On 16th December 2021, the Blue Shield hosted its second online General Assembly. We were delighted to welcome representatives from all our Blue Shield National Committees, Committees under Construction and the Founding Four organisations. Attendees from numerous countries around the world were able to attend the online meeting, hosted via Zoom.
Minutes of the meeting, including relevan.t chat comments, are available here (pdf): BS General Assembly 2021 Minutes
The meeting began with a welcome from the President, Professor Peter Stone. He thanked those who attended the 25th anniversary conference, for which a lot of congratulatory feedback has been received. The event was very successful and he thanked those involved for their hard work.
The President apologised that the General Assembly would not be discussing proposed revisions to the Articles of Association (AoA), and drew attention to other changes which Blue Shield will have to abide by, including the auditing of annual accounts within six months of the year end. Future General Assemblies therefore must be held on an annual basis in the first half of the year; moving forwards the Board intends to hold the General Assembly in May or June every year: in 2022, it will be held on 14 June.
The President then introduced the voting. For ease, the voting was split into two blocks.
Block One
The first order of business was to approve to the Blue Shield Annual Documentation. There were three votes to be held on the following documents:
- The 2020-21 BSI Annual Report
- The 2020 BSI Financial Report of the Treasurer
- The 2022 BSI Strategic Plan
To ensure anonymous voting, votes were handled via the electronic platform, Election Runner.
The President presented the highlights of the 2020-21 Annual Report, before opening the floor to questions. The Treasurer, Klaus Weschenfelder presented the Report for the 2020 Financial Year. The President then presented the draft 2022 Strategic Plan, and expressed the hope for hosting the General Assembly in person in the future. He highlighted the amount of work by the Czech National Committee to plan the 2020 General Assembly, before COVID restricted travel.
All reports were approved by the General Assembly. Voting results are available via Election Runner.
Block Two
The Treasurer introduced the two candidates for the Auditing Committee for the financial year 2021; Dr Ömer Dabanli of Blue Shield Türkiye, and Gerrit de Bruin of Blue Shield Netherlands. Both candidates had circulated a biography and candidate statement in advance, and presented themselves to the General Assembly. There were no questions from the Assembly for either candidate.
The voting took place and both candidates were elected to the Auditing Committee. The results are available via Election Runner.
BSI Accreditation of Training Courses
The Vice President Professor Bae Kidong presented his work on the Accreditation of Training Courses, which consisted of the BSI Accreditation of Training Checklist and Report of the Accreditation of Training Program. He has been leading this ongoing project since January 2018. Any suggestions of improvements are welcomed in the future. There were no questions from the General Assembly.
The meeting concluded with the President giving thanks to the Founding Four for their ongoing support. He also praised the work of the Board and the Bureau, and groups like the Illicit Trafficking Group and the Emergency Response Working Group. Particular appreciation was shown for the volunteers who often work in the background.
The President closed by thanking the National Committees:
“Without the national committees, we would not have a basis and the foundation of working with everybody else, so national committees are key. We're going to grow into a larger, stronger organisation, and we will need to work out our relationship with the national committees more carefully. That's going to be an exciting journey to go on over the next 25 years. I'm not going to be around for the 25 years, but I hope to be around for the next five years or so - let's hope that those are as exciting and as successful as the last 25 years have been. Thank you to everybody."
Watch our 25th Anniversary Conference here
Read about our 2020 General Assembly
Have a look at the activities of our National Committees
