Minutes of the 32nd ICNDT GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING
Friday, 24 October 2008

Shanghai, China
1.

Welcome
The Chairman, Douglas Marshall (DM) opened the meeting, welcomed all andthanked the Chinese Society for hosting the 17thWCNDT. He acknowledged
the huge effort required to host such a conference – something he felt one
needed to experience in order to fully understand – and the exceptional
circumstances surrounding this conference: the terrifying earthquake andinfrastructure problems leading to the enforced postponement. He understoodthat only 20 papers had been cancelled due to the delay and he congratulated
the organising committee on a ‘great job’.
DM expressed what a great pleasure it was for him to chair the ICNDT over thelast four years and to be involved for many years prior to that. He had enjoyedhis period of office, visited many conferences all over the world and mademany friends.
The Chairman tendered apologies on behalf of Ms Sharon Bond, who was
unable to attend due to pressure of work at the Canadian Institute, andintroduced Mr Gilbert (DJG) who would be acting as Minute Secretary.

2.

In Memoriam
A brief silence was held in remembrance of those who had passed away since
the last World Conference, including William Havercroft, Roy Sharpe,
Graham Oates, Jaroslav Obraz, Ronald Halmshaw, Mikio Takagi andGerard Hennaut.

3.

Roll call
The full list of attendees follows.
The Chairman was pleased to note the attendance – for the first time in his
memory – of all four Regional Group Chairmen: Farley (EFNDT), Danso(AFNDT), Cueto (PANNDT), Ooka (APCNDT), and he also acknowledged thepresence of the World Conference President Dr Rong Geng.
DM thanked all for their attendance and distributed memory sticks containing
ICNDT Constitution, Procedures and Handbook files.

Attendance List
Dr K A Danso
GHANA
Martin Van Dalen
SOUTH AFRICA
Jim Guild
SOUTH AFRICA
Tony Sonneveld
AUSTRALIAJohn Maccarone
AUSTRALIA
Gerhard Aufricht
AUSTRIA
Günter Balas
AUSTRIA
Joao ConteBRAZILJ Rufino Teles
BRAZILJohn Zirnhelt
CANADA
Douglas Marshall
CANADIA
Rong S Geng
CHINA
Vjera Krstelj
CROATIA
Juha Sillanpää
FINLAND
Mathias Purschke
GERMANY
Rainer Link
GERMANY
Peter Trampus
HUNGARY
Baldev Raj
INDIA
Dilip Takbate
INDIA
Samir K Choksi
INDIA
B Venkatraman
INDIA
V Pari
INDIA
Yossi Shoef
ISRAEL
Giuseppe Nardoni
ITALY
M Katoh
JAPAN
Norikazv Ooka
JAPAN
Morio Onoe
JAPAN
Oh-Yang Kwon
KOREA
Younho Cho
KOREA
Tarek El-Hakim
LEBANONYeo YanTeng
MALAYSIA
Khazali Zin
MALAYSIA
Alfonso Gaveia Cueto MEXICO
Leslie J Dick
NEW ZEALAND
Steinar Hopland
NORWAY
Vladimir Klyuev
RUSSIA
Janez GrumSLOVENIA
Emilio Romero
SPAIN
Jesus Sorrano
SPAIN
Ferid Herelli
TUNISIA
Roger Lyon
UNITED KINGDOM
Matt Gallagher
UNITED KINGDOM
Mike Farley
UNITED KINGDOMDavid Gilbert
UNITED KINGDOM
Ricky L Morgan
USA
Wayne Holliday
USA
Victor L Herandez
USA
Carlos Gonzalez
VENEZUELA

Voting Member ??
Non-Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Chairman
Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member (Proxy)
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Honorary Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member
Voting Member
Non-Voting Member
General Secretary
Minute Secretary
ObserverVoting Member
Non-Voting Member
Voting Member

24.

