Minutes of the thirty-fourth Annual General Meeting of the Central Dredging Association, 19:30 hrs, Tuesday, 16 October 2012, Van der Valk Hotel, Beveren-Waas, Belgium Present: CEDA Board Officers: Mr Anders Jensen, President (Chair) Mr Cees van Rhee, Secretary Treasurer Board members: Ms Kathleen De Wit Mr Wim Klomp Mr Polite Laboyrie Mr Johan Pennekamp Mr Bart Verboomen Mr Eric Van den Eede Apologies: Mr Michael Costaras Ms Claudia Flecken Mr Tarik Jakhoukh Mr Hendrik Postma Mr Daan Rijks Mr Jan Vandenbroeck Mr Loek Verheijen CEDA staff: General Manager Ms. A. Csiti (Minutes) Members and guests 1. OPENING On behalf of the Board of CEDA the President, Anders Jensen (DHI, Denmark), welcomed members and guests to the thirtyfourth Annual General Meeting. 2. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS AGM (10 NOVEMBER 2011, ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS) These were accepted as true records of the meeting. 3. PRESIDENT S REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2011/2012 Mr. Anders Jensen, CEDA President reported. Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of CEDA, guests, Early April this year you all received the formal CEDA Annual Report on the year 2011 with detailed information on our activities in that year. A number of printed copies are available here for you to collect. The existence of this report allows me to focus on a small number of selected activities this year. You will see once again we have been very busy. Publications We published the CEDA Position Paper on Climate Change as it affects the Dredging Community We started up the WODA Expert Group on Underwater Sound. They will have their second meeting tomorrow. We started up the CEDA Working Group on Ecosystem Services Setting up CEDA working groups to produce CEDA position papers or information papers is a relatively new initiative. The groups are composed of members who respond to our call to volunteer to these groups. Both the responses to these calls and the products have been outstanding and contributed to raising CEDA s profile considerably. These documents have been distributed and presented at meetings of important international bodies such as the London Convention and the OSPAR Convention. Independent expert advice Moving on to these bodies: Both the London Convention and the OSPAR Convention are revising their respective guidelines for managing dredged material. The lion s part of work has been carried out this year. The CEDA Environment Commission sent 1
detailed written comments to both bodies on their drafts and participated in their meetings. In these meetings we also represented PIANC as part of the co-operation of the two Environment Commission. We also continue our involvement in European Commission Groups relating to the Water Framework Directive the Marine Strategy Directive and the Waste Directive. Regarding the last two CEDA leads the combined effort of a number of international associations, regarding the first we are a member of the PIANC led group. Events Conferences This year we have been preparing two major international events: CEDA Dredging Days 2012 in December in Abu Dhabi and WODCON XX next year in Brussels. As you would expect from CEDA, both events will have excellent technical, social and cultural programmes. Training Our joint course with IADC, on Environmental Aspects of Dredging will be held on two occasions this year, in Delft, the Netherlands and in Abu Dhabi, linked to the Dredging Days. National Section meetings The meetings and site visits organized by our National Sections, completed the palette of occasions we have provided this year to CEDA members to meet their peers in a friendly atmosphere to discuss dredging matters and business and have an enjoyable time. Words of thanks Finally a word of thanks to you and to all members of CEDA, individual and corporate, who contributed to our success. Have a quick look at the volunteers section of the Annual Report to see how impressive this number is. I also would like to thank those companies who have already committed to support our coming major events as sponsors. Without their help we would not be able to provide the quality you expect from us: CEDA Dredging Days 2012 National Marine Dredging Company Gulf Cobla Vuyk Engineering WODCON XX Premium sponsors as you would expect, they are from the host country: DEME Jan de Nul Sponsors committed so far: Waterwegen en Zeewegen N.V. IHC Merwede Our official magazine, DPC, has given us a great support in getting the word out about these events. A special request to you Belgian members on behalf of my fellow Board members to support WODCON XX in any way you can as sponsor, exhibitor, or participant. Use every opportunity to promote the congress within your professional circle. There is an up to date short presentation on the members area of the CEDA web-site which you can add to your regular presentation at conferences, workshops. Feel free to contact Eric Van den Eede, or Anna Csiti if you need any information. Our colleagues from all over the world say that of all WODCONs so far WODCON XVII we organized in Hamburg was the best. Together, we can top even that. 4. SECRETARY/TREASURER'S REPORT ON THE YEAR 2011 Prof. Dr. ir. Cees van Rhee (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands) reported. Ladies and Gentlemen, I start my report with membership information. 2
