The meeting was called to order at 5:35pm on Friday, August 8, 2008 by Ted Morris, President of the Hume Society, who announced the agenda:

1. Approval of the minutes of the 2007 business meeting
2. Motions of Gratitude to the Conference Organizers
3. Report of the President
4. Report of the Secretary-Treasurer
5. Report of Hume Studies Editors
6. Updates on Future Conferences
7. New business

Under item 1, Approval of the of the 2007 minutes was moved and seconded. The minutes were ratified by the members present.

Under item 2, David Owen introduced the following motions of gratitude to the Conference Sponsors and to the Conference directors. Both were approved by a unanimous vote:

Motion One: I invite all here assembled to join me in expressing the Hume Society’s deepest gratitude to the University of Akureyri for its gracious hospitality as the host institution of the 35th Annual Hume Society Conference, convened in Iceland, 6-11, August 2008.
We also thank the University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Hólar University College, and Bifröst University for their generous hospitality.

I further move that the copies of the above expression of gratitude be sent to the appropriate adminstrators at these institutions.

Motion Two: I invite all here assembled to join me in expressing our congratulations and acknowledgement of indebtedness to the Conference Conveners,
   Charlotte Brown, Illinois Wesleyan University
   Mikael Karlsson, University of Iceland and University of Akureyri
   Wade Robison, Rochester Institute of Technology
In particular, we commend:
   (1) their willingness to undertake shared responsibility for planning and jointly organizing the conference;
   (2) their judiciousness in creating a splendid conference program on the themes of Belief and Sentiment, Passion and Value;
   (3) their resourcefulness in seeking and securing funding for the conference;
   (4) their energy and efficiency in overseeing the countless arrangements and details that contributed to the great success of the event; and especially
   (5) for the opportunities afforded Hume Society members to see this beautiful and interesting country, to learn about its cultural history and its natural wonders;
   (6) their care to insure that Hume Society members from many different countries had a chance to become personally acquainted with one another, and with their respective ongoing intellectual activities.
 

I further move that the copies of the above expression of gratitude be sent to the appropriate administrators of Illinois Wesleyan University, University of Iceland and University of Akureyri, and Rochester Institute of Technology

Under item 3. Report from the President

1) Ted Morris announced that Angela Coventry has been selected as the next Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Hume Society. Her term begins January 1, 2009. Portland State University will provide institutional support for Angela.

Ted also asked those assembled to join him in thanking Corliss Swain for her service as Secretary-Treasurer.

2) Ted announced the following changes at Hume Studies
a) Jackie Taylor resigned as moral philosophy editor this spring. Michael Gill was selected to take her place. Ted thanked Jackie and Michael for their service to the Hume Society.
b) The EC voted last year that paper copies of Hume Studies will be sent only to those whose dues are current.
c) The EC in consultation with the editors of Hume Studies voted to make current issues of Hume Studies available online through Project Muse. This will provide greater access to the journal and has the potential for generating more revenue. We are currently negotiating with Project Muse to make back issues of Hume Studies available. They continue to be available on the humesociety.org website. Ted expressed thanks to Saul Traiger, who researched the various online publication possibilities over the last several years and who negotiated this deal with Project Muse.

3) Ted announced the upcoming conferences: Halifax in 2009, Antwerp in 2010, and Edinburgh in 2011.

Under item 4. Report from the Secretary-Treasurer

Report from the Secretariat
 

1. Executive Committee Elections. In the 2007 Executive Committee elections, there were three candidates for three positions. David Norton and David Owen were re-elected, while James Harris was elected to his first term.

This year, the EC members whose terms will expire are Donald Ainslie, Lorne Falkenstein, and Livia Guimaraes. Lorne has already served two consecutive terms as a regular EC member and thus is not eligible for re-election. Donald and Livia are both eligible for re-election.

A call for nominations will go out in early September. Elections, conducted electronically on the humesociety.org website, will take place in November. Members must have usernames and passwords to vote. Continuing members of the EC are David Owen, David Norton, James Harris, Rachel Cohon, William E. Morris (President), and Saul Traiger. Corliss Swain, Executive Secretary-Treasurer will serve (ex officio) until December 31, 2008. Angela Coventry was selected by the EC to be the next Executive Secretary-Treasurer. She will begin her term as on January 1, 2009.

2. Membership Data. The Society currently has 496 members.
Members by Country. The top countries in terms of membership are: United States 271, Canada 50, UK 38 (England 9 , Scotland 6, Wales 1, UK 23), Japan 25, Italy 12, France 11, Germany 9, Brazil 9, Spain 9, and in tenth place, there is a four-way tie with Belgium, Finland, Greece, and Australia each having 5 members.

Members by Regions. (Using UN World Macro Regions): Africa 1 (0.2%) (Asia 34 (6.9%), Europe 114 (23%), Latin America 17 (3.4%), Northern America 321 (64.7%), and Oceania 7 (1.4%).