Legalisation
The General Secretary, Mike Farley (JMF) reported on the current situation.
The last General Assembly (GA) voted to approve the Constitution but to allow
for further review by ICNDT members. A postal vote conducted in November
2007 resulted in unanimous approval to proceed. The result of the voting was
as follows:
There were currently 53 nations in full membership. 34 had responded to theballot; all 34 being in favour. There were none against and no abstentions.
27 (being two-thirds) votes were required for a result to be declared, so the
motion was passed and legal incorporation had thus come into force on
1 May 2008.
Hence forthwith all meetings shall be conducted under the rules of the newConstitution and Executive Committee members are Directors.
There are four categories of member:
Full (voting)
Associate (non-voting)Liaison (non-voting)
Honorary (non-voting)
A form was distributed at the GA, acquiring details such as membershipcategory and contact information.

5.

Procedures for voting, quorum
The General Secretary reminded members of the procedure for voting. One
voting delegate is permitted per member society. 33% of membership was
required for quorum and only 1 proxy was permitted per member country
present. A simple majority was required.
There were 25 voting delegates present hence a quorum was achieved.
There was one proxy: Prof Dr Lajos Borbas (Hungary) granted his proxy to
Dr Peter Trampus (PT).

6.

Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the 31st General Assembly meeting were unanimously accepted(prop. Tony Sonneveld (TS); sec. Roger Lyon (RL).
Action items:
Revise Membership Operating Procedures – completed
IMENDE Membership Application – received (Spanish)
Legal Incorporation - on agenda – completed
Finances – on agenda (item #8)
17th WCNDT – on agenda
18th WCNDT – on agenda
Assign passwords for website access to ICNDT members – DJG

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DJG stated that he hoped that a facility would be available at the Conference toregister members assuming a wireless connection was available.
EFNDT – Accessibility of Question Bank – Farley
JMF stated that EFNDT would be discussing the issue of making the questionbank more accessible.
WG1 – on agenda
WG3 – on agenda
ISO TC-138 – Letter to CEN – re: not adopting ISO 9712 - complete
7.

Awards and Nominations
7.1 ICNDT Awards
Nominations had been received and the winners were:
Pawlowski Award - For Major Contribution to Promotion of NDT InternationalAward Winners: Gerhard Aufricht (Austria) and Anthony Sonneveld (Australia)
Other Nominees: Xu Yongchang (China)
Roentgen Award - For Major Contribution to Science and Technology of NDTAward Winner: Prof. Vladimir L. Chakhlov (Russia)
Other Nominees: CIVA the NDT Simulation Software (France), Drs. V.
Vengrinovich and V. Artemjev (Belarus)
Havercroft Award - For Major Contribution to NDT Education, Training andCertification
Award Winner: Zemfira S. Nikiforova, Svetlana A. Popoudina, Svetlana I.
Zinovjeva, Vera V. Levkovich (Belarus)
Other Nominees: Dr. Biryukova Nadezhda Petrovna (Russia)
Sokolov Award - For Major Contribution to NDT ResearchAward Winner: Rong S. Geng (China)
Other Nominees: Gorkunov Eduard Stepanovich (Russia)
Young Achiever Award - For Achievement of Young People in NDTAward Winner: Andrey Evgenievich BazulinAward winners were unanimously approved and congratulated. Awards would
be presented at the Opening Ceremony.
7.2 Honorary members
The following nominations had been received:
R LinkT Sonneveld
These were unanimously approved and congratulated. Certificates would bepresented at the Opening Ceremony.

