Board and General Assembly minutes from FraMCoS-8, Toledo, Spain.
MINUTES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IA-FRAMCOS HELD IN TOLEDO. MARCH 10, 2013 Venue: Paraninfo de Envases de Cartón, UCLM Campus at Toledo, Spain Date and Time: Thursday March 14, 2013 – 12.45-13.45h Draft April 2, 2013. Revised and approved April 23, 2013 The General Assembly of the IA-FraMCoS had been included in the Program of the Conference, scheduled right after the last parallel sessions. Besides, the agenda had been handed out to all FraMCoS-8 participants during the previous day. The General Assembly (GA) was presided by the Board of Directors (except the Treasurer) and, according to the pictures that were taken, there were 89 delegates in attendance. IA-FraMCoS members during the General Assembly The General Assembly started on time and followed the issues that had been arranged in the agenda. (1) Opening of the meeting by the IA-FraMCoS President (J.G.M. van Mier) Jan G.M. van Mier opened the meeting and made a brief personal analysis of the situation of the IA-FraMCoS. He spoke about the disadvantages inherent to highly regulated societies, where directives may end up suffocating spontaneous initiatives. This is the way to go from science to politics, in his words. IA-FraMCoS was founded in 1991, right after a period of much enthusiasm and spontaneity based on the novelty and potentiality of Fracture Mechanics applied to concrete. In his opinion, the IA had been softening from then on, loosing the initial momentum. Little by little the IA had been letting politics to be prominent in deciding, for instance, who the next President was going to be or where the next conference was going to take place. Jan G.M. van Mier pleaded for fostering again enthusiasm and spontaneity and for letting that prevail over politics. (2) Brief report by the Treasurer (G. Cusatis) The report was given by Jan G.M. van Mier since neither the Treasurer, Hamlin Jennings, nor his proxy, Gianluca Cusatis, attended the General Assembly. Jan G.M.