EACL Report, June 2006 ========================= Gertjan van Noord, Chair Anette Frank, Secretary Contents -------- 1. EACL 2006 Conference 2. EACL 2009 3. EACL Newsletter 4. EACL participation in ACL 2007 Board 5. EACL Student Board 6. EACL Sponsorships 7. Executive Board meeting 8. Financial report 9. EACL officers 1. EACL 2006 Conference ----------------------- The 11th Conference of the European Chapter of the ACL was held April 3-7 in Trento, Italy. With 316 registered participants it was one of the largest EACL meetings in history, albeit somewhat smaller than EACL 2003 in Budapest. In addition to the main programme, there was a workshop programme (12 workshops), a set of tutorials (4), a student research workshop, and a poster and demos programme. The meeting was very well organized, thanks, in particular, to the efforts of the local organizers as well as the program chairs. Financially, it appears the conference will make a small surplus, but the final figures are still pending. Thanks to the efforts of the publication chairs, the full set of publications is now also available through the ACL Anthology. The workshop programme was satisfactory (with a substantial amount of registrations), although there was wild variation among workshops. The number of participants for the tutorials was slightly below expectations, perhaps due to timing (in parallel to workshops). The issue was raised whether (and if so, how) tutorial materials could be included in the ACL Anthology. Based on feedback during the meeting of the EACL board with the various chairs, the student board organised a feedback exercise which indicated quite clearly that the student workshop has full support from the community. Full details can be found at the EACL website. With the help of the local organizers, the sponsorships chairs implemented a system of various levels of sponsorships. Despite quite some effort, it remained hard to obtain many sponsors. The acceptance rate for the main programme was, once again, low. Some ideas have been discussed to change the setup of the conference in 2009 to attract other types of papers, perhaps including a different organization of the poster session. 2. EACL 2009 ------------ Preparations for the next EACL meeting, to be held in 2009, are now underway. A call for bids has been issued. The call for bids is open until December 15, 2006. Details are available from the EACL website. 3. EACL Newsletter ------------------ Issue 8 of the EACL newsletter appeared in May 2006. All EACL newsletters are on-line at the EACL website, www.eacl.org The letter is electronically distributed to EACL members and the ACL Board. Contents of Issue 8 were: * Editorial by Alex Lascarides * View from the chair * Report on EACL 2006 * Report on EACL 2006 Programme * Call for bids: EACL 2009 * Report of the PASCAL Challenge * Report on TALN 2006 * Acceptance rates at ACLs * EACL Membership * EACL Private Pages * EACL Student Sponsorships * Calendar 3. Participation of EACL exec board in ACL 2007 organisation ------------------------------------------------------------ Next to the EACL chair, treasurer and secretary, Alex Lascarides as chair-elect will join the ACL 2007 organisation board. 4. EACL Student board --------------------- The EACL student board has organised the Student Research Workshop at EACL 2006, and has conducted an opinion poll regarding the appreciation of the latter. The results were encouraging. Sebastian Pado's service on the EACL Student Board is ending June 30, 2006. Sebastian has done excellent work for the maintenance of the EACL web pages, and far beyond. Nuria Bertomeu, PhD student in the joint International Graduate College of the University of the Saarland and the University of Edinburgh, has been nominated to join the Student Board in July. She will introduce herself in the next EACL Newsletter edition. 5. EACL Sponsorships -------------------- In 2006, EACL has offered substantial financial support for ESSLLI 2006, valuing 3000 Euros in total. It was requested that for student grants, preference should be given to students of Eastern European countries. The EACL has also funded five students from the geographical area of the EACL who had papers accepted at the EACL 2006 conference (in the main session, the student research workshop, the poster/demo session, or co-located workshops). The support EACL provided was up to 500 EUR per student. Finally, EACL has sponsored one student from Eastern European countries with 500 EUR, to support her participation in the Lexicom Workshop in Lexical Computing and Lexicography in Opatija, Croatia. 6. Executive Board Meeting -------------------------- The annual meeting of the Executive Board was held in conjunction with the EACL 2006 conference, Trento, April 5th. Participating Board members were Geertjan van Noord, Alex Lascarides, Mike Rosner, Anette Frank, Paola Merlo, Galia Angelova and Ido Dagan. 7. Report to Chamber of Commerce -------------------------------- In June, the EACL provided a report to the Chamber of Commerce, as prescribed by the EACL constitution. The report was signed by the EACL President, Treasurer and Secretary. 8. Financial report ------------------- The consolidated financial statement for 2005 is as given below. EUROPEAN CHAPTER 2005 CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT 31/12/2004 opening balance 13,140 INCOME Interest 96 ACL/EACL04 Barcelona (not available) EXPENSES withholding tax -34 SITE VISIT, TRENTO -1,217 EACL ASSOCIATION FEE -31 eacl.org.mt domain -71 ESSLI sponsorship -3,000 EACL Board Mtg Expenses -51 net loss = -4,404 31/12/2005 closing balance 8,832 9. EACL Officers per July, 1st, 2006 ------------------------------------ The EACL Board has been constant, except for Nuria Bertomeu joining the Student Board, in replacement of Sebastian Pado. Chair Gertjan van Noord (University of Groningen, NL) Secretary Anette Frank (DFKI, Germany) Treasurer Mike Rosner (University of Malta) Chair-elect Alex Lascarides (University of Edinburgh) Advisory Board Galia Angelova (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) Ido Dagan (Bar Ilan University, Israel) Paola Merlo (University of Geneva) Felisa Verdejo (UNED, Spain) Nominating Committee Philippe Blache (CNRS & Université de Provence, France) John Carroll (University of Sussex, UK) Claire Gardent (LORIA, France) Donia Scott (University of Brighton, UK) Student Board Nuria Bertomeu (University of the Saarland, Germany) Jonathon Read (University of Sussex, UK) Violeta Seretan (University of Geneva, Switzerland)