2019-06-02 IESC News

We are now progressing to the next stage of the IESC, namely the vetting of new spelling schemes submitted and the drawing up of a short list.
The deadline for submission of schemes was 31 May 2019. At that date we had received a total of about 33 schemes, ranging from the very conservative to the extremely radical. Most proposals received are currently with the independent sifters who are checking them for compliance with the requirements of the application form. Those that are found to be fully compliant will be sent to the Commission without further process. Where a scheme is not found to be fully compliant, the author is being contacted with suggestions as to what needs to be done to make it address this.
We are aiming to complete the sifting and amendment process by the end of July of this year and for all of the schemes deemed compliant to have been sent to the Commission by that date or shortly thereafter. It will then for the Commission to produce its shortlist of 5 or 6 schemes. When the Commission has agreed on the shortlist, the schemes selected will be publicised via the Society’s website and other means. The authors will be given an opportunity to explain and defend their proposals. Participants in the IESC and the general public will be free to debate the various proposals via the blog pages of our website.
Meanwhile, we shall be publicising the IESC and seeking to persuade more people to sign up as participants or observers.
Once authors have had an opportunity to explain and defend their proposals, we shall arrange a second session of the IESC, which will be largely by webinar. This will give authors a further opportunity to set out their proposals and for participants to question them.
After the second session, all participants will be contacted and given instructions as to how they can cast their votes. The decision will be taken by the Alternative Vote (ie a preferential system). The winner of the competition will be announced thereafter.
Contemporaneously with the vetting and shortlisting process, the Committee of the Society is considering what steps can be taken to promote the successful scheme after the final vote. Some preliminary discussion of this issue took place at the Society’s AGM. We welcome suggestions from all interested in this important subject; they can be sent to spellconf@gmail.com.