2023 Section AGM and Annual Dinner

On Friday 20 January 2023 the 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Annual Dinner of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Belgium International Section 023 was held at Les Amis Dinent Restaurant, Chaussee de Malines/ Mechelsesteenweg 113, 1970 Wezembeek-Oppem.

The meeting commenced at 19h35. Seven section members were present: Bob Crichton, Tim Reynolds, Julie Tuppeny, Fabio Lucaccioni, Rita Woodward, Susan Schamp, and Ricky Payen. Also in attendance were co-opted Committee members: Bo Dahlqvist and Jonathan Norris. Seven section members who were unable to attend the AGM sent their apologies and had asked the Chair to act as their proxy for the meeting if a vote was required. These members were: David Terrell, Dharmjeet Madhav, Deepak Pant, Filip du Prez, Steven De Feyter, Richard Green and Catherine Cazin.

1. Apologies for absence

Stefaniya Velichkova.

2. Approval of Minutes of 2022 AGM

No corrections were suggested, and the meeting moved (Rita Woodward), seconded (Fabio Lucaccioni) and unanimously adopted the minutes.

4. Committee Report on the Section’s 2022 Activities (Tim Reynolds – Secretary)

The Secretary presented the 2022 report.

“2022 saw the section’s activities return to (relatively) normal operation as the impact of COVID reduced and restrictions were lifted. During 2022 RSC Belgium managed to organise seven public lectures (either as webinars or hybrid events), a virtual AGM, a summer social event in Brussels, a fund raising social for our Norman Lloyd Scholarships, and our two annual school outreach events: the Chemistry Challenge and the Top of the Bench ‘Eliminator’, which was an in-person event. Our eighth Norman Lloyd scholarship recipient enjoyed his first year at Cardiff University and we have just got the name of the next recipient.

Our 2022 AGM was once again run as a webinar event on the evening of 14 January and was subsequently made available on our dedicated @RoySocChemBelgium YouTube channel. Two members were elected to the section committee for a two-year term: David Terrell and Dharmjeet Madhav. During the year your section committee met five times on 18 January (virtual), 29 March (hybrid), 19 May (virtual), 13 September (hybrid) and 22 November (hybrid).

Our 2022 programme of talks kicked off on 24 February with a webinar from RSC President Professor Tom Welton OBE on Green and Sustainable Chemistry. This was followed on 31 March with a webinar event on Chemical recycling of plastic wastes with Henk Pool of Cefic – the European Chemical Industries Association.

The outlook for nuclear energy in Europe was the subject of our third webinar on 28 April with Andrei Goicea from FORATOM, while on 19 May our members and friends tuned in for a webinar describing a major breakthrough for the prevention of breast cancer recurrences and metastases with Professor Pierre Sonveaux of the Universite Catholique de Louvain.

Fortunately during the long summer, we were able to restart in-person events with two social events. On Saturday 2 July, we were treated to a fascinating guided walk exploring ‘Foreign Bodies’ in the centre of Brussels led by Dr Paul Snell who  specialises in art and architectural tours. Raising funds for our Norman Lloyd Scholarships was the main aim of a social event on 20 August hosted by Rita and Peter Woodward in their beautiful garden in Duisberg. The sunny event raised Eur 920.

On 29 September we welcomed back both a ‘live’ audience and our good friend Professor Vincent Lemaitre from Universite Catholique de Louvain to discuss the latest thinking in high energy and astrophysics. The event was held the British School of Brussels and we also attempted to livestream the event – unfortunately the webinar feed cut out early on. This event was also the prize-giving ceremony for our 2022 Chemistry Challenge initiative undertaken as a virtual event over the early summer with the students working remotely at their schools. For the 2022 Challenge, we received entries from most of our group of international and European schools with 65 students participating.

On 20 October we reverted to a webinar format launching into deepest space with an entertaining and informative talk on 'Exoplanets or the quest for other worlds beyond our solar system' from Prof Michaël Gillon of the University of Liege. Our final talk of the year was on 24 November when we welcomed another old friend, Professor David Leigh from University of Manchester, to talk about ‘Making the tiniest Machines’ with some extraordinary chemistry and also some marvellous magic! This was a ‘live’ event, but we suffered with poor sound quality on the webinar recording. 

On Saturday 17 December we were able to hold our first in-person Top of the Bench (TOTB) regional heat for a while. The heat was held later in the year than normal and just two schools were able to field two teams each to compete on the day. However, the competition was extremely keen and a very tight contest was eventually won by Team Sodium from the British School of Brussels who will represent Belgium section at the London finals in March. Thanks as ever to Rita and Susan for developing the written and practical tasks for Top of the Bench and the teams for their enthusiasm.

