Posted on by Bruce Dadey

RhetCanada President’s Report Part 1: Tasks and Key Accomplishments

Here is my president’s report for this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), delivered in a document and as a series of two social media posts.

Part 1: Tasks and key accomplishments

It has been an honour to serve our society once again as President this year. Our society plays an important role nationally and globally, bringing together scholars and students in the field of rhetoric.

2018-2019 Presidential Tasks

Conference planning and leadership

  • Developed our Call for Proposals for the 2019 conference and accepted submissions
  • Made arrangements with keynote speaker Roderick Hart (who first approached me)
  • Chaired the advisory committee’s review of 2019 proposals
  • Sent acceptance / rejection emails to those who sent in proposals
  • Acted as our Congress Local Arrangements Coordinator (LAC)
  • Planned this year’s conference sessions and developed the programme
  • Invited roundtable panelists, respondents, and facilitators for our 2 roundtables
  • Consulted with Congress 2019 organizers to reduce our catering costs
  • Planned to speak the welcome, attend all sessions and chair the AGM

Other leadership tasks

  • Assisted the Webmaster in the transition to the new RhetCanada website and domain
  • Encouraged our Membership Working Group to make progress
  • Liaised with our Student Prize review committee Bruce Dadey and David Beard
  • Consulted with our Editor regarding our journal’s progress and challenges
  • Developed graphic designs for our new identity as RhetCanada

Key contributions

Roundtables

In Regina (2018), I instituted roundtable discussions, and this year at UBC I enhanced them. I see the roundtable genre as an important bridging genre between the formal conference paper and the informal dialogue over coffee. It’s a space for envisioning our shifting field(s). This year, I issued email invitations so that the roundtable speakers earn academic credit for being panelists, respondents and facilitators.

Website hosting transition

Every three years our association must pay for website hosting renewal, and 2018 was such a year. Renewal of hosting was going to cost a fortune compared to finding a new host, so I shopped around and I saved us at least $300 CAD. Compared to the fees our association pays yearly to Congress for membership, AV and catering, our website is cheap.

Graphic design

Instead of printing posters, I subscribed to Canva.com’s pro service. This is a “drag and drop” user-friendly graphic design platform that saves a lot of design time, offers a huge library of licensed professional content, and makes a professional finished product. It can be used for engaging social media memes. Others can collaborate with a Pro user by using the free version.

Print materials can be a waste if they are merely given to people who didn’t ask for them. Too often beautiful printed materials from organizations end up sitting in a pile of papers or falling into the recycle bin. If members want a poster, I recommend they print one. If members want high quality print materials, perhaps we can pool our print orders and share costs.