IIW Annual Report 2021

TREASURER’S REPORT 2O2O/21

In 2020 the IIW General Secretariat was successfully transferred from France to Italy and operates with great efficiency and effectivity for two years now. The current pandemic situation has been compensated without any financial losses. As a particular item, the Annual Assembly had to be switched twice from face-to-face to fully online meetings. Resulting deficits were successfully compensated by respectively fewer travel costs and the revenue from the online registration fees. The increased income from the journal Welding in the World resulting from all-time-high download numbers and the continuously great engagement of the EiC together with the EB is highly acknowledged by the Board of Directors, the General Assembly, and the whole IIW community. However, IIW had also to compensate financial drawbacks in the last two years. All attempts to transfer any French tax refunds for the year 2019 to IIW now located in Italy failed and had to be balanced as irrecoverable. IIW is in contact with the authorities in France and still tries to rectify this. In addition, some IIW Member Societies were not able to pay their fees, resulting in an additional bad debt inventory of around 39,000 € for the year 2020. However, despite the affects of the pandemic and the extraordinary costs for transfer of the secretariat services, a positive final result after taxes of 14,414 € was achieved in 2020, which has particularly to be attributed to the marvelous efforts of the new secretariat team. In order to guard against additional financial losses and the risk losing membership, the IIW Board of Directors instigated two initiatives: - searching for other streams of revenue and - fairer membership fee calculation procedures for Member Societies having a lower GDP. After extensive discussion, a new method for the calculation of membership fees was accepted by the General Assembly in October 2021. It will start in 2022 and be applied for three years until 2024. Outcomes of the new method will be monitored by the Board of Directors Working Group Finances, Audit and Risks (WG-FAR), including continuous discussions with IIW members. The set-up of the new membership fee calculation procedure at an enhanced transparency had already a very positive effect in reduction of membership losses during 2021. Consequently, another financially positive year is forecast for 2021, with very limited bad debts, potential recovery from losses incurred in the past and providing the necessary reserves for save operation of IIW in the future. At the same time, seeking additional streams of revenues has been initiated together with improving the service level to members. Both items represent major goals for the upcoming years, as they provide basis and opportunities to invest into a prosperous future of IIW. In the responsibility as IIW treasurer to manage the IIW Risk Registry, the

risks for the whole association have been summarized in 2020 in terms of probability and consequence. The risk registry is extensively discussed and optimized in WG-FAR, in particular, to safeguard and combat the operating challenges resulting from the pandemic situation. This document together with the IIW Strategic Plan provide the directions for the IIW management to guide our association safely into a prosperous and developing future.

PROF. THOMAS BÖLLINGHAUS Treasurer

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