Distinguished Colleagues, Dear Friends,

This is my twenty fifth progress report after 760 days as your President. Note that previous reports are on the ISSMGE web site (http://www.issmge.org/) under “From the President” if you need them. In this report, I would like to talk to you about our upcoming webinar, a thank you on music feedback, and the results of our Council meeting in Toronto.

Webinars. We continue our successful series of webinars. The October webinar on Intelligent Compaction by Antonio Correia and George Chang was another resounding success with 56 computers connected worldwide. The next webinar will be on the geotechnical engineering code Eurocode 7 entitled “Eurocode 7 – past, present, and future” by Andrew Bond, current Chair of the Geotechnical Engineering Eurocode Committee. The webinar is scheduled for 19 Dec 2011. Please contact Hanna Prichard, my assistant, at hprichard@civil.tamu.edu if you wish to receive more information as we get closer to the date. The webinar will be $200 per computer connected (if we can solve the on line payment problem!), so find a big screen computer and get many people in the room to decrease the cost per person. We are in negotiations with 3 more speakers for the Feb, April, and June 2012 webinars. More news on this later.

Music progress report. I have received many heartwarming emails in response to my last progress reports about my love for music. Thank you so much for sharing with me your favorites, I added all of them to my collection.

Council meeting results. We had a very successful meeting of the ISSMGE Council in Toronto on 2Oct2011. 26 member societies were present and came with an additional 37 proxy votes. I want to thank Neil Taylor and Paloma Peers for an excellent preparation of the agenda and the detailed process, a daunting task indeed. Our Canadian hosts were impeccable as usual. Among the important issues covered, we heard regional reports from our Vice Presidents (Samuel Ejezie-Africa, Askar Zhussupbekov-Asia, Michael Davies-Australasia, Ivan Vanicek-Europe, Gabriel Auvinet-North America, and Roberto Terzariol-South America), then we heard progress reports from the Chairs of the Board Level Committees (Suzanne Lacasse-Technical Oversight, Dimitris Zekkos-Innovations and Development, Jean-Louis Briaud-member of the Students and Young Member Presidential Group, Jean-Louis Briaud-Vice Chair of the Corporate Associates Presidential Group, Charles Ng-Board liaison of the Awards Committee). We also heard reports on FedIGS and the ISSMGE Foundation. Votes were taken on 4 proposals. For Israel moving to the Europe region, the vote was 52 yes, 5 no, 6 abstain. For the amendment to bylaws regarding audited financial statements, the vote was 60 yes, 1 no, 2 abstain. For changing the name of our quadrennial conference to World Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, the vote was 25 yes, 35 no, 3 abstain. For changing the name of our society to International Society for Geotechnical Engineering, the vote was 23 yes, 39 no, 1 abstain. We had a wonderful and professional discussion on this topic which brought out the passion all of us have for our profession. One of my goal during my presidency has been to engage the membership, I believe this topic definitely contributed to that. Thank you all for a meaningful debate. After that the budget was presented by Neil Taylor and Michael Davies (ISSMGE Treasurer) and approved by Council. Roger Frank gave us an update on our 2013 quadrennial conference in Paris 1-6 Sept 2013; the French organizing committee is doing a remarkable job and this is going to be one of the best conferences in years; I hope that all of you plan to attend. If you have cash flow problems to come to the conference in Paris in 2013, don’t forget that you can ask for some help from the ISSMGE Foundation. At the end of the Council meeting, Jana Frankovska (our friendly President of the Czech and Slovak Society) and I sang the new ISSMGE song and the Council members joined in. Jana promised me that she would sing again in Paris at the end of the Council meeting on 1 Sept 2013. You will all get the song ahead of that Council meeting with the words and the music so you can prepare to sing along.

Best wishes and please relay this message to your members.

Jean-Louis BRIAUD
President of ISSMGE
International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
Professor, Texas A&M University.