, Raymond Hoogenboom (Photography)

Website: John Larson

Chapter Operations Overview

If Gunma JALT’s 2013 year could be summed up in one word, it would be “volunteerism”. There is always a spirit of positive participation among the members of our chapter, and that spirit manifested itself in many ways this year. From 2-hour presentations to 20-minute My Shares, Gunma JALT members presented their recent academic achievements no less than eight times. When officers found themselves unable, others gladly stepped in to fill their shoes. Lastly, the wonderfully punctual and participatory attendees at this year’s Workshop in Kusatsu helped keep things on time and on track. Thank you, members of Gunma JALT, for making this chapter what it is.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

President: John Larson

The President coordinated and communicated with other officers to make sure Gunma JALT was running smoothly. He represented Gunma JALT at national meetings, organized our local AGM and put together our Chapter Report.

This year the job of President has been easy due to the positive contributions made by all Gunma JALT officers.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM. 

Membership: Yoko Kamo

The Membership Chair took attendance at the front desk at monthly meetings, as well as processed new and renewing members to JALT. Also, the Membership Chair checked the monthly membership list, sending out any membership renewal reminders to members who had forgotten.

Compared with last year, this year’s Gunma JALT membership has decreased. Last year we had 56 members, as of October this year we have 51. However, attendance at meetings has been very good, with most meetings attracting between 15 and 20 attendees.

Special thanks goes to Junko Hoshino for stepping in and running the check-in desk when Yoko was unavailable!

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Program: Michele Steele, Morijiro Shibayama, Harry Meyer, Daniel Potocki

The Program Chairs invited speakers to present at meetings, worked with the Facilities Chairs to arrange the venues for meetings, and relayed information about each meeting to the Publicity Chairs. They also were responsible for organizing the Sumer Workshop in Kusatsu, including working together with our counterparts in JACET to line up a lecturer and venue.

This year Gunma JALT had some lively and informative meetings, including many great presentations by local presenters. In addition, we had a wonderful My Share collaboration with Omiya Chapter. A list of our meetings with summaries can be found on our webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/gunmajalt/system/app/pages/subPages?path=/previous Hopefully next year our members can recommend some great presenters for our meetings.

At the AGM, Michele commented that if other officers or members have any ideas for presenters, those ideas can help the Program Chairs greatly. Please send any suggestions to gunmajalt+program@gmail.com. 

Publicity: Raymond Hoogenboom, Makiko Shimizu

The Publicity Chairs maintained and expanded our email contact lists, sent out email notifications for meetings and other events such as Kusatsu, and occasionally sent out news, event notifications and information from JALT National. Publicity Chairs are also responsible for asking publishers such as Japan Times, Daily Yomiuri and Shukan ST to post our monthly meeting announcements.

Next year the Publicity Chairs hope to expand membership and meeting attendance by attracting younger members as well as primary- and secondary-school teachers.

At the AGM, John commented that our great attendance at meetings was most likely the great job done by the Publicity Chairs this past year.

Treasurer: Barry Keith

The Treasurer kept track of the money coming in and going out of Gunma JALT. For each event, he used chapter funds to pay for the speaker’s honorarium, transportation, lunch and group refreshments. Also, the Treasurer collected dues from the Membership Chair for national, local and one-day memberships. In addition, he made monthly financial reports to JALT National by inputting the income and expenses in an Excel spreadsheet. Finally, the Treasurer complied all the year’s financial records for the annual financial examination in April.

Gunma JALT is in good shape financially. We have approximately as much money as we have had in previous years. We could survive for at least a year on our supplemental funds even if we were not to receive our annual grant from JALT National.

At the AGM, Barry commented that we are financially healthy enough to take on a prominent presenter if an opportunity presents itself. 

Facilities: Hideto D. Harashima, Lori Ann Desrosiers, Emiko Ubukawa

Facilities Chairs arranged and coordinated meeting places for our monthly meetings. They reserved rooms, prepared equipment and put up signs for people to follow.

This year Gunma JALT meetings were held primarily at Kyoai, with other meetings at MIT and Gunma University. Thanks to the Facilities Chairs, Gunma JALT was able to use all these facilities free of charge.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Social: Yoko Miyazaki, Renee Sawazaki

Social Chairs prepared coffee, tea and snacks for break time at Gunma JALT monthly meetings, as well as for our Workshop in Kusatsu. These coffee breaks helped enhance communication among attendees. The Social Chairs also organized the year-end party in Takasaki and the Chinese dinner after our collaborative My Share with Omiya Chapter in April. Unfortunately, this year’s flower-viewing picnic was canceled, as various members’ schedules didn’t agree with the timing of this year’s cherry blossoms.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Newsletter: Barry Keith

The Editor of Speakeasy collected papers from authors, put them together, edited them and sent them to the printers. Finding people willing to submit papers for publication continued to be a difficult prospect.

At the AGM, Barry commented that finding people willing to submit papers for publication was difficult. Many ideas were discussed. Two of the most popular were 1) asking for at least one submission from each of the officers and 2) moving to some kind of online system so that publication could be done in a more timely manner.

Recording: Lori Ann Derosiers, John Larson, Daniel Potocki

The Recording Secretaries attended and summarized the contents of our meetings. These summaries were sent to JALT National for publication in TLT and were also uploaded to our website.

Nothing was added to this section at the AGM.

Web-site: John Larson, Daniel Potocki

The web-site editors maintained Gunma JALT’s website and Facebook page. They uploaded all meeting announcements and summaries to the webpage, as well updating the Facebook page with announcements and articles of interest to Gunma JALT members.

At the AGM, John added that it would be beneficial if officers and members could use the monthly Facebook event to invite their friends who might be interested attending.

Election

The election this year was very positive, with all volunteers accepted unanimously. Our officers next year were decided as follows:

President: John Larson

Membership: Sylvain Bergeron

Program: Michele Steele, Morijiro Shibayama (Workshop), Joël Laurier

Publicity: Raymond Hoogenboom, Makiko Shimizu (Translation)

Treasurer: Barry Keith

Facilities: Hideto Harashima, Lori Ann Desrosiers

Social: Yoko Miyazaki, Renee Sawazaki

Newsletter: Barry Keith, Terry Dassow, Harry Meyer

Recording: John Larson, Yoko Kamo (Photography)

Website: John Larson