The 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the RSC Belgium section took place on the evening of Friday 17 January 2025 at Les Amis Dînent in Wezembeek-Oppem. The AGM was followed by the section's Annual Dinner.
The meeting commenced at 19h41. Six section members were
present: Rita Woodward, Julie Tuppeny, Tim Reynolds, Susan Schamp, Fabio
Lucaccioni, and Robert Crichton. RSC member David Terrell was delayed by
traffic and joined later.
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: Bruno Linclau, Steven De Feyter, Richard Green, Ari Koskinen, Wim De Borggraeve, Melissa Dunkle and Lance Smallshaw. In addition to these apologies from members, co-opted committee members, Jonathan Norris and Bo Dahlqvist, also sent their apologies.
As first business, the meeting moved (Rita Woodward), seconded (Fabio Lucaccioni), and unanimously adopted the minutes of the 2024 AGM with no corrections.
Committee Report on the Section’s 2024 Activities (Tim Reynolds – Secretary)
The Secretary, Tim Reynolds, presented his 2024 report.
“During 2024 RSC Belgium organised five public evening lectures (most of which were recorded and posted on our @RoySocChemBelgium YouTube channel) and a special celebration event to commemorate 10 years of our Norman Lloyd Scholarships at Cardiff University. In addition, we held our 2024 AGM, had a late summer social walk and talk around the Waterloo battlefield and organised our two annual school outreach events: the Chemistry Challenge and the Top of the Bench ‘European Eliminator’. Our tenth Norman Lloyd scholarship recipient enjoyed their first year at Cardiff University.
Our 2024 AGM and Annual Dinner was held on the evening of Friday 19 January at Les Amis Dinent restaurant in Wezembeek-Oppem. At the AGM Dr David Terrell was re-elected to the committee and we welcomed Prof Ari Koskinen as a new elected committee member. The other members of the 2024 committee were Bob Crichton (Chair), Tim Reynolds (Secretary), Fabio Lucaccioni (Treasurer), Rita Woodward, Julie Tuppeny and Susan Schamp. Dharmjeet Madhav was thanked for his contribution to the committee over the past two years.
During the year, your section committee met three times on 6
February, 6 March and 19 November.
Our 2024 programme kicked off on 7 March with a fascinating talk from Professor Marc Van Ranst on the COVID-19 and potential future pandemics. On 25 April Richard Adams gave us his views on Artificial Intelligence and on 23 May we welcomed RSC President Professor Gillian Reid to Brussels to talk to us about her view of the Future of the Chemical Sciences.
Our activities resumed on 10 September with a special ‘Celebration
of Chemistry’ event to mark 10 years of our Norman Lloyd Scholarships
at Cardiff University with presentations from Dr Tom Tatchell from Cardiff, RSC
Belgium committee members and Norman’s family. During the year our tenth
scholar had been named as Zarah
Ahmed. The Scholarship initiative has been a great success but with the
funds now almost spent it was decided, in consultation with Norman’s family and
Cardiff University, to close the scheme and one final partial scholarship will
be awarded for the 2024-25 academic year. We hope to hear the name of this
eleventh and final scholarship soon.
On Sunday 22 September we enjoyed an entertaining and informative walk on the battlefield of Waterloo with military historian and author Jean-Philippe Tondeur. Our lecture programme continued with a talk from Professor Ricardo Louro on antimicrobial resistance on 15 October and on 20 November we welcomed well-known material scientist and broadcaster Professor Mark Miodownik from University College London to present his new book ‘It’s a Gas’. At this last event we were joined by Waterstones bookstore.
On Saturday 16 November we held our 2024 Top of the Bench competition at the British School of Brussels. This year seven teams from four schools (BSB, ISF, MIS and St Georges) participated and after a tight contest Team Solvay from St Georges were declared winners and will represent Belgium at the UK National finals on 22 March 2025 in Cardiff. Team Baekeland from BSB who won our 2023 TOTB eliminator represented Belgium section at the UK 2024 TOTB Grand Final that took place at Edinburgh Napier University on 16 March.
The results of our 2024 RSC Belgium Chemistry Challenge for individual school students were announced at our Celebration of Chemistry event on 10 September. This year ten schools took part with just over 100 students participating in total - a very encouraging number.
Our thanks as ever to Susan and Rita for developing the content for our educational activities and all the teachers and students who participated during the year.
Our YouTube channel continued to grow during the year with some 473 subscribers. Some of our ‘content’ is proving to be extremely popular. Our Top Three videos (as of Monday) are, as last year, at #3 Philip Ball with 1,566 views, in second spot Plasma-based CO2 conversion with 8,087 views, while Nick Lane remains top of the pops with a remarkable 24,915 views.
We aim to run a full programme of events during 2025 and look forward to seeing many members and friends during the year. Details of forthcoming events can always be found on the RSC Belgium blog.”
There were no questions on the report, and the meeting moved (Julie Tuppeny), seconded (Susan Schamp) and unanimously approved its adoption.
Financial Report for 2024
The treasurer, Fabio Lucaccioni, presented the 2024 financial report and
accounts.
- Current Account Balance (Year-End 2024):
€ 3,407.43
- Net Expenses (Receipts minus Payments):
-€ 2,391.62
- Savings Account Balance (Year-End 2024):
€ 4,519.97
During the summer, our
banking partner (ING) erroneously issued a debit card linked to the RSC account
to our Chair, Professor Crichton. This administrative error resulted in unintentional
use of the card by Professor Crichton for personal transactions. Upon
identifying the issue, the bank issued a formal apology.
The section’s total income for the year was € 7,415.51 with key income sources being the Grant from RSC Headquarters (€ 4,000.00), revenue from the Annual Dinner, and the Bank Error (reimbursement from Professor Crichton).
Total Expenditure for the year was € 9,790.43 with key expenses being on Lectures (€ 2,871.93 - seven lectures held with a total audience of approximately 200 attendees), the Chemistry Challenge and Workshops (€ 1,718.62 - activities involved over 60 students.), and the Bank Error (€ 2,873.81 - fully reimbursed by Professor Crichton).
Since the total annual income of the section is below £10,000.00, the accounts are not subject to external audit.”
The meeting moved (Tim Reynolds), seconded (Julie Tuppeny) and unanimously approved adoption of the Treasurer’s report.
Chair’s Remarks
The Chair, Prof Bob Crichton, thanked all members of the committee for their continuing
hard work and support and looked forward to continuing success in the forthcoming
years.
Bob said that he had enjoyed his six years as Chair but stressed the need to recruit younger members to the committee and help with section activities.
Election of committee members and section officers
The following nominations
had been received for election to the committee.
Section Chair: Tim Reynolds
Section Secretary: Bob Crichton
Section Treasurer: Fabio Lucaccioni
Committee Members: Julie Tuppeny, Rita Woodward, Susan Schamp
All positions are for a two-year term. As the number of nominations equalled the number of vacant positions, all candidates were duly elected.
Other committee members in mid-term are David Terrell and Ari Koskinen. At the first committee meeting of 2025 Bo Dahlqvist and Jonathan Norris will also be co-opted onto the committee.
Auditing arrangements
As noted above as the section turnover does not exceed £10
000 then RSC rules indicate that no formal audit is required before the
accounts are submitted to HQ.
The meeting adjourned at 19h52.