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7.3 ICNDT Officers
DM announced that with regard to nominations the correct procedures had
been followed, responses had been reviewed by the Executive Committee and
the PGP and voting would take place at the 33rd GA.
The nominations for ICNDT officers were as follows:
Chairman: J M Farley (prop. DM; sec. Gerhard Aufricht (GA) and Wayne
Holliday (WH)
General Secretary: D Barnett (prop. DM; sec RL)
World Conference President: M Johannes
Secretariat: The British Institute of NDT (prop. GA; sec. DM)
Society to hold fund: The Austrian Society for NDT (prop. DM; sec. JMF)
Members appointed to PGP: M Purschke (prop. GA, sec. RL), W Holliday(prop. DM, sec. BINDT).
Regional Representatives (nominated by Regional Groups):
V Krstelj, E Romero (Europe)
W Holliday, J Conte (Pan American)
L Dick, M Ooka (Asia Pacific)
F Herelli, K Danso (Africa)
Treasurer: G Aufricht
Trustee of ICNDT funds: M Purschke (prop. RL; sec. DM)
Chairman of the Membership WG: J Conte (prop. DM)
All the nominees were unanimously elected to be ICNDT Officers effective theend of the 33rd General Assembly Meeting.
8.

Report on ICNDT
8.1 Constitution, Operating Procedures
The Chairman explained the situation regarding the Constitution and thanked
all concerned for their due diligence in producing a world class document. The
status was as follows:• New Constitution approved and implemented from 1 May 2008
• Bank account being opened in Vienna• Existing Operating Procedures reviewed for compliance with new constitution
and confirmed OK• New Procedure for Membership introduced following approval by PGP• New Procedure for Working Groups and Committees approved in principle by
PGP and to be completed, with further clarification requested by PGP.
JMF then explained the ICNDT structure and operating procedures,committees and responsibilities.
8.2 Website
RL stated that the ICNDT website was set up by DGZfP using a content
management system and the content was provided by the Secretariat. He
acknowledged the work of Sharon Bond in this regard. He explained that thesite was accessible by the public but there was a section devoted to members
only and this was a platform for storing all documents, etc. Societies’
representatives were encouraged to register on the site to allow access to themembers’ only area. DJG re-iterated that he hoped that a facility would be5

available at the Conference to register members assuming a wirelessconnection was available.
All member societies were asked to provide a link to the ICNDT website via
their own home page.
The search facility on the site will cover all members’ links too, so this was auseful incentive.
There was a possibility for member societies to use the ICNDT website’s
operating system to create their own sites. DJG had been asked to discusswith S Cullmann and consider the possibility of organising a workshop to shareexpertise.
DJG Action: GA32/24-10-08/01
8.3 Journal
DJG described the current arrangement whereby the ICNDT Journal was
produced by BINDT 3 times per year, usually in March, June and September,
although the current issue had been postponed until October to coincide with
the World Conference. Copies of issue no. 11 were to be available at theConference. Issues were also available for downloading via the ICNDT
website. He thanked all societies’ and Regional reps for their contributions,
Giuseppe Nardoni (GN) for his continuing editorship, S Bond for her work in thechasing of material and compilation, and the production team at BINDT. The
schedule for next year’s issue was being formulated.
The Journal was a continuous development and comments and contributions
were always welcomed.
8.4 WG1 NDT Qualification and Certification
JMF explained that he was to be replaced as Chairman of this WG by John
Thompson when JRT’s time permitted.
JMF then reported on work initiated by the Executive Committee
to update the document ‘ICNDT Recommended Guidelines for Qualification
and Certification of NDT personnel to ISO9712”. The 2004 edition, published at
16th WCNDT in Montreal was now out of date and inaccurate. ICNDT
previously decided that a web-based document, more frequently updated,would be preferred.
Drafts had been circulated to an editorial committee and comments taken into
account. The majority were in favour of publication of Version 5c but it was
decided that further discussion is needed on Section 7: ‘Recommendations’.
There was agreement of the full editorial committee to publish an Interim
Version to ICNDT members in Shanghai. This version excludes Section 7.
The following way forward had been approved by the PGP Committee:• Invite email comment from full ICNDT membership on the whole document
and on the draft Section 7 with a deadline of 31 Dec 2008
• Present Section 7 to ICNDT Workshop on Certification and invite comment
at the meeting and afterwards by email by 31 Dec 2008
• Chair of WG1 and Editorial Committee to complete document (following
Operating Procedure P 06)

