IPRN ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Dublin, May 21– 24, 2005
MEMBERS ATTENDING
The Chairman: Mary Crotty Public Relations (Mary Crotty) – Dublin, Ireland
General Secretary: Nexus Communications Group (Jonathan Choat) – London, U.K.
Maggi Bonner Fox, The Maggi Fox Consultancy, St Georges, France
Karri Vesa, Harkonsalo & Vesa Public Relations Oy, Finland
Jonathan Choat, Nexus Communications Group, London, UK
Mary Crotty, Mary Crotty Public Relations Limited, Dublin, Ireland
Claude Sauber, Oxygen, Luxemburg, Luxemburg
Luis G. Canomanuel, LUCA Comunicacion Corporativia, Madrid, Spain
Michael Stringer, Stringer, Burlington, U.S.A
Jonas Sondergaard, Butterlies PR and More, Aarhus, Denmark
Keith Webb, Edson Evers & Associates, Stafford, U.K.
Wolfgang Weber-Thedy, Weber-Thedy Corporate & Financial, Zurich, Switzerland
Larry Weis, Autocom Associates, Bloomfield Hills, USA
Jeffrey Weiss, Harbinger Communications Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Geoff Drucker, Corporate Kudos, Australia
Inge Drucker, Corporate Kudos, Australia
Jeanne Perego, Perego & Solera Comunicazione Integrated, Milano, Italy
Gary Wells, Dix & Eaton Incorporated, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Steve Mangold, PRx Inc, San Jose, USA
Trude Holte Moll, Communicator, Norway
Anne Harkonsalo, Harkansalo & Vesa Public Relations OY, Espo, Finland
Guido Minerbi, Minerbi/Silveira, Argentina
Annekathrin Koch, Pentacom
Denes Szecheryi, JB: PR, Germany
Mico Ohtaka, Ohtaka - Jimusho
Dorothee Weiner, Oxygen, Luxemburg
Alex Mendez, Mendez & Associates, Mexico
Roland Cross, Broadgate, London, UK (Later)
1. AGM 2005 Opening (Chairman Mary Crotty)
2. Welcoming the participants and introducing new members (Chairman)
3. Apologies:
- Julia Lajos, Hungary
- Barbara Fleetwood, Sweden
- Gert Träger, Denmark
- Mark Knight, UK
- Peter Richter, Germany
- Piotr Czarnowski, Poland
4. Votes registered by proxy recorded (Peter Richter, Germany; Piotr Czarnowski, Poland)
5. Approval of Minutes of AGM 2004, held in Luxemburg 2004
Proposed Maggi Fox
Seconded Claude Sauber
Unanimously approved
6. Approval of Constitution amendments agreed in Helsinki 2004
Item Executive council
Item 17.2 Regional group membership
Proposed Geoff Drucker
Seconded Luis Canomanuel
Approved unanimously
Motion to delete last paragraph
To delete the paragraph concerning no vote at the AGM for regional members and substitute the following:
Geographical area members shall have one vote per region at the AGM and other member meetings, this vote to be used by an appointee who shall be a paid up member of the IPRN, and who shall be jointly approved by all the regional members to represent their interests and views at the said meetings as they shall direct.
Proposed Mary Crotty
Seconded Maggi Fox
Approved unanimously
7. Financial Matters
7.1 Approval of audited accounts
Proposed Geoff Drucker
Seconded Keith Webb
Approved unanimously
7.2 Approval of budget for 2006
Proposed Geoff Drucker
Seconded Claude Sauber
Approved unanimously
7.3 Rise in membership fees of 10% across all categories from 2006
Proposed Keith Webb
Seconded Alex Mendes
Approved unanimously
7.4 Discussion on status and fee income of some members of the South American region
Concluded: Discuss South American members and their participation over the year at the next AGM.
South American members to be encouraged to attend the AGM in San Jose, California
7.5 Increase conference deposit by 10% from $300 to $330 per member
Proposed by Luis Canomanuel
Seconded by Alex Mendes
Approved unanimously
7.5 Proposal: Conference chairman, in consultation with the Executive Council, shall decide upon conference location, budget and costs per delegate and timing. Their decisions shall be communicated to the entire network as soon as possible within the term of the new chairman.
Proposed Karri Vesa
Seconded Luis Canomanuel
8. Report by the General Secretary
The network has run smoothly this last year with no major issues
We have been contacted by a number of agencies interested in IPRN usually via the web site – UK, Ireland, USA and Namibia have been sent information on IPRN.
