Report - Minutes of the General Assembly of Members at AMS 2009, Phoenix, USA, 13 January 2009
 

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Minutes of the General Assembly of Members at AMS 2009, Phoenix, USA, 13 January 2009

Meeting Attendees
B. Dieterink - Kipp & Zonen; A.P Sandford - Campbell Scientific LTD.; B. Day - Campbell Scientific Canada; N. Kaneko - Meisei Electric Co. Ltd..; M. Terrell - Gill Instruments; Y. Shikata - Sumitomo Electric Industries; L. Anderson and Y Hayashi - Oriental Electronics Inc.; R. Rissland and M. Ueltzen - The Republic Group; F. Clowney - InterMet; J. Parini - InterMet; R. Doornbos - Vaisala; F. Branski - NOAA/NWS; I. Fredriksen - Geonor AS; M. James DeTect Inc.; L.A. Zuellig and C. Bayer - OTT/ Hach Environmental;  D. Kats - Climatronics; D. Butler - Aanderaa Data Instruments; M. Weis - IBL Software Engineering; P. Heppner - 3SI; C Goode - Enterprise Electronics Corporation; B Ford - Lockheed Martin; D. Preble - Microcom Design; W. Vogel - Leosphere; T. Young - R.M. Young Co.; R. Mcquivey - Sutron Corporation; D. Johnson - Li-Cor; H, Fallek - IPS Meteostar; R. Pèpin - Modem; U. Nellen - Selex (Gematronic); B. Sumner - HMEI Executive Secretary; C. Charstone - HMEI Administrator (minute taker).

Apologies
B. Wright - ES&S; B. Schraf - Scintec; F. Scmidmer - Graw.

Opening of Meeting
The Chairman opened the meeting at 9am and welcomed attendees. He explained that the guest speaker, Dr G. Love, could not attend due to unforeseen circumstances. The Chairman noted and welcomed new members who had joined in 2008:
Atmospheric Systems Corp.- USA
China National Huayun Corp. - China
DeTect, Inc.- USA
Nippon Electric Instrument, Inc.- Japan
Theodor Friedrichs & Co. - Germany

It was noted that three further applications had been received and would be new members in 2009.

Addressing a slide presentation he gave an overview of the membership status and the current council members.

HMEI General assembly with Chairman Ben Dieterink showing slide presentation

Financial statement
The Financial statement for 2008 was shown. The credit balance at the end of 2008 was 18,972 CHF. The 2009 Budget was also previewed.

Activities for HMEI in 2008
The Chairman noted that during 2008 HMEI and its members had been involved with 13 meetings and several exhibitions. Highlight included:

  • 5th session of Expert Team on data from AWS, Geneva, Switzerland, May 2008
  • Expert Team meeting on Upper-Air Systems Intercomparisons, Payerne, Switzerland, June 2008
  • WMO 60th Executive Council, Geneva, Switzerland, June 2008
  • WMO Steering Group on radio Frequency Coordination, Brasilia, Brazil, July 2008
  • COCT ES0702 Management Meeting, Payerne, Switzerland, November 2008
  • Commission for Hydrology (CHy-XII), Geneva, Switzerland, November 2008
  • TECO/Meteorex, St Petersburg, Russian Federation, November 2008

Future Activities
Events of interest to HMEI members for 2009 were noted, particularly some exhibitions including:

  • EMS 2009 in Toulouse. The Chairman noted that the themes of the EMS conference in 2009, were very relevant for manufactures, therefore the attendees would also be very relevant for manufactures exhibiting there.
  • ITU Telecom World 2009, where WMO will have an exhibition section with booths it wishes to rent to HMEI members.
  • CBS-XIV in Dubrovnik, where WMO also would like to have exhibitors.
  • A major exhibition at the Climate Conference WCC3. This is planned by WMO and HMEI was asked  to approach its members to provide both exhibitors and sponsorship.
It was discussed that these exhibitions all occur at a similar time of the year, making attendance by HMEI member exhibitors difficult financially.

HMEI Member Products Catalogue
An update on the HMEI Member Products Catalogue was also given, including the improvements with new the product pages. The catalogue is now being used by the WMO procurement division and by a growing number of NMHSs. A report on the HMEI catalogue was made to TECO during the confernce.

The HMEI Brochure
The brochure will be a small B3 format brochure describing HMEI its activities and the members who belong to HMEI. The HMEI Secretariat will price the new proposed format of the brochure for subsequent approval by the Council.

The Minutes of the Previous General Assembly Meeting
The minutes of the GA in Petersburg at TECO had previously been provided to the members. The Chairman moved that the minutes be accepted. They were unanimously accepted and passed by the members.

HMEI and WMO
The Executive Secretary gave an explanation of the current relationship between HMEI and WMO. There is a strong and close working relationship between HMEI and WMO. The opinion of the HMEI Secretariat is listened to by many of the officers in WMO, and it to be expected that this will continue and that  HMEI will indeed increase its participation in this way in relevant WMO areas. The agreement for the WMO donated office that HMEI has in the WMO building is currently being renewed.

End Meeting
The meeting was declared closed by the Chairman at approx. 10am.