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• Publish final version• PGP to appoint a new Editorial Committee to be responsible for periodic
updating
Comment was thus invited. GN stated how important it was to have thisdocument, which contains essential information on inspection procedures. He
said that he felt that the Guide part of the document was very important in itself
and if the Recommendations part was to take longer to be agreed then it was
better to publish the document without that section.
JMF thanked the editorial committee for their hard work.
RL acknowledged the tireless work of JMF to bring the document to fruition.
DM concurred.
8.5 WG3 Research and Education
Baldev Raj (BR) made a presentation (here) on the current and proposed
activities of WG3.
GN and JMF congratulated BR on the presentation.
JMF invited BR to the next Exec Meeting to take place at the ASNT Spring
Conference in St Louis to help formulate an action plan for WG3 for the next
two years. He suggested that this meeting might need to be a full day. He also
invited all members and regional groups to contribute to the work and contact
the secretariat with specific proposals. He also acknowledged the work of Vjera
Krstelj in Europe and referred to the article that she had produced for Insight(September and October 2008 issues and also on the EFNDT website).
VK accepted an invitation to join the WG.
9.

Finances
GA delivered his Treasurer’s report. He noted 15.644 donation by the
Canadian Institute resulting from the 16th WCNDT and the 500 donation fromthe Austrian Chamber of Commerce, which were both gratefully received.
The bottom line showed an allocation to reserves of 4865 for 2007/8.
The accounts for 2007 and forecast for 2008 were unanimously approved.
(prp. TS; sec.John Zirnhelt (JZ).
The Treasurer then presented the budget for 2009.
The General Secretary then announced to the General Assembly that the
Executive Committee had agreed that consideration was being given to theintroduction of an annual membership fee of 300-500 effective 1 January2010 in order to sustain the standards of the organisation. The PGP had
agreed to this proposal.
Some discussion followed. RL (UK) supported the introduction of fees as he feltthat without them the ICNDT finances would become unsustainable ifdevelopment work involving expenditure was to be carried out. It was perhaps
unwise to rely on the donation made by the WCNDT host.
Yeo YanTeng (YY) (Malaysia) questioned as to whether the introduction of fees
would discourage developing nations from joining. He suggested that WCNDT
and donations should form the main part of the income for ICNDT. He

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suggested that there could perhaps be a scheme whereby new members do
not pay for the first two years, for example.
John Maccarone (JM) (Australia) supported the introduction of fees but agreed
that consideration should be given to the shortage of funds available to smaller
societies.
JMF agreed that some flexibility might be needed. He suggested that the
Executive Committee give further consideration to the matterGA confirmed that the budget for 2009 did not take into account any income
from membership fees. The budget was accepted unanimously on this basis(prp. TS; sec. Emilo Romero (ER).
DM thanked GA for his work with the finances and in the preparation of thefinancial reports.
10.

Membership
TS proposed that the following:
Lithuania
SerbiaSudan
be ratified as full members of ICNDT as all the relevant criteria had been met.
Also that:
LebanonPhilippines
Turkeybe accepted for full ICNDT membership as all the relevant criteria had beenmet.
The motion was carried unanimously (prp. TS; sec. ER).
TS welcomed Joas Conte (JC) to the chair of the Membership Committee (after
the 33rd GA meeting) and challenged him to gain 10 new members during his
tenure of office as well as complete certain actions passed by the PGP and
Executive Committees.
GA proposed the Austrian Chamber of Commerce as a Liaison member. This
was accepted unanimously (sec. TS) and thanks were recorded for the
donation.
TS acknowledged the presence of the Lebanon representative at the GA as
well as other new, recent and existing members.
Finally the Chairman noted that it was TS’s last meeting as Chair of theMembership Committee and thanked him for all his efforts over the years.

11.

Opportunity for comments by national societies.
There were none.

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12.

