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.
