51 / 234
LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS
at the IIW Annual Assembly in 2005, in Prague, Czech Republic,
it was therefore a fitting tribute that Stular received the Arthur
Smith Award for dedicated service to IIW over many years. With
respect to other awards for service, IIW also introduced Service
Recognition Awards for the Chairs of IIW’s Working Units who had
a minimum of 5-years’ service in those capacities. Among those
who had achieved recognition for their services in 2011 were
Mr Vincent van der Mee (The Netherlands – (Commission
II) and Mr Ernest D. Levert (USA – Commission IV), whose
services were very much appreciated. A special token of
gratitude was presented to Dipl.-Ing. Dietmar Rippegather
(Germany) in recognition of three consecutive three-year terms and meritorious service
in a ‘difficult and challenging role’ as the Chair of Commission VI
Terminology
(C-VI).
25
The issue of membership fees was never far from the minds of a number of delegates at
theAnnual Assembly in Singapore in 2009 and a request was made for serious consideration
of an alternative method for the calculation of membership fees. A Task Group
Fees
(TG-
FEES) was therefore set up under the chairmanship of Dr Daniel Almeida (Brazil).
Almeida was to progress this project quite diligently until exceptional
circumstances prevailed that prevented his attendance at meetings in 2012.
During a burglary attempt on his home in 2011 he was shot in the spine. As
Almeida explained, ‘It was really a miracle, in truth, two miracles – one
that I am here and two that I can walk. I could only stand up 30 days after
surgery. In the beginning I was totally paralysed, even my fingers would not
move. After therapy I started to use a pencil but my signature had changed
and I had problems with my bank and notary’.
26
TG-FEES proposal was initially put to the Board of Directors
via the President at its meeting on 8 July 2012 at the Denver,
USA Annual Assembly. The proposal was based on a formula
that included both steel consumption averaged over three years,
capped, plus a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP),
also capped.
27
The proposal was accepted by the Board but was
subsequently rejected by the members at the General Assembly,
which resulted in a request to all Member Societies to
submit their proposals for the calculation of fees with only
three Member Societies responding. Almeida expressed
disappointment at this and developed a real urge to complete
unfinished business through the assistance of Mayer, CEO
of IIW, ‘…Cécile and I worked a great deal to create a new
calculation for the IIW annual fee. We had a chance to get
Daniel Almeida
Dietmar Rippegather