During the year, our eighth recipient of a Norman Lloyd scholarship at Cardiff University, Martim Gouveia Pereira, worked hard despite the issues around studying during Covid. He says that he has used the scholarship to invest in his soft skills which has led him to be shortlisted by Oxford Medical School to read Medicine in 2024. And we have just received news of ninth recipient, Benjamin Condon, who started his MChem degree course in the Autumn term.

As mentioned earlier we now have a YouTube channel where you can find our videoed webinars. Some of our @RoySocChemBelgium ‘content’ has proved to be very popular. Our Top Three videos (as of 17 January 2023) are at #3 Philip Ball with 659 views, second spot goes to Plasma-based CO2 conversion with 3,122 views, while Nick Lane is top of the pops with a remarkable 8,272 views.

We hope to again run a full programme of in-person events during 2023, the majority of which we hope to record and then post on YouTube. We look forward to seeing many more members and friends face-to-face during the year. Details of forthcoming events can always be found on the RSC Belgium blog.

We aim to kick off our 2023 programme with a Café Chimique at BSB on 9 February 2023 on the topic of 'Sustainable Urban Transport'. Further details on this and future events will be announced soon.”

There were no questions on the report, and the meeting moved (Susan Schamp), seconded (Julie Tuppeny) and unanimously approved adoption of it.

5. Financial Report of 2022 (Julie Tuppeny – Treasurer)

The treasurer presented the 2022 financial report and accounts.

“At the beginning of 2022 continued restrictions due to Covid-19 pandemic meant that the first four lectures of the year were online. However, both Tom Welton and Henk Pool had large registrations of 70 and 108 participants, respectively.

Our first in person event was the walking tour of Brussels on 2 July with sixteen participants. Our first live event was the lecture at BSB with Vincent Lemaitre with forty people attending in person and ten online.

Our two annual competitions for schools, the Chemistry Challenge Competition had sixty-five students taking part from seven schools and the Top of the Bench (TOTB) Eliminator Round was in person for the first time in two years with two schools and four teams taking part.

On 1 January 2022, the net assets of RSC Belgium Section were €11,665.28 The Annual Grant for 2022 was received in June 2022 from RSC UK of € 4,000.

Major items of expenditure are listed below:

• Chemistry Challenge of which €395 was prize money.
• David Leigh lecture due to hotel costs.

For the Year ending 31 December 2022, the net assets of RSC Belgium Section amount to €11,710.04 in the current account and €2,103.26 in the Savings account giving a total of €13,813.30.

This balance will enable the RSC Belgium Section to offer a broad selection of public lectures from visiting speakers this coming year.

However, bearing in mind that Belgian Law, the status of the RSC Belgium Section holds the three Officers personally liable for debts arising from the activities of the Belgium Section we will ensure that the bank balance always remains in good standing.”

The meeting unanimously adopted the Treasurer’s report.

6. Chair’s Remarks (Bob Crichton)

The Chair thanked all members of the committee for their continuing hard work and support and looked forward to continuing success in this new year.

In particular he looked forward to a complete return to live events during 2023. The committee had recently decided to focus on live, in-person events rather than hybrid. However, the majority of our events would be recorded for viewing or presentation via our YouTube Channel. The only thing that could stand in the way of this was a return of COVID, but that was something that was out of our hands.

The section’s 2023 programme was shaping up and in addition to the Cafe Chimique on Transport in February, the section hoped to be welcoming back Hal Sosabowski for demonstration lectures, inviting a talk from researchers at the John Innes Centre on genetically modified crops and investigating the role of mRNA in new cancer treatment and other medical developments.

7. Election of committee members and section officers

The following nominations had been received for election to the committee.

Chair:              Prof Bob Crichton

Secretary:        Mr Tim Reynolds

Treasurer:        Mr Fabio Lucaccioni

Committee:     Mrs Rita Woodward, Dr Susan Schamp, Ms Julie Tuppeny

All positions are for a two-year term. As the number of nominations equalled the number of vacant positions, all candidates were duly elected.

Two committee members are in mid-term: Dr David Terrell and Dr Dharmjeet Madhav.

At the first committee meeting of 2023 Bo Dahlqvist and Jonathan Norris will also be co-opted onto the committee.

8. Auditing arrangements for 2023

Julie confirmed that accounts must be prepared and submitted to RSC HQ by 27 January  2023. These accounts did not require a formal audit prior to submission. If a review/ audit was required section member Lance Smallshaw had agreed to assist.

9. Any Other Business

As noted previously the first event of the 2023 programme will be on the evening of Thursday 9 February 2023 with a Café Chimique on Sustainable Urban Transport at the British School of Brussels.

The meeting Adjourned at 20h10. The first meeting of the 2023 committee has been provisionally scheduled for Tuesday 14 March 2023 from 19h15.

The meeting was followed by the sections Annual Dinner.