EDG General Assembly 2007

Topic:  EDG General Assembly 2007
Place:  Riga, Latvia
Date:   23^th April 2007, 15:00-16:30

Minutes of the EDG General Assembly 2007 in Riga

Ivars Akerfelds, Chairman of EDG in 2007, welcomed the 15 participants to the General Assembly (GA) of EDG in 2007. Ivars Akerfelds gave a short report on the past activities related to organisation of the annual EDG conference in Riga. Due to the help and support of his staff and colleagues at the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Institute in Jelgava and active support of EDG members and COST E53 delegates selection of topics for conference presentation was not a major problem. During the GA the following topics were discussed and decided:

1. Membership: Due to time constraints the start of active membership recruiting was delayed. Johannes Welling and Knut Magnar Sandland will start sending out membership application forms and invoices in 2007.
2. Book keeping of EDG's financial affairs: NTI in Norway will take over the book keeping activities for EDG. Accounts of EDG will be hold by NTI.
3. Checking of accounts: Treasurer: Jozef de Corte has not yet had the chance to check the balance of the 1st EDG conference in Hamburg. The surplus of 2003 Euro will be transferred by Johannes Welling to the EDG accounts. Jozef de Corte is willing to continue to act as treasurer in 2007 and 2008.
4. Interaction with COST E53: In the coming years EDG will continue to take benefit from a close interaction with COST E53 (WG 2). While planning EDG conferences and GA meetings organisiers will make sure that meetings are hold in conjunction with COST E53 events.
5. Next EDG Chairman: In 2008 EDG chairmanship will move from Ivars Akerfelds to Knut Magnar Sandland, who is the current vice chairman of EDG. Knut Magnar Sandland proposed that the next EDG conference should be held in Oslo in June 2008.
6. Election of next vice chairman: Johannes Welling proposed that EDG chairmanship should be evenly distributed between "old" and "new" European member states. In order to have the EDG conference moving around in Europe a west/east and north/south hoping of chairmanship is also advisable. In search for a new vice chairman Zeljko Gerisek, Slovenia, stated that he was willing to take over this task in 2008. He was elected by acclamation.
7. EDG discussion forum:
 The internet discussion forum opened in 2006 by the Norwegian Drying Club (Torkeklubben) was not really accepted by the Norwegian kiln drying community, probably because there is no need for an internet discussing forum in a well established national drying club network. It was proposed to ask Torkeklubben whether they would be willing to provide assistance to EDG and transform the Norwegian forum into an international forum. Knut Magnar Sandland will make contacts and after positive response activate the forum.
(Remark: In the meantime Trokeklubben has agreed to support EDG. The forum was modified and the language was changed to English. The forum can now be reached via the EDG web-site ).

The GA was closed after approx. 1,5 hours. Participants attended a visit to the Latvian Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Institute in Jelgava.
(Rapporteur: Johannes Welling)

Minutes (pdf)

Photos from the EDG General Assembly