New members: Opinion Valley in France; 4 new members from South America
Lost members: Communicor in France, East West in Singapore and Herman Verkroost in The Netherlands
We need new members in Belgium, Russia, India, the Far East and South Africa.
Hours spent in administration for the year 2004: 21.9 days against a budget of 24 days so reduced cost to cover 20 days in 2005 -£10k + VAT = £11,750
Ask auditors whether we can register IPRN in Switzerland in order to avoid paying VAT – Jonathan Choat
9. Re-election of General Secretary:
J. Choat has done an excellent job in administering the network. He has acted as an ambassador to the network. But there is the issue of the high costs; he is highly paid. Again it was suggested that his workload be divided.
Jonathan Choat be reappointed as General Secretary –
Proposed Mary Crotty ; Seconded Maggi Fox
Vote unanimous
10. Appointment of Auditors for 2005 - Carringtons
Proposed Jonathan Choat
Seconded Maggi Fox
11. Election of officers for the year 2005/2006
Administration Committee:
Jonathan Choat, Maggi Fox, Keith Webb, Chairman for coming year (Steve Mangold)
Proposed Jonathan Choat
Seconded Guido Minerbi
12. Chairman for 2006
Steve Mangold nominated as chairman for 2006/7
Proposed Maggi Fox
Seconded Alex Mendes
13. Chairman Marketing Committee:
Mark Knight chairman of marketing committee
Proposed Jonathan Choat
Seconded Inge Drucker
14. Project of the Year Committee:
Chairman Luis Canomanuel
Proposed Mary Crotty
Seconded Jonathan Choat
15. Recruitment Committees: Chairmen elected
- Eastern Europe – Karri Vesa, Julia Lajos
- Western Europe – Jonathan Choat
- South American – Guido Minerbi
- North America – Gary Wells
- Asia – Mico Ohtaka
- Africa – Jonathan Choat
- Australasia – Geoff Drucker
16. Business Development:
Chairman Gary Wells
17. Information and communication committee:
Chairman Jeffrey Weiss
18. Affiliates:
Chairman Maggi Fox
19. Location and date of next AGM 2006:
San Jose, California
20. Activities of the different Committees during the year 2004
20.1. Policy committee: Jonathan Choat – No activity necessary during the year
20.2. Marketing committee: Roland Cross for Mark Knight
Now seven languages on the website: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish
Researched listings to add to prweb.com and odwyerpr.com
20.3. Actions Agreed:
Project of the year winners included on public sector on website in resume
Case histories of International campaign to be created through Jonathan Choat as follows:
- Wolfgang Weber-Thedy, Switzerland and Mark Knight, UK - Starmine
- Peter Richter, Germany – Luk Aftermarket
- Guido Minerbi – Faber Castell
Google Ad words – not proceeded with as too expensive
20.4. Website:
Unanimous decision to go ahead with the new design for the website that Inge and Geoff Drucker have proposed
Unanimous decision to appoint Inge and Geoff as Webmasters at a budget of £4,000 for the year 2005
They will submit the new design to members for any amendments and final approval before the new design goes live. By September Inge will produce a report on the website and how it is developing
Marketing committee will produce report on search engine optimisation and a cost also by September. This will be submitted to the membership for a decision as to whether the site optimisation budget is to be raised from the membership as a one off with immediate effect or as an addition to subscriptions in 2006.
20.5 Project of the Year committee: Luis Canomanuel
Suggested to implement more awards. Proposal by Larry Weis for additional winning categories for project of the year; Categories Agreed:
Consumer
Business to Business
Public / Community Affairs
Proposed Larry Weis
Seconded Luis Canomanuel
Need a minimum of 3 entries per category. Entries will be considered for allocation into one of the categories or will be placed in a miscellaneous category. All entries will be considered for the overall Project of the Year Award.
20.6. Recruitment Committee:
Eastern Europe ( Karri Vesa )– Continuing with Russian contacts.
Political situation in Russia cause for concern in recruiting new members.
Possibility of recruitment in Estonia – good contacts, but no meetings in past year. Hope to continue contact in coming year.
Western Europe: (J. Choat) Recruit agency in Austria. Problems finding agency in Belgium. Netherlands – have business-to-business agency there but need to find a consumer agency. Have recruited an agency in France – Opinion Valley.
South America: Guido Minerbi very successful in recruiting new agencies. Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, and Columbia.
North America: Gary Wells no obvious need for new American agencies in the past year.
