The following lists some of the issues raised at the recent meeting and nominates a contact person. Please feel free to contact that person directly, or Teresa (secretary@nzgs.org), if you have any queries.
Membership statistics
Total NZGS membership – 1110
| NZGS members with International Affiliations | |
|---|---|
| Society | Members |
| IAEG | 232 |
| IAEG Bulletin | 172 |
| ISRM | 167 |
| ISSMGE | 673 |
Meeting summary
| 1. | The NZGS may look at sponsoring a delegate from an emerging country to attend the upcoming ANZ Conference and/or the international conference in 2021. Committee agreed to commit to $10-$15,000 for this | Tony Fairclough |
| 2. | The June issue of the NZ Geomechanics News will have a special feature on the Kaikoura earthquake. | Marlene Villenue |
| 3. | Website Library is well used with the Events, Modules and Careers pages popular | Ross Roberts |
| 4. | Rankine Lecture tour commences in three weeks | Eleni Gkeli |
| 5. | NZGS Engineering Geology course planned for August/September in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch | Eleni Gkeli |
| 6. | NZGS2017 – MBIE confirm they will hold a Master Class on the Thursday before the Symposium. | Guy Cassidy |
| 7. | The Geotechnical Module training courses appear to be well attended. The committee would like to see these being held in some of the smaller centres. | Sally Hargraves |
| 8. | The committee is planning a lecture series by Vaughan Griffiths from the Colorado School of Mines during 2018. | Eleni Gkeli |
| 9. | Richard Jardine is going to be approached to run a course on engineering of soft soils in 2018 | Eleni Gkeli |
| 10. | AS1726 (Site Investigation Standard) is due for publication in 2-3 months. | Tony Fairclough |
| 11. | Reviews of the NZSEE Seismic Assessment of Buildings Guidelines (the Red Book) will soon be finished and the document ready for referencing in the forthcoming regulations. Gavin Alexander is attending steering group meetings. | Gavin Alexander |
| 12. | Development of the Body of Knowledge for Engineering Geologists is continuing, and is about six months behind the equivalent document for geotechnical engineers. The committee will consider development of a cross over document for members who will not fit within the proposed Engineering Geologist or Geotechnical Engineer definitions. | Stuart Read |
| 13. | Tony Fairclough will represent the committee at the IPENZ Forum in Wellington. | Tony Fairclough |
| 14. | Eight applications were received for the NZGS Scholarship, and three of these have been shortlisted. Due to the strong interest and high standard of the submissions the committee agreed to make two awards this year. | Sally Hargraves |
| 15. | Student Poster Awards have been judged. The Posters have been displayed in Auckland, the Bay of Plenty and Waikato. | Sally Hargraves |
| 16. | The committee agreed to encourage more applicants for the Richard Wolters Prize | Sally Hargraves |
| 17. | The Committee agreed to award funding from the 6ICEGE fund to Gavin Alexander to attend the International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering in Vancouver in July 2017. Gavin will give Presentations to at branch meetings around the country on his return. | Tony Fairclough |
| 18. | The committee agreed to award funding from the NZGS Chairpersons Travel Fund and the 6ICEGE Fund for Charlie Price to attend the 2017 ICSMGE Conference in Seoul, South Korea. Charlies will prepare an article for Geomechanics News summarising five key papers from the event. | Tony Fairclough |
| 19. | Plans for the NZGS2017 Symposium are well underway. Sponsorship is good. There will be a Kaikoura/Wellington session, and a session for past Geomechanics Lectures. | Guy Cassidy |
| 20. | The committee is examining ways of increasing presentations at branches | Gavin Alexander/Eleni Gkeli |
| 21. | The AGM is to be held on 6th September 2017 at the MWH, now part of Stantec, office in Christchurch. | Teresa Roetman |
| 22. | Next Management Committee Meeting is to be on 6th June 2017, at the Opus offices in Nelson | Teresa Roetman |