Regional Reports
12.1 Asia Pacific
Leslie Dick (LD) and Novikazv Ooka (NO) presented their reports on eventsand developments in the region.
LD, acting on behalf of the IAEA/RCA, requested assistance with a common
Question Bank.
DM stated that IAEA no longer have the support of a technical officer and thisresource would be missed, especially in smaller, developing nations. He
proposed the sending of a letter to IAEA asking them to re-consider the
position. LD supported this initiative.
NO said that the Asia Pacific Committee currently had 20 members andBangladesh had proposed to join. He commented on other developments:
a JSNDI workshop was to be held in November; the Malaysian Society had
produced an informative newsletter; the Indian Society was organising aworkshop on imaging (part of WG3) and the 13th APCNDT was to take place inNovember 2009 in Yokohama.
12.2 Pan American
J Conte (JC) and W Holliday (WH) presented their reports on events anddevelopments in the region.
The reports can be viewed by clicking here.
12.3 Europe
VK and ER presented their reports on events and developments in the region.
ER reported that there were now 29 full members, with the recent addition ofTurkey and Portugal. EFNDT was to publish a newsletter and he gave an
outline of the contents. A strategic plan had been formulated. The ‘EFNDT
Guidelines: Overall Quality System’ had been published and hard and soft
copies were available. Thanks to A B Wooldridge of BINDT for his review of the
document. EFNDT was establishing a new forum on condition monitoring anddiagnostic technology.
The next ECNDT was to be held in Moscow, 7-11 June 2010, organised by the
Russian Society for NDT and TD.
The venue for the 2014 ECNDT was to be determined at a meeting of the
EFNDT General Assembly in Vienna in January 2009.
EFNDT’s involvement in the European project on LRUCM was continuing.
12.4 Africa
F Herelli (FH) and K Danso (KD) presented their reports on events anddevelopments in the region.
A successful regional conference had been held in Tunisia last March. The
next one was due to take place in Ghana in March 2010.
The 18th World Conference on NDT was due to take place 18-20 April 2012 in
Durban, South Africa.

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The roles of the IAEA and AFRA in NDT in Africa were being considered.
A good deal of work was being done on the formation of national societies inAfrica.
13.

World Conferences
13.1 17th WCNDTRong Geng (RG) presented summary report. 600 abstracts and 495 full papers
had been submitted. More than 1000 delegates were expected and more than150 companies were expected to take part in the exhibition.
The Chinese Society was congratulated on its efforts in difficult circumstances.
There was a proposal to hold a competition to select the best exhibit by amember society and the best paper presented at the conference, as chosen by
a judging panel.
TS proposed the following members of the panel: E Romero, V Klyuev,
V Krstelj, T Sonneveld, N Ooka.
JMF reminded attendees about the Certification Workshop to be held on
Monday. Everyone was encouraged to attend.
13.2 18th WCNDTM Johannes (MJ) presented a video on the facilities at Durban for the 18th
WCNDT to take place 18-20 April 2012.
He invited all to visit the18th WCNDT exhibition booth shared with the German
Society.
Finally he passed on the regrets and good wishes from Amanda van derWesthuizen, who had presented the successful bid for South Africa inMontreal.
13.3 Presentations from potential hosts for 19th WCNDTThere were two candidates: Germany and India, and these madepresentations in alphabetical order.
The Chairman pointed out that voting would take place at the next meeting, the33rd General Assembly taking place the following Monday.
13.4 Presentation from potential host for 20th WCNDT
Although the selection of the host would not be made at this time,
representatives from Korea made a presentation confirming their bid to host the20th WCNDT in 2020.
Representatives from the USA stated that they too would be bidding to host the20th WCNDT.

14.

Instructions for WCNDT Opening Ceremony
These had been covered in the presentation on the 17th WCNDT.

15.

Next meeting
The 33rd General Assembly of the ICNDT would be held on Monday,
27 October 2008 at 14h00.

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