A two days working meeting of IAEG Executive Committee was held in Heathrow Hotel Bath Road, London on May 28-29, 2016. Scott Burns, the IAEG president, chaired and 12 members of the IAEG Executive Committee attended the meeting.
Scott started the meeting and gave welcome and thanks to all the participants, then he collected the comments and suggestions on the agenda of the meeting. The following issues have been discussed and the related decisions have been made:
- The organizing work of the 35th IGC and the IAEG events during the congress
The IAEG vice president, Louis van Rooy reported the preparation progresses of the 35th IGC. The arrangements for IAEG and Engineering Geology subject will be confirmed later on after a meeting of the IGC scientific committee . The ExCom meeting has decided the date for the following events of IAEG:> Friday and Saturday, August 26-27th, a two days ExCom meeting of IAEG;
> Sunday, August 28th, the IAEG Council;
> Monday, August 29th, selection of Richard Wolters Prize. The Jury and 5 jury members have been appointed.
> Wednesday, August 31st, a two hours General Assembly of IAEG members will be organized, formal presentations of the Hans Cloos Medal, Richard Wolters Prize and Marcel Arnould Medal will normally take place, and a 40 minutes Hans Cloos Lecture will be given by the recipient addressing the nominated work. - Hans Cloos Medal, Marcel Arnould Medal and Richard Wolters Prize The recipients of Hans Cloos Medal and Marcel Arnould Medal have been selected. Nominations of three candidates for Hans Cloos Medal and another three for Marcel Arnould Medal have been received before the formal deadline. Two rounds of secret votes were taken without any discussion on the candidates. The recipients for both the two medals have been created according to the regulation of IAEG Bylaws. The President and the Secretary General will distribute the announcement to the recipients and their National Group to inform them of the decision soon after the meeting.Faquan Wu reported that only 3 nominations for Richard Wolters Prize have been received. The meeting allows a further notification for more candidates before the nominations submitted to the president 60 days before the Cape Town council meeting
- The structure of IAEG membership feeMartin Culshaw, the Chief Editor of the Bulletin and chair of the working group for IAEG membership fee restructure, reported the progress and suggestions on the structure of IAEG membership fee. A long time discussion has been focused on the following two issues: the structure of membership fee and the standard for the evaluation of high/low income country.
Martin will propose a detailed fee structure to the IAEG Council meeting for approval in Cape Town this August. - Strategy of IAEG
A half day discussion for the strategy of IAEG has been focused on the mission, vision and objectives of IAEG. A further discussion will be carried out in Cape Town meetings of the ExeCom and the Council.
The ExeCom members have also reached agreements on the following issues:
> IAEG needs a medium-long term plan for IAEG development, and the Statutes and the Bylaws need some modifications;
> Some Board level Committees of IAEG need to be setup for the operation of the Association, such as Strategic Planning Committee, Enterprise Committee, and a Committee for Young Engineering Geologists.
Scott introduced some pages of the AEG website. He proposed to publish a two weeks newsletter– “IAEG Connector” and called for the highlight for the newsletter. The web-editor, IAEG president will take responsible for its preparation.The TOC has its term change. All the ExeCom members will be the members of TOC, each vice president is going to contact 2 or 3 commissions. - Bulletin and Website
Martin Culshaw, the Chief Editor of the Bulletin, introduced the progress of the Bulletin and the distribution of the manuscripts received. The situation of the Bulletin is satisfying. He will give the report in the Cape Town Council meeting.Giorgio Lollino, the web-editor, introduced the improvement of the website and the newly set blocks. The improved new website will be available at the end of June. - FedIGS Meeting and Sister Societies
Scott reported the FedIGS meeting in Miami and introduced member societies of the FedIGS. He stressed that we must learn from the sister societies for the improvement of organizing and operating our association. - Other issues
> IAEG and the Bulletin have accepted by vote the invitations from Shaoxing University, China as the co-sponsors of Shaoxing international Forum on Rock Mechanics and Engineering Geology.
> The venue for the ExeCom and Council meetings in 2017 will be in Nepal ,the date will be confirmed by the Nepal national group later.
> Scott talked about the progress of preparation of next IAEG Congress in San Francisco, 2018, the venue, accommodation and field trips. 18 symposium have been arranged, and the paper will be published by Springer. Around 700 to 1000 participants are expected to attend the congress.
> 9 new national groups,Algeria,Egypt, Mozambique,Nigeria,Sudan,Cyprus,Tunisia, Nepal,Paraguay, are going to be set up, 6 of them from Africa. They will present their applications at the Council meeting in Cape Town for approval.