Membership Frequently Asked Questions

Membership is open to anybody (the committee reserves the right to reject a member or decline an application for membership as outlined in the Constitution).

Membership goes for the calendar year, 1 January-31 December. Renewals for the following year are called for in September-October (whenever the abstracts are accepted for the conference) and are due on or before 1 January of the year in question, e.g. a member who joins in July will be asked to renew as early as September of the same year for the next year.

Membership includes the following privileges:

Voting in the AGM, applying for prizes, speaking in the conference, receiving messages on the mailing list (includes newsletters), a copy of Antichthon (some membership types include only e-access to Antichthon).

Joint members (who are joint with a partner/spouse) are entitled to all the same things, they can each vote in AGMs and present in the conference, but receive only one hard copy of Antichthon. This category is no longer open to new members.

Voting

It is necessary to be a financial member in the current year to vote in the AGM.

Abstracts

It is not necessary to be a member of the society to submit an abstract for the conference or to register for the conference.

If the abstract is accepted the presenter must join the society for the year of the conference (see the final point) before they register for the conference IF they are usually resident in Australia/New Zealand. (International speakers are not required to join the society. Speakers on a special organised panel such as the AWAWS panel or the school teacher’s panel are also exempt at the discretion of the society.)

Conferences

It is not necessary to join the society to attend a conference or conference dinner.

Prizes

It is necessary to be a financial member (by the closing date of the prize) to apply for ECR prizes but this is not required for undergraduate students entering the translation competitions etc.

Antichthon

It is necessary to be financial by the end of November to receive a copy of Antichthon (the society’s journal) in that year. For this reason, any new members who join between January and November will be taken as members for the current year, unless they specify another year (in the ‘order ID field’ of the payment site, or on the new member’s form, or in an email to membership@ascs.org.au).

Lapse of membership

A member who is financial in 2020 but does not pay in 2021 is, in 2021, considered to be ‘unfinancial’. At the beginning of 2022, the membership secretary will consider them to have lapsed and remove them from the list. (In the special circumstances of 2020, the executive has decided to extend this period once so that members who were financial in 2019, and did not pay in 2020, are not removed in 2021 but have an extra year as ‘unfinancial’ members.)

A new member joining in the last part of the year (September-December) becomes a member immediately for the next year. i.e. they start getting messages, they are eligible to apply for the upcoming round of prizes that close this year or early next year, they can vote at the next AGM and speak at the next conference. But they do not get two copies of Antichthon, only the year for which their membership is ‘active’ (the next year). This does not apply to an unfinancial member (i.e. did not pay in the current year); instead they must specify whether they want their payment to apply to the current year or the next year. If they want to apply for prizes/speak at the conference, they should choose the next year, or pay two years.