Membership At the end of 2011, CEDA had 525 individual members including 6 students, 11 starters, 42 retired members and 14 lecturers at colleges or universities. The number of individual members continues to decrease this year only with one member (in the previous year the total number of individual members was 526). The good news is that the number of corporate members increased from 124 in the previous year to 126. Attracting new members remains and important objective for us. You may be aware that in the last years we approached offshore companies to join our organisation. This effort so far has not brought the result we hoped for but we continue working towards this objective. The Strategy Implementation Commission identified further professional groups who would benefit from our dredging knowledge such as hydropower plant companies, water boards, mining companies etc. If you have thoughts, ideas on this please contact me, other members of the Board or the CEDA office. We were pleased to welcome the following new corporate members in 2011: Abeko Dredging & Marine Contractors, The Netherlands Marinestar, The Netherlands Denialink SL, Spain Nortek B.V., The Netherlands Northern Dredging Company Ltd, Russia DSB Offshore Ltd, UK KCI BV, The Netherlands RKT International, The Netherlands GEO.xyz, Belgium dotocean BVBA (resigned 2012), Belgium Metalogenia S.A., Spain Witteveen+Bos Consulting Engineer, The Netherlands MWH Nederland, The Netherlands A warm welcome also to those companies who joined us this year 2012: Somit S.R. l., Italy Esco Group, USA Nautic Jobs BV, The Netherlands Brandmarion, The Netherlands Loggers B.V., The Netherlands Antea Group, Belgium Technogenia, France Man Diesel & Turbo SE), Germany (not paid yet Nanjing Deers Industrail Co., Ltd China Finances Moving on to finances, I would like to remind you that the consolidated financial statement of 2011 has been included in the Annual Report that was published in April this year. It was also included in the AGM invitation. Results of 2011 In 2011 our total income from membership fees and sponsorship was 296 000. With a total expenditure of 247 900 the result for the year is a surplus of 48 100 against the budgeted negative result of 17 331. The considerable better result than projected is largely due to the success of CEDA Dredging Days 2011 also in financial terms. This was for the first time that CEDA took full financial responsibility for the Dredging Days 2011. Understandably, we have been very cautious and we had a conservative budget. We will adhere to this policy also in the future. Our general reserves, 257 800 are around our annual operating cost as recommended for an organisation like CEDA. Membership fees 2013 In line with the CEDA Board decision endorsed by the AGM the membership fees are now annually indexed. Accordingly, the fees for next year will increase by 2.3%. 3
5. REPORT OF THE AUDIT COMMITTEE Members of the Audit Committee for the year 2010 were: Claus Iversen, Fehmanbelt, Denmark Arjan van Egdom, Damen Dredging Equipment, the Netherlands Joris Santermans, IMDC, Belgium, Representing Young CEDA Joris Santermans presented the main findings of the Committee. The full written report is appended to these minutes. On behalf of the Audit Committee Mr Santermans proposed to the meeting that the Board of CEDA be discharged of the financial responsibility for 2011. This was agreed unanimously. Mr Jensen thanked the members of the Audit Committee for the excellent work that they had done on behalf of the members scrutinising CEDA s finances. The Audit Committee for the year 2011 was discharged. 6. APPOINMENT OF A NEW AUDIT COMMITTEE Claus Iversen and Joris Santermans accepted nomination to serve on the committee for one more year. Mr Jensen invited further nominations from the floor. Rikke van Berk, VOSTA LMG, the Netherlands volunteered and were appointed by general acclamation. 7. ANY OTHER BUSINESS None. 8. CLOSING Mr Jensen thanked the Belgian Section of CEDA for hosting the AGM. He wished a pleasant club-evening and safe trip to home to everyone. The AGM meeting closed at 20:00 hrs. 4
WRITTEN REPORT OF THE CEDA AUDIT COMMITTEE ON THE YEAR 2011 CEDA AGM 34, 16 October 2012, Beveren-Waas, Belgium Appendix 1 General On the 20th of June 2012 the audit committee, consisting of Claus Iversen from Femern A/S, Joris Santermans from International Marine & Dredging Consultants and Arjan van Egdom from Damen Dredging Equipment, was invited for the annual audit on the Annual Report 2011. During the audit the committee has interviewed Anna Csiti on the following documents: Annual report 2011 prepared by the Accountant, Stielstra and Partners Consolidated balance sheet with the result for 2011 Ledger Yvonne Duivenman gave valued assistance during the spot checks in cross referencing ledger entries with bank statements, invoices. Annual report Some typos in the formal report of the accountant were found: On page 6: Point c. Results: 51.953 should be 48.213 On page 12, Capital: 290.045 should be 286.305 In both cases the errors are due to a correction not consistently carried out throughout the report. The above typos do not affect the final result. The accountant corrected the errors and provided a revised version of the report. Many other items were cross checked and could be explained. All references were transparent and in an orderly manner. Note that the very good result was mainly due to the dredging days, which were a great success. Ledgers and cross references with bank account statements Some small differences were found which could not be explained straight away: 1. On Account 9090 (Late Payments) there is an, entry jaarmemo, yearmemorial 5551.25. jaarmemo is used by the bookkeeper to correct erroneous entries. At the Audit Committee s request the accountant provided a satisfactory explanation. After some checking, figures are found to be correct. 2. The Audit Committee found inconsistency regarding one particular entry in the Bank Statement ABNAMRO nr 34/22/8/2012 and in the ledger: - American Exp Service Payment: Brutto amount 151,00 - credit card company charge 5,96; Netto received 143,44 These transactions have been booked as follows Acc. 4710 Bank charges: 7.56 Acc. 8000 Membership fee: 72.00 Acc. 9091 Incidental income: 79.00 Apparently two errors have been made regarding this single transaction: 1. The Credit Card company erroneously deducted 7.56 instead of 5,96. The deducted amount has been correctly booked on acc. 4710. 2. The person who did the bookkeeping made a mistake and erroneously booked 79.00 on acc. 9091 instead of 71. 44 Anna Csiti asked the accountant what do they normally do when the balance doesn t add up. She was told that if it is about small amount they just put it on an account called Payment differences without looking into it. If it is a larger amount in the range of 100.00 they look into it and try to find and correct the error. The Audit Committee therefore proposes that the Board of CEDA will be discharged from the financial responsibility for the year 2011. On behalf of the CEDA audit team 2011 Arjan van Egdom Damen Dredging Equipment 5