Asia Pacific: Jim James, East West has resigned; new members needed in China, Korea
India: Jonathan Choat involved in ongoing search for new Indian agencies.
Australia: Geoff Drucker has been in contact with 2 agencies in New Zealand who have expressed interest in joining. Mary to pass details of contact in New Zealand.
Africa: Jonathan Choat to pursue contacts. Possible potential new member in Namibia.
20.7. Business Development Committee:
Gary Wells, no action during year but following action was agreed.
Jonathan Choat will send PowerPoint presentation to all members, which they can then adapt / translate as needed and print off as they see fit.
All member agencies requesting new business or client service information/response from other IPRN members to copy request to J. Choat who will create a data file and prepare a business referral report every quarter to go with the quarterly newsletter.
20.8. Information and Communication Committee: Jeffrey Weiss
Report: Survey of member agencies conducted by Harbinger showing areas of mutual interest, best practice from management. Agreed that members would vote on those items for inclusion of 2006 conference. These were later agreed on as;
Topics for inclusion in the conference next year
- Resource management – management optimisation (Led by Jeffrey Weis)
- Measurement and evaluation (Led by Mary Crotty)
- New business development - existing and new clients (Led by Jonathan Choat)
Subsidiary Topics:
Evaluation of business value ; mergers and acquisitions; sale and development of business
E-newsletter:
Claude Sauber to be editor of newsletter and provide quarterly newsletter, budget of €830 for newsletter format approved
20.9 Affiliates membership committee: No current affiliate members. People who are freelancers and may wish to subscribe. Maggi Fox awaiting referrals by other members on possible affiliates whom she will contact.
21. Election of Vice Chairman (2007)
Alex Mendes, Mexico
Location of conference - Cancun, Mexico
22. Election of new members to Executive Council
Inge Drucker, Australia
Proposed Mary Crotty
Seconded Jonathan Choat
Guido Minerbi, Argentina
Proposed Jeff Drucker
Seconded Jeanne Perego
22. Motions received from members: None
23. Date and location of next meeting:
San Jose
Date to be decided – May/June 2006
24. Any other business
Next Conference
24.1. Responsibilities of Chairman
- Sign off invitations to join network (+Gen Sec)
- Welcome new members to network (+Gen Sec)
- Prepare frontispiece for quarterly newsletter (+Claude Sauber)
- Introduce new prospects /ideas for development of network
- Arrange and organise annual conference and AGM (with the Executive Council)
- Contribute to administrative committee (+Gen Sec)
- Encourage and chase up chairman of all committees to keep to their commitments
- Introduce selected discussion topics for conference
Noted by Steve Mangold as next Chairman
24.2. Action from Topics discussion groups:
Research: Chairman Jonathan Choat
Engage clients, get publicity, and ensure IPRN network use by local agencies.
- Research to be pursued
- Clients / contacts to be used in research sample
- Topics for research and method to be submitted by Geoff Drucker by end of June 2005
Information Survey: Chairman Steve Mangold
- Poll of all members by end of June for information which will then be summarised by Steve Mangold and sent to the membership / posted on the web
- Software tools for agency management
- Client contracts
- The winning presentations in original language
Marketing: Chairman Jeff Weiss
IPRN press officer – Maggi Fox who will prepare releases.
Immediate subjects:
- Growth of IPRN over 10 years
- New Chairman and location of conference
Attendance at conference:
Jonathan Choat to research reasons or non-attendance by members
E-newsletter to be handled by Claude Sauber
25. Motion to sign new contract with Business Wire; JC to provide members contact addresses to Business Wire .
Unanimous approval
Contract signed by the chairman
26. End of AGM 2005
27. Project of the Year Presentations
- Dove – Jeff Weiss, Harbinger, Canada
- Anzag / Evesca – Denes Szecheryi, JB: PR, Germany
- Turner & Newell, Roland Cross, Broadgate, UK
- Villeroy & Boch – Dorothee Weiner, Oxygen, Luxembourg
- Tech Crawl - Larry Weis, Autocom, USA
- World Friends of Museums – Guido Minerbi, Minerbi/Silveira, Argentina
- Hadley Group – Keith Webb, Edson Evers, UK
- Volvo – Mary Crotty, Mary Crotty PR, Ireland
- Salsa World Dance Championships – Jonathan Choat, Nexus, UK
The winner of the Project of the Year Awardwas Turner & Newall pensions media campaign by Broadgate Ltd UK.
Ends .