Last year the Society welcomed 65 new members. As of July 19, 2008 another 33 members had joined. Names and affiliations of new members can be found at New Members.
Dues. As of 1 July 2008, 221 Hume Society members 44.5% had yet to pay their dues for 2008. 136 (27.4)% have paid ahead (2009 or later). Dues may be paid electronically on the web using credit cards or PayPal.

Of the current members, 11 joined in the 1970s, 24 in the 1980s, 133 in the 1990s, 324 in the 2000s. (For 37 members we have no information.)

3. Conference Submissions. 52 papers papers were submitted for the Iceland conference. 20 papers were selected, for an acceptance rate of 38.5%. Winners of the 2008 Graduate Student Prize are Joel Buenting for “Two Views of Pyrrhonism in Hume,” Mark Hooper (with D. Brown) for “Hume's Pride: Agency, Attention and Self-Individuation,” Emily Kelahan for “What to Make of the Missing Shade of Blue,” Bob Mahoney for “The Sun or the Climate? Hume's Comments on Character,” and Jennifer Smalligan – “The Effects of Custom” Congratulations to all five!

4. Starting in 2007, Hume Studies was sent only to members whose dues are paid for the relevant period. If you missed an issue, please note that archives are available to members on a CD, which has more search options than the on-line archives. In addition, all issues, including the most recent, are available to members on-line. You must have a valid username and password.

The Hume Studies CD, which costs US $55 (including shipping), can be ordered on the website in the For Members Only section at www.humesociety.org/members/membersonly/cd-sales.html. Special rates are available for students.

Report from the Treasurer
The treasurer reported that the Society is in good shape financially. We began the year with assets equaling somewhere between $55,600 and $60,000 (US), depending on the exchange rate. However, some expenses from 2007 were paid in 2008, including $8,000 to Hume Studies, one-half of the year’s Webhosting expenses, and gifts for conference organizers. When these were subtracted, our bottom line was between $47,230 and $51,630. Dues payments continue to be our major source of revenue ($9,632 in 2007), interest from our Iceland accounts is the next largest source of revenue ($2,565 in 2007). Our major expenditures are support for Hume Studies ($8,000) and graduate student travel stipends ($1,000 last year).

Summaries of the Annual Financial Report for 2007 and the Interim Financial Report for 2008, are circulated at the Business meeting and are available on the Society’s website at http://www.humesociety.org/about/minutes/annualfinancialreport-2007.html and http://www.humesociety.org/about/minutes/interimfinancialreport-2008.html

Under item 5. Report from Hume Studies Editors. Peter Loptson’s report is available online at http://humesociety.org/about/editorial-report-08.html

Under item 6. Updates on Future Conferences

Donald Baxter and Livia Guimaraes announced the conference in Halifax, August 2-9, 2009. The themes are Naturalism and Hume’s Philosophy and Hume and the Development of Modern Science. Invited speakers are John Norton, Martha Bolton, Michael Gill, and Ted Morris. Book sessions will be held on recent books by Peter Kail and Rachael Cohen.

The meetings will be held at Kings College. Dalhousie will provide some of the accomodations. Dorm rooms are available ($48.00 single/$60.00 double). In addition 50 rooms are reserved at Lord ($149.00). Halifax has an international airport. Co-director Nathan Brett is arranging entertainment and an excursion. A local artist is working on the t-shirt. The organizers are also looking into the possibility of publishing the proceedings.

A short discussion ensued about publishing the proceedings. Concerns were raised about copyright and a possible conflict with Hume Studies, which is interested in publishing articles based on papers presented at Hume Conferences. (Peter Millican, co-editor of Hume Studies, made a plea for more submissions.)

Jackie Taylor and Donald Ainslie provided an update on the Antwerp conference. The dates are July 6-10, 2010. The tentative themes are Hume and Feminism, Hume and Religion, and Phenomenology. Speakers include Hermann DeJinn. Suggestions for other speakers are welcome. Possible activities include a trip to the art museum in Antwerp and an excursion to a Trappist brewery.

James Harris provided the update on the Edinburgh conference in 2011, celebrating the 300th anniversary of Hume’s birth. The conference will be held at Old College Edinburgh. The tentative dates for the conference are July 18-23, 2011. The theme of the conference is Hume in Scotland, Hume in Europe. Co-directors are David Owen, Martin Bell, and James Harris, who will be working with Susan Manning, Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. The Institute is in the process of raising money for a Hume Fellowship, which would house a fellow every year to work on matters Humean. [Secretary’s note: the fellowship has been funded, and information is available at http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/index.html.

7. New business

Peter Millican asked the EC to consider the possibility of a lifetime membership in the Hume Society, possibly pro-rated, or automatic renewal.

Kathleen Wallace announced that the Hume Group Meetings at the APA in Philadelphia will be on Donald Baxter’s book Hume's Difficulty: Time and Identity in the Treatise. Speakers are Martha Bolton and Lorne Falkenstein.

After a motion and second, the meeting was adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Corliss Swain, Executive Secretary-Treasurer