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Proceedings of the 18
th
International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
replied that the work of the TC would continue if requested to
do so by the new president. Jean-Louis Briaud confirmed that
he wished to disconnect the life of the TC from the term of the
presidency, and they should only terminate if a remit was
considered complete, or through inactivity. Similarly, the
Board had decided that a TC could be proposed at any time, not
just at the start of a new term.
Stefano Aversa recognised that the TOC had done an
excellent job. He wanted to use “bottom up control”, and check
with the members in the Italian society that indeed they have
been contacted by their TCs.
Muhsin Elie Rahhal (Lebanon) asked if a person could be a
member of more than one TC. The answer to this was yes, that
the Society should write to the Secretary General with the
names.
Flor de Cock (Belgium) commented that one way of
checking involvement of the TC was to actually check with its
individual members and ask if the TC chairs in contact and how
information was disseminated.
The President pointed out that GeoWorld would now be an
easy way to disseminate such information. Suzanne Lacasse
enquired if GeoWorld could offer a secure and confidential
method of a TC to work on a report. Dimitrios Zekkos stated
that this feature could be part of a future development.
13.4
Student and Young Members' Presidential Group
The President explained that he created the group for engineers
under 35 years of age, and had initially thought of limiting
membership to 18 individuals (meetings via Skype with
numbers higher than this had proven to be difficult). .
However, this proved difficult, and a number of people had
become “corresponding members”.
The President presented the report prepared by the SYMPG
on behalf of Jennifer Nicks, Chair of SYMPG , and Silvia
Garcia, Secretary of SYMPG. This indicated that one of the
areas of concern of the SYMPG was the issue of
communication, and it was felt that this would be vastly
improved by the new GeoWorld initiative. It was also felt that
young engineers should have greater involvement in TC
activities (e.g. as corresponding members), and the group were
keen to promote the development of webinars. The President
emphasised that the future of the society depended on the next
generation of engineers.
The SYMPG group came up with a list of 41 ideas, and it
was decided to concentrate on the top 4, which were presented
to the Board for their approval. This took place over the
previous 18 months, and now the SYMPG group was moving
on to the next items on their list. In short, the group was
extremely active, and doing very well.
13.5
Corporate Associates Presidential Group
The President explained that the Chairman of the Group,
Michael Lisyuk, was unable to attend as he was at a concurrent
TC conference in Croatia.
The President explained that he was very eager to encourage
involvement with practitioners, not just with academics. He had
approached the Corporate Associates, asking what ISSMGE
could do for them, as it was important to make it in their interest
to belong to the society, and stressing that the group has a direct
line to the President. The Corporate Associates came up with
creative suggestions, and it was decided to concentrate on the
first 6:
1. Create an award for outstanding geotechnical project
worldwide (J.-L. Briaud, ISSMGE President)
2. For Regional Conferences, the Organizing Committee
should strive to increase industry/practitioner membership
and lead roles such as Chair and the like. Keynote lecturers
should be given as appropriate by industry. Emphasis on
case records should be given in ISSMGE related
publications. (D. Becker, Golder Associates)
3. Corporate Associates should have a possibility to make
presentation of their work at the International and Regional
Conferences. (M. Lisyuk, Georeconstruction)
4. Allow full page advertisement for CAs in the bulletin on a
rotating basis. (J.-L. Briaud, ISSMGE President)
5. Open up the case studies database to public view and enable
CA’s to add their case studies in a pre-approved and
consistent format. (Chaido (Yuli) Doulala-Rigby, Tensar
Intl Ltd)
6. ISSMGE can organize workshops/seminars for CA on
practical aspects of geotechnical engineering, during
meetings of CAPG. (M. Lisyuk, Georeconstruction)
Of these, 1 & 4 were complete, 2 & 3 were in progress, 5
could be dealt with using the ISSMGE Bulletin and 6 could be
done in the future.
13.6
Award Committee
Charles Ng (Appointed Board Member) gave a presentation on
behalf of the Award Committee. The committee had reviewed
the numbers of awards given out by similar societies, and
concluded that the ISSMGE gave out much fewer awards in
comparison. However, it was acknowledged that this did not
include awards made by the Member Societies themselves.
The committee proposed 5 new awards, and recognised the
need to think through carefully the nomination procedure.
Arsenio Negro (Brazil) commented that the ABMS had
many more awards. Georg Heerten (Germany) stated that the
DGGT had recently increased its number of awards from 1 to 5.
He felt that they were administratively cumbersome, and the
award ceremonies took up too much valuable time at
meetings/conferences.
The President noted that in Paris the awards would be given
during a lunch so as not to interfere with the technical sessions.
Roger Frank (Appointed Board Member) acknowledged that
it was a good idea and was pleased that the new awards would
be presented during the Paris conference. He asked how the
nomination procedure would be publicised.
The President said that some would be self-nominations, but
that depended on the award. In the case of the Outstanding
Geotechnical Project, for example, ASCE had a similar award,
and there was no difficulty with self-nominations. Michael
Davies (Vice – President for Australasia) considered that it
would be appropriate to consult with the Member Societies on
this issue. Luiz de Mello said that it would depend on the
awards, i.e. for best Technical Committee would be nominated
by the TOC, the best project by a Member Society, and the best
Member Society by The President and the Secretary General.
George Heerten asked for further clarification regarding the
“innovation award”. Would this refer to new or existing
techniques and procedures? The President commented that
many good innovations deserved recognition.
Charles Ng considered that the person involved would be
asked to explain the benefit of the innovation, and then the
AWAC would decide.
14
THE ISSMGE FOUNDATION
The president explained that the Foundation had been designed
to help people participate more fully in ISSMGE and its
activities. So far, thanks to very generous individuals,
companies, and other organisations, over USD100,000 had been
raised. However, not many applications had been received for
funding, so relatively few awards had been made. The
President felt that this was because The Foundation needed
more publicity to encourage applicants. He noted that it would
be beneficial if applicants included details of cost sharing to
enhance their prospects of obtaining a Foundation grant.
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