2011 IFToMM General Assembly

The 12th IFToMM General Assembly was held in Guanajuato, Mexico on 22 June 2011 at the conference site of the 2011 IFToMM World Congress. As usual, the status and problems of IFToMM activity led to a very rich agenda that was discussed with a well thought participation.

Professor Ceccarelli, the President reported in details his activity by stressing main achievements and pending problems.The Visibility-Activity plan of the Presidency 2008-2011 was intended to increase the visibility of IFToMM and its activity by promoting new and existing activities with an explicit mention of IFToMM and to facilitate new and existing initiatives under the umbrella of IFToMM. During the term 2008-2011, results were achieved in increasing main aspects of meetings, exchanges, publications, teaching, and international collaborations, as prescribed for the mission of IFToMM in the IFToMM constitution. In particular, efforts were aimed at making clear and increasing benefits for IFToMM Member Organizations (MOs) and their affiliated individuals in being involved in IFToMM. Main benefits con be summarized in: access to IFToMM activities with reduced fees, fee for individual subscription to MMT (Mechanism and Machine Theory) journal and reduced subscription fees for the other IFToMM affiliated journals, special attention to MMS topics for paper submission in IFToMM affiliated/linked Journals, reduced page charge for paper publication in IFToMM affiliated Journals, international contacts among individuals and institutions, participation and contribution to IFToMM activities, IFToMM support and sponsorship of conferences and other events for promotion of MMS and IFToMM.Within IFToMM community, meetings were organized within PCs, TCs, and MOs with more discussion on IFToMM activity even by teleconferences; exchanges have been carried out with visits of scholars, and students, also within conferences and the new initiative of IFToMM Olympiad of MMS; publications have been increased as explicitly referring to IFToMM community also with the help of specific agreements with publishers, and a book series on MMS has been started in 2010 by the international publisher Springer; with two more affiliations, 5 journals are now available and linked for paper publications; teaching on MMS has been better referred to IFToMM even at local frames of MOs, and summer schools and tutorials have been started on specific subjects; international collaborations have been increased and are better shown under the umbrella of IFToMM mainly through the PCs, TCs, and MOs; sources for IFToMM finance have been increased through returns from IFToMM supported initiatives, donations, and royalties from publications, mainly within the above mentioned book series.

Functioning of the IFToMM bodies has been supervised with an efficient help of the IFToMM Executive Council also through specific activity of EC Working Groups in tackling specific matters. EC regulations have been outlined to clarify and simplify procedures for IFToMM functioning and EC leadership. Another important new means of EC work has been successfully experienced with Working Groups (WGs) that were established to solve specific problems with short time targets. Most of WGs have completed successfully the tasks given to solve problems and situations that arose also between EC meetings. Chairs of MOs in GA were continuously informed on IFToMM activity, coordinated by EC with supervision of the President.

The President reminded also that 40-th year anniversary of IFToMM was celebrated within the 2009 EC meeting and then in January 2010 with a ceremony in foundation city Zakopane, Poland, where a bronze plaque was installed as a memory record.

Professor Lopez-Cajun, the Secretary General reported of the business of IFToMM that he has directed through personal contacts and email communications over the past four years.

Professor Chicurel, Chair of the 13th World Congress Organizing Committee, reported on the successful World Congress with 309 papers accepted from 44 countries, 37 of them with IFToMM Member Organizations. Sessions were well attended covering all the traditional topics of IFToMM activity with presentation even in new areas of current interest.The participation of about 350 individuals was less than expected as due to the world financial crisis and long traveling to Mexico from many MOs.

Professor Ceccarelli reported the status of IFToMM community. He illustrated the activity by summarizing the results of information collected by MOs, PCs, and TCs. IFToMM is a growing institution both in terms of individuals participation and activity initiatives that are aimed to the mission of IFToMM for promoting MMS and IFToMM community worldwide.In particular, considerable is the increase of visibility of activities in term of sponsored conferences and publications. New IFToMM Member Organizations from Denmark, Egypt, Portugal, and Turkey were accepted after successful email ballots of the Chairs of the IFToMM MOs in 2010 and early 2011 bringing the number of MOs to 48, its highest level.

Prof Kedzior, the Chair of the Constitution Committee presented the amendments for Constitution and By-Laws as elaborated by the Committee from considerations that came from the President, EC, IFToMM officers, and committee members yet. In particular, the number of categories for MOs was reduced to five. A new nominating procedure was approved; a new PC for Communications, Publications, and Archiving was established to replace the closed PCs for Communications and for Publications with more clear structure and tasks; the conditions for observer membership in PCs and TCs were indicated clearly. In addition, a decision on deciding to accept only English as official language of IFToMM was postponed. Nevertheless, an email ballot among MOs was held in August in which the MO Chairs expressed a positive result for it.

