Dear fellow (now nearly former) Inkshedders:
I'm sad too to think of this organization shutting down. It's been a
great way to find and keep in touch with others in the field, in fact to
work with them to invent the field. Inkshed in its various forms let us
know we had colleagues within reach when needed.
But I'm also relieved that there are plans to keep the Inkshed archives
available to honour this history. I fully agree that transferring the
funds to Inkshed Publications is the right thing to do. Then the
organization can retire gracefully rather than just collapsing.
Going forward, if CASDW agrees to open up a section on their website for
the newsletter files, I'll gladly help transfer them. Russ Hunt did a
fine job of collecting all the early issues and making them into PDF
files, so transfer would be easy. Or if Inkshed Publications is the
adopter of the archives, I can help in the same way.
Before that last bow, however, I'd like to collect the email responses
to yesterday's news for a final issue of the Inkshed online newsletter.
Then that newsletter issue will go into the archives too -- bearing
Tania's distinctive logo of the Inkshed blot, and subject to Roger's
ideas for further retrospection. So please keep your responses coming,
and I'll ask for author permissions to collate them on the Inkshed
website: no editing or revisions needed, just a collection of inksheds
(!) responding to Brock's message.
In sympathy,
Margaret.
On 4/10/2017 10:57 AM, Brock MacDonald wrote:
> Hi, all.
>
> (I’m sending this message to both the CASLL and CASDW lists, in the
> hope of reaching all former Inkshedders. Apologies for duplications!)
>
> The announcement Roger Graves recently sent out re the latest book
> from Inkshed Publications makes this a timely message . . .
>
> This is the second year in a row without an Inkshed conference. None
> of our efforts to reboot and reinvigorate the conference in the years
> 2012 through 2015, though sometimes moderately successful as one-off
> meetings, have generated the collective commitment needed to truly
> revive Inkshed and keep it going. Taking stock of this situation, the
> CASLL Board of Directors has decided that it’s finally time to face
> the music and accept that Inkshed and its parent association aren’t
> coming back. (Re the association, it effectively no longer exists:
> for several years now there have been no paid-up members apart from
> some of us on the Board and Margaret Procter, who manages the
> Inkshed/CASLL website.)
>
> No doubt there are a number of reasons for this situation: one is the
> growth of CWCA in recent years, based on its great success in bringing
> together the Canadian Writing Centre community; another is the way
> that CASDW has become a big tent association for Canadian writing
> studies and writing pedagogy in general since its metamorphosis from
> CATTW. Most pertinent of all may be the fact that a great many
> (almost all?) of Inkshed’s founding generation of members have retired
> in recent years: the core of the community that once sustained the
> conference and its parent association just isn’t there any more.
>
> I’m sure many of us will feel some sadness about this, remembering how
> significant Inkshed has been in our professional lives. However,
> although the Board has decided that it’s time to shut CASLL down, this
> isn’t an absolute ending. The Board proposes to transfer the
> remaining funds in the CASLL bank account, roughly $7000.00, to
> Inkshed Publications. Unlike the Inkshed conference, Inkshed
> publications is very much alive: besides the recently published
> /Cross-Border Networks in Writing Studies, /it has two more books
> coming out in the near future, following which it will still have
> sufficient funds to produce perhaps one more. The infusion of the
> funds from CASLL will make possible up to four more books over the
> next few years, following which new funding will be needed, perhaps
> from CASDW and CWCA. According to its Constitution, the purpose of
> CASLL is "to provide a forum and common context for discussion,
> collaboration, and reflective inquiry in discourse and pedagogy in the
> areas of writing, reading (including the reading of literature),
> rhetoric, and language.” We on the CASLL Board feel that devoting the
> association’s remaining funds to supporting Inkshed Publications, the
> one and only Canadian imprint devoted to work in our field, is the
> best way to ensure that CASLL’s dissolution is in keeping with its
> fundamental purpose.
>
> Regarding the association's online presence: it's currently (and
> rather awkwardly) in two cyber-places, the Inkshed newletter/blog site
> that Margaret maintains (http://www.inkshed.ca/blog/) and the older
> Inkshed site (http://inkshed.ca/), now essentially an archive of
> material from the association’s earlier years. Ideally all the
> association’s records should be brought together on one site, either
> under the aegis of CASDW or as part of an independent Inkshed
> Publications site (which would be effectively a repurposed version of
> the Inkshed newsletter site, where Inkshed Publications currently has
> its online presence). The key thing is that the association’s archive
> needs to be maintained by an active organization to ensure its
> long-term viability. This will be on the agenda for discussion at the
> CASDW AGM at Congress. As for the CASLL list serve, once the
> association has been dissolved it would be shut down.
>
> I should say something regarding the constitutional aspects of
> dissolving CASLL. The one explicit mention of dissolution procedures
> in the CASLL constitution is a clause that says "In case of
> dissolution of the association, the profits and liabilities of the
> association will be shared equally among all of the paid-up current
> voting members.” The Board’s plan to transfer the association’s
> remaining funds to Inskhed Publications is in effect an agreement
> among the paid-up current voting members to use their “shares” that
> way, rather than simply cashing out (!!).
>
> As for the decision to dissolve the association, while there is no
> specified procedure for this, the constitution does say that "The
> Board of Directors of the association shall have the responsibility of
> carrying out the management of the association. This responsibility
> should be carried out with the knowledge and cooperation of the
> membership.” In our view, in the absence of any specific clause re
> dissolution, it clearly comes under “management of the association.”
> As for "the knowledge and cooperation of the membership," as I’ve
> already mentioned, at present the membership is effectively
> non-existent, leaving the Board on its own. However, in keeping with
> the spirit of the constitution, the Board agreed that this notice
> should be sent out: we hope it will reach all former CASLL members and
> prompt some discussion, from which we further hope will emerge general
> agreement in support of the decision we’ve taken.
>
> If there is strong opposition to the Board's decision, those opposed
> would need to take a number of steps to give their opposition effect,
> starting with paying fees in order to become current CASLL members and
> thus be entitled to vote on the Board’s plan. If a sudden flood of
> membership payments materializes, obviously we’ll have to think again!
> However, we sincerely hope that this will not happen — that everyone
> will agree that it’s best to bid CASLL and Inkshed a fond farewell and
> let them rest in peace.
>
> Best wishes,
> Brock
>
> On behalf of the CASLL Board of Directors (membership as of 2016, when
> we met and made this decision): Clare Bermingham, Kim Garwood, J.
> Barbara Rose, and Dena Taylor
>
>
>
> W. Brock MacDonald
> Vice-Principal
> Director, Academic Writing Centre
> Woodsworth College, University of Toronto
> 119 St. George Street
> Toronto, ON M5S-1A9
> (416) 978-0246
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