June is the time of year when we consider retirements from and elections to our Council.

Countries with 30 or more members are entitled to a reserved seat on Council and in October this year, a vacancy will arise for the United Kingdom reserved seat following the appointment of Alastair Beveridge as Vice President last year and also for Italy as Antonio Tullio will have completed his first 3 year term of office. Mr Tullio is eligible to stand again for re-election against other nominations for one further 3 year term of office. Therefore members from Italy and the United Kingdom will receive an email requesting nominations for candidates from their own country. 
 
One non-reserved seat vacancy on Council (which may be occupied by any country) will also become available as Martine Gerber (Luxembourg) will have completed her maximum of two 3-year terms of office. Members have also been invited to make a nomination on the appropriate form.

All nomination forms must be completed and signed by members wishing to stand for election and must then be proposed and seconded by two current INSOL Europe members. The proposer and seconder must complete and sign the same form in the spaces indicated and the form should then be returned to the address below or may be sent by email to carolinetaylor@insol-europe.org, to arrive no later than 21 July 2017. All nominations must be accompanied by a photograph and curriculum vitae of the candidate.  

The deadline for nominations is 21 July. If you have not received a nomination form, please contact Caroline Taylor.

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Changes to the executive officers, council retirements & results of the 2016 council elections

At the close of the Lisbon Congress this month, Alberto Nunez-Lagos (Spain) stepped down as President to become Immediate Past President, Steffen Koch (Germany) became the new President, Radu Lotrean (Romania) became the new Deputy President and Alastair Beveridge (UK) was elected by Council as the incoming Vice President. Jim Luby (Ireland) remained on for a further 1 year as Treasurer. 
 
There were also several changes to the structure of Council. As a reminder, countries with 30 or more members are entitled to a reserved seat on Council and the following situation arose this year.

• A vacancy became available for the Romanian reserved seat following the appointment of Radu Lotrean as Vice President last year. 
• Austria, having reached the required number of members was also entitled to a reserved seat on Council. 
• In addition, the reserved seats for Ireland and Sweden became available when William Day (Ireland) and Niklas Korling (Sweden) completed their second 3 year term in office.  
• So too did the reserved seats for the Netherlands and Switzerland although both Marcel Groenewegen (Neths) and Thomas Bauer (Switzerland) had only completed one 3 year term in office and agreed to stand again for election for a further 3 years.

Therefore, nominations from members in Romania, Austria, Ireland, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland were invited for candidates from their own country. Following the nomination and election process, Marcel Groenewegen and Thomas Bauer were uncontested and remained on Council for a further 3  years. Candidates Susanne Fruhstorfer (Austria), Barry Cahir (Ireland) and Simona-Maria Milos (Romania) were uncontested and duly elected to Council. However as 2 nominations had been received for Sweden, a vote took place amongst the Swedish membership and Hans Renman was duly elected having received the highest number of votes.

Two non-reserved seat vacancies on Council also became available (which may be occupied by any country) as Rocco Mulder (The Netherlands) and David Rubin (United Kingdom) also completed their first 3 year term in office. Both were eligible to stand again for re-election against other nominations although due to other commitments, Rocco Mulder opted out. 4 nominations were eventually received and following a vote amongst the membership, the two successful candidates were Alice van der Schee (Netherlands) and David Rubin (UK).  
 
Additionally, Carlos Mack (Italy) and Nigel Davies (UK) stepped down as co-opted members of Council and so too did Jim Luby (Ireland) since his appointment as Treasurer in the previous year. On the recommendation of the Executive Board, Ernst Giese (Czech Rep) and Robert Van Galen (Neths) were co-opted to Council for an initial one year term and previously co-opted members, being Marc Andre (France), Chris Laughton (UK), Sabina Schellenberg (Switzerland), Michael Veder (Netherlands) and Catherine Ottaway (France) were also reappointed for a further one year term.

Finally, Honorary Membership for outstanding meritorious service on behalf of the Association was awarded to Catherine Ottaway (France) and David Rubin (UK).