Actes du colloque

Proceedings of the 18

International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013

APOLOGIES

Professor Norbert Morgenstern

- Past President ISSMGE

Professor KT Chau

- Chair, TC103

Professor Jonathan Fannin

- Chair, TC208

Professor Christophe Gaudin

- Chair, TC104

Professor Michael Heibaum

- Chair, TC213

Professor Arne Instanes

- Chair, TC216

Professor Kyriazis Pitilakis

- Chair, TC203

Professor Vladimir Ulitsky

- Chair, TC207

Dr Esve Jacobsz

- Secretary, AWAC

Professor François Schlosser

- Chair, AWAC

Professor Harry Poulos

- Chair, MPAC

Dr Mahnoosh Biglari

- Chair, SYMPG

OPENING REMARKS BY PRESIDENT AND

AGREEMENT OF THE AGENDA

The President opened the meeting by welcoming all delegates,

and thanking them for having elected him as President of the

Society at the previous Council Meeting. He welcomed the

newest members, the Lebanese and the Chinese Taipei

Geotechnical Societies, bringing national member societies to

89, and he commented that the total individual membership was

nearly 19000. He expressed his interest in expanding ISSMGE

into those countries who are currently not members. He pointed

out that he was the fifteenth president in the history of the

Society, with Professor Michael Davies being the current First

Vice-President.

The President described the remits of the various Board

Level committees, and explained that the newest initiative, the

Public Relations Committee, was still at the planning stage.

LIST OF DELEGATES AND OTHER PERSONS

PRESENT

The Secretary General explained that it was important for the

record to know who attended the meeting. He presented a list

of delegates who had indicated their intention to attend the

Council Meeting. All the voting delegates present were noted

and as were the Member Societies who had transferred their

voting rights by proxy.

CONFIRMATION OF QUORUM

The Secretary General noted that at this count there were 63

votes available from 26 voting delegates and 37 proxies. He

confirmed that the meeting was quorate for voting on any

matter; though he thought it unfortunate that the quorum was

made up largely of proxy votes.

CONFIRMATION OF MINUTES OF THE

ALEXANDRIA COUNCIL MEETING

The President asked if there were any objections to the minutes

of the Alexandria Council Meeting. There were none and the

Minutes were approved.

MEMBERSHIP

The Secretary General presented his report (given in Appendix

1) in which it was noted there were currently 86 member

societies. Following the discussion at the previous Council

Meeting in Alexandria, three societies were considered

suspended: Azerbaijan, Kenya and Zimbabwe. The societies in

Kenya and Zimbabwe were not able to operate for obvious

reasons while there had been no contact with the Azerbaijani

society for several years. However, it was hoped they would all

be able to renew ties in the near future. The Secretary General

stated that ISSMGE may have over 19000 individual members,

but that this was difficult to affirm since individual membership

lists from Member Societies were often submitted irregularly

(some member societies not having submitted lists for a number

of years), and some Member Societies were prevented from

providing comprehensive lists due to national privacy laws.

The Secretary General welcomed two new Member

Societies: the Lebanese Geotechnical Engineering Society and

the Chinese Taipei Geotechnical Society. He commented that

there had been some changes in Corporate Associates in that the

economic crisis had affected some companies particularly

adversely and they had chosen to opt out of their association

with ISSMGE. Nevertheless, there had been an overall increase

in Corporate Associates due to the recent recruitment efforts by

members of the MPAC.

The Secretary General went on to discuss the issue of the

Membership List. He commented that the idea of producing a

booklet had been recently abandoned, but that there was still

interest in having a list of names. He asked for a straw poll

amongst the attendees to see if a list should be produced on CD

in time for the Paris Conference, with the following results:

Votes

For:

Against:

Abstentions: 2

On other matters, the Secretary General noted that the Nepal

Geotechnical Society had not been in contact for some time, and

was in danger of being suspended. He asked for help in trying

to establish contact with responsive members of that society.

The Secretary General asked the attendees if there were any

further comments, but there were none.

TRANSFER OF THE ISRAEL GEOTECHNICAL

SOCIETY TO THE ISSMGE EUROPEAN REGION

The President gave Council the background to this item. He

said that at the recent Asian Regional Conference in Hong Kong

he was approached by a representative of the Israeli

Geotechnical Society who asked for the society to be transferred

to the European region. The President said that he first

consulted with the Vice-Presidents for Asia and Europe, who

both agreed that this would be a good move. Essentially, the

move was a means of dealing with the political problems that

had arisen with other countries in the region especially with

regards to selection of the venue for the Regional Conference.

The matter had been discussed by the Board, who had agreed

unanimously to this suggestion, but the President noted that the

Statues required the decision to the ratified by Council.

He asked Council to vote on the issue, with the following

result:

Volume 6 - Page 97