Twig AGM 2021
Meeting Minutes

These are the minutes of the meeting held Saturday, April 10, 2021:

Nova Scotia Twig Annual General Meeting, Saturday, April 10, 2021

1. Thanks to Becky Skillin for her service as twig co-coordinator for the past term.

2. Call for nominations for new co-coordinators. Molly Rookwood and Margo Grant acclaimed co-coordinators for the next term.

3. Thanks to volunteers for 2020–2021:

Nicola Aquino – Editors’ Vine

Anne Curry – national director of branches and twigs (east)

Shelley Egan – Professional Editorial Standards Twitter account

Fazeela Jiwa – Equity, Diversity and Inclusion task force

Patricia MacDonald – national director of volunteers

Margo Grant, Becky Skillin, Molly Rookwood – twig coordinators

Julie Cochrane, and Anne Curry – WEB lunches

Margaret MacQuarrie and Anne Curry – Dollars and Sense presentation (September 2020)

Alexandra Peace – Indexing presentation (October 2020)

Candida Hadley and Anne Curry – discussion on Indigenous terminology (March 2021)

Kaitlin Littlechild – discussion on Indigenous terminology (April 2021)

4. Welcome and introduce 14 new members who’ve joined over the past year

5. The year in review: our monthly events & presentations, WEB lunches, finances

We’ve successfully adjusted to being completely online. Thank you all for being so accommodating.

Wolfville editors continued their monthly meetings and we continued to meet monthly online as a full twig.

Presentations included

  • Margaret MacQuarrie and Anne Curry – Dollars and Sense (September 2020)
  • Alexandra Peace – Indexing (October 2020)
  • Tax sessions with CRA – November 2020 and January 2021 (we’ll look into setting this up as a yearly session)
  • editing websites for accessibility with Raya Morrison (March 2021)
  • Stet! Drawer’s English game with Molly Rookwood (March 2021)
  • Indigenous terminology with Candida Hadley and Anne Curry (March 2021)

6. Editors Canada had a major server problem on February 27, 2021, that took all association websites and email offline. We lost our contact lists but were able to rebuild them from our membership lists, and there were problems with some folks not receiving email from our twig account. As a workaround, we set up a gmail account for the twig — editors.maritimes@gmail.com. It may not be permanent but we’re using that until further notice from national, and will look into setting up an email account through our website.

Meanwhile, the national websites (English and French) are back online and webmail access has been restored, and the Editors’ Weekly home page is online; however, the links to the individual posts are broken. We still don’t have access to the online Chicago Manual of Style; however, a free trial extension of it is offered to Editors Canada members.

7. We requested name change for twig from Nova Scotia to Maritimes, as we represent members in New Brunswick and PEI, as well as NS. We were told to wait and see whether Newfoundland and Labrador twig will join us, in which case we’d be Editors Atlantic. This has been discussed before. We want to remain a twig, rather than a branch, as twigs are much easier to handle, less complicated than branches, and more effective for members.

8. What’s coming up:

  • WEB lunch, April 14
  • Indigenous terminology with Kaitlin Littlechild, April 24
  • Mentorship with Virginia McGowan, May 29
  • possible summer get-together at Val Mansour’s cottage on Amherst Shore

9. Things people would like to see in the coming year?

  • We can look into doing another tax session toward the end of the year
  • Another session on managing finances
  • Session on how to find work. Greg Iannou had a webinar recently.
  • Session on BIPOC terminology
  • Session on gender identity and related terminology
  • Session on macros and how to use them
    • There are lots of webinars out there, but we can work on having a specific session on macros for our members.
  • There was interest in having a series of workshops/a small local conference like Frances Peck’s grammar boot camp.
    • As one of our members said, “There’s nothing better than getting together in a room and spending a whole day learning about grammar and style!”
  • If any out-of-town editors are heading east, we could see if they have a session or workshop they want to run.

10. Member Concerns

  • Smaller groups (i.e., not larger branches) have missed out by not having the same events to attend in person (like Editors Toronto’s workshop on Editing Memoir). It would be great if, post-pandemic, bigger twigs/branches could continue to make provisions for smaller communities to attend events and professional development activities.
  • There is already a Task Force for Improving Access to Member Services, which continues to address this particular issue.
  • The Editors’ Vine is also useful for that!
    • They are also always looking for presenters.
  • We can set up a Resources page on our website.
  • We’ll do what we can to keep things accessible for events for people who can’t join in person.
  • Continuing to have the AGM online
  • Possibly doing hybrid events with some people joining online
  • Could we link other twigs’ blogs on our website?
  • It would be nice to have a national calendar.
    • We can start posting our events on the calendar on our website home page.
  • A member noted that ACES has a 30% discount on APA7 online. Any chance Editors Canada could investigate this when they have time?

11. NEC motions: Changes mostly involve clarifying language. Items include changing co-coordinators to co-chairs; including student affiliates in the volunteer policy; changes to awards procedure; changes to honorarium requests; changes to expense reimbursements.

12. Finances

  • Nationally, Editors Canada is doing OK
  • They may sublet the national offices and save a good amount of money that way
  • Centralizing the money has helped on paper
  • People have been buying webinars
  • Money no longer goes back to twigs from webinars as in the past
  • Our twig has $9723.15 in our account. A regular expense is $46 for website hosting and domain name with CanSpace.

13. Encourage participation in the national conference, June 12 & 13

14. Call for national volunteers and volunteer for twig co-chair

15. Introductions of two new members present at the Zoom meeting

Links to resources referenced in the meeting:

Conscious Language Toolkit for Editors — Rabbit with a Red Pen

Free downloadable Conscious Language PerfectIt style sheet • Sofia Matias

Branches & Twigs

Editors Toronto Blog: https://editorstorontoblog.com/

Editors Canada Conference 2021 Sessions: https://pheedloop.com/editors21/site/sessions/