TEI-C Board Minutes: 21 August 2026

Attending: Elisa Beshero-Bondar, James Cummings (chair), Dimitra Grigoriou, Magdalena Turska, Diane Jakacki, Gimena del Rio Riande

Regrets: none

Agenda Items:

  • Approval of minutes:
    • DG and DJ accepting the July minutes
  • Treasurer report:
    • DJ is very sad because of the TEI-C financial reserves are getting very thin. At this rate sustaining current Council modus operandi may not be possible. P6 will not be possible without external funding.
    • MT asking if the community expressed surprise at why TEI's situation is "suddenly" so bad, but assured that there was a general understanding of increased cost vs cautious institutional spending.
    • DJ/JC/DG: some conferences make it a requirement to be a member to attend the conference. TEI offers reduced rate. Making the benefits of a membership very much more clear at conference registration might be helpful. People appreciate that non-members can attend the meeting.
  • Elections 2026 (Debrief):
    • JC announced the new (mostly old) members of TEI-C Board and Council via TEI-L and updated the website.
    • There was some discussion of electoral process.
    • MT requests some report on election insights, that might help us understand why it's so difficult for new candidates to be elected;
  • TEI2026 (Debrief):
    • TEI-C Board-Council Meeting:
      • There was a debrief of the issues raised in the TEI-C Board-Council meeting. A variety of funding issues and ideas were raised for cost saving measures.
      • Council was looking into external, regional funding by having something like an "office" in Europe. Having NGO in Europe, eg. Amsterdam, might be easier for tax reasons and eligibility for some programs.
      • Council opened a number of Slack channels to discuss various aspects of that and funding streams. DJ suggests streamlining these efforts by having a more central place, like current council-board channel.
      • Important to keep a distinction between individual partnering with TEI over something and TEI-C writing a funding application. As soon as the Consortium is an official partner, the Board must be informed.
      • EBB: funding for Technical Contributor was one of the avenues that are discussed separately. There isn't much detail yet, but DHSI was suggested. IDE (Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik) was another proposal. JC: all good, but it should not distract from the main Council responsibilities, and if there's budget consequence, this should be discussed with the Board
      • EBB: there were discussions regarding insufficient representation of non euro/american parts of the community and measures to address it. But need more concrete solutions.
      • Council reached a consensus that Technical Contributor program is most likely to result in increased engagement and help with the technical responsibilities of the Council.
    • Report/Discussion on TEI 2026 generally:
      • There were discussions concerning the election.
      • EBB: some people missed the voting deadline, her included, and suggests the closing date should not be before the conference
      • GR: we could write documentation on the elections, because currently there's hardly any, so that the person who runs the elections has it all in one place
  • TEI2027:
    • JC: Professors Nagasaki and Agata presented their welcome to Keio University.
    • Initial conversations about dates, hotel block bookings etc are underway.
  • TEI2028:
    • JC reports that he received expressions of interest from [Two Locations - redacted]
    • There was some discussion concerning these locations
    • JC will ask both to come back with fuller applications.
  • Membership Drive:
    • JC suggests that we a) reinstate website membership drive banner, b) badges, c) start the ‘We Are TEI-C’ blog posts. For which JC suggests a standardised form with prose response sections so that the posts have a similar set of sections. (e.g. ‘How did I get involved with the TEI?’, ‘How has learning the TEI benefited me?’, ‘Why should I become a TEI-C member?’ or something like that. (Suggestions?)
    • DG volunteers to help (remind and motivate JC)
    • JC also suggests that we need to investigate whether multi-year memberships are feasible through Wild Apricot. DJ: we'd need ways to track that, so we don't get the wrong budget impressions.
    • There was some discussion concerning how OpaVote and Wild Apricot interact
  • AOB:
    • Bylaws (we neglected to update some sections) JC Notes the bylaws still currently say in section II.3 (Voting):
      • Members shall be entitled to voting rights as provided in Article I of these Bylaws, as follows. Individual Members may not transfer their vote to any other person, except by means of a Proxy as defined below. For Project and Institutional Members, a named individual, specified at the time of taking up or renewing membership shall be designated the Elector. It is the responsibility of the Project or Institutional Member to ensure that the Secretary of the Consortium is provided with a current contact address for its Elector. In the event that a Project or Institutional member wishes to change their designated Elector, the original applicant for that membership must deliver written notice to the Secretary of the Consortium, identifying (with full contact information) both the original Elector and the new Elector, and stating that electoral rights should be transferred from the former to the latter. Such notice shall be given not less than fourteen (14) days before the date of the first Meeting in which the member wishes its new Elector to be entitled to vote. In the event that an Institutional Member has designated neither an Elector nor a Proxy at least fourteen (14) days before a Meeting, the Member’s vote shall not be cast at that Meeting. A Member may designate a Proxy voter. Where votes are to be cast by means of a Proxy, details of that Proxy shall be returned to the Secretary by the time designated in the material sent with the notice of Meeting, as defined in Clause 4 below.
    • JC proposes this be reworded to just cut out the administrative details for transferring ‘elector’ status since this is no longer applicable to:
      • Members shall be entitled to voting rights as provided in Article I of these Bylaws, as follows. Individual Members may not transfer their vote to any other person, except by means of a Proxy as defined below. It is the responsibility of the Project or Institutional Member contact to ensure that the Secretary of the Consortium is provided with current contact addresses for their members via the Members website. Any change of membership or addresses must be done at least fourteen days before a vote taken by such means. Any Member may designate a Proxy voter. Where votes are to be cast by means of a Proxy, details of that Proxy shall be returned to the Secretary by the time designated in the material sent with the notice of Meeting or Election, as defined in Clause 4 below.
    • To change the bylaws we simply need a majority of the voting members of the Board of Directors. Unanimous vote to accept the change and modify any other mention of 'Elector'.
  • Next Meeting: Need to schedule. JC suggests 8:30am Eastern Time on the third Friday of each month going forward. All agree, JC will send calendar appointments.