The Treasurer, Doctor Rooney, reported on the finances of IFToMM and the budgets over the term 2008-2011 giving a positive picture of the organization’s financial status with a considerable net balance. However, the level of expenses is continuously rising, and we have a continuing problem with a small number of MOs that have continuing records of being in arrears with their annual dues. A small number of MOs have long standing arrears of their annual dues. The IFToMM Constitution specifies that a MO that is more than three years in arrears shall have its voting privileges suspended, and the General Assembly may withdraw its membership by a two-thirds vote. The treasurer certified that he had issued the warnings specified by the constitution to three delinquent MO’s and therefore, after previous consultation with the Executive Council, the Treasurer proposed the withdrawal of membership. After a discussion the general Assembly withdrew the memberships of the Kazakhstan MO, and Mongolia MO. We do hope that these communities will re-apply for membership when they have re-organized and made suitable arrangements to meet their financial obligations. A particular situation occurred with Perú MO for which was not reached the quorum for the membership loose but no reaction was received by the President in order to plan a solution of the arrears and lack of activities. In addition, a new group of institutions contacted the President since two years ago and, again, just after the General Assembly to be ready to take the IFToMM membership in Peru once the old MO would have been left the membership. Thus an email ballot among MOs was held successfully in September with the aim to have the new Perú Committee as IFToMM MO, under condition that they will start immediately a correct activity.

Prof Waldron, Chair of the Nominating Committee, presented the slate of nominees for the next Executive Council. The nominees were presented to the General Assembly and, after discussion, the following Executive Council for the term 2012-2015 was elected: Yoshihiko Nakamura (Japan), President; Veniamin Goldfarb (Russia), Vice President; Teresa Zielinska (Poland), Secretary General; Just Herder (Netherlands), Treasurer; Members: Shuo Hung Chang (China),Burk hard Corves (Germany), Vijay Kumar (USA), Jean Pierre Merlet (France), Datong Qin (China), Juan Antonio Carretero (Canada). Professor Marco Ceccarelli (Italy) remains a non-voting member of the Executive Council as Past President.

Professor Ceccarelli, as Chair of the Honors and Award Committee reported on an updated version of the manual for IFToMM honors, and then he presented the 2008-2011 recipients and 2011 nominees for IFToMM awards. After discussion the General Assembly approved the following recipients for new IFToMM Honorary members: Professor Manfred Hiller from Germany, Professor Jammi S. Rao, from India, prof Hong-Sen Yan from China, and Professor Enrique Jaime Chicurel-Uziel from Mexico. The recipients for 2011 IFToMM Awards of Merit were Dr Jean Pierre Merlet (France) and Professor Javier Garcia de Jalon from Spain, while in 2009-2010 IFToMM Awards of Merit were given to professor Florea Dudita (Romania), professor Atsuo Takanishi (Japan), professor Zhen Huang (China), and professor Rafael Aviles (Spain). The recipients for 2011 IFToMM Dedicated Service Award was Dr. Hanfried Kerle from Germany, while in 2009-2010 IFToMM Dedicated Service Awards were given to Professor Tian Huang (China), Professor Alberto Rovetta (Italy), Professor Manfred Husty (Austria), and Professor Ying Chien Tsai (China).

Prof Waldron, Chair of the Nominating Committee, presented the nominees for the Constitution Committee serving during the term 2012-2015. After discussion the General Assembly elected the Constitution Committee, as composed by Kenneth J. Waldron (USA), Chair and members: Tian Huang (China), Leila Notash (Canada), Bodo Heimann (Germany).

Prof Waldron, Chair of the Nominating Committee also presented nominees for the Nominating Committee serving during the term 2012-2015. The General Assembly elected the following Constitution Committee: Chair (ex-officio)Professor Marco Ceccarelli (Italy), J. Rooney (UK), C. Lopez-Cajun (Mexico), T. Koetsier (Netherlands), B. Ravani(USA).

With regard to the location of the 14-th World Congress in 2015 proposals from Aachen in Germany, Taipei in China,and Hiroshima in Japan were presented. After discussion the General Assembly voted, and after a second ballot with equal votes for first two candidates, according to the IFToMM Constitution, the President exercised his ballot through the tossing a coin, whose result gave the preference to the candidature of China.

The next IFToMM General Assembly is scheduled for 2015 in Taipei, China during the fourteenth IFToMM World Congress.

The minutes of the General Assembly, and corresponding appendices are available at the IFToMM webpage www.iftomm.org.

Marco Ceccarelli (President of IFToMM)

Carlos Lopez-Cajun (IFToMM Secretary General)