VANCOUVER SECTION AGM 2021

The IEEE Vancouver Section Annual General Meeting was held on March 31, 2021 via Zoom virtual meeting facilities.

27 members and friends of the Vancouver Section were in attendance as Section Chair Steven McClain began the meeting with an acknowledgement of the meeting being held on First Nations unceded land.

Dr. Jason Gu, President of IEEE Canada addressed the meeting, and delivered a message of encouragement and support for the Vancouver Section.

Steven McClain presented the Chair’s report, and commented that while the pandemic limited the activities of the Section in 2020 (including the 2020 AGM and Gala), some significant events did take place and many of them were available to our members via remote conferencing tools.

Matthew Wilder, Section Vice Chair and previously Section Treasurer, presented the Treasurer’s Report. He noted that due to the pandemic expenses for 2020 were lower than normal. The Section enjoys a healthy balance in its general account and in the Section Scholarship Fund account (held at, and administered by the IEEE Canadian Foundation). Attendees voted to approve both the Chair’s Report and the Treasurer’s report.

On behalf of the Section Audit committee, Matthew Wilder presented the auditors signed statement of approval. Section members in attendance voted to accept the Auditors report. The Section auditors:

   Paul Smith
   Hui Deng
   Shail Mahanti

were thanked for their service. With the retirement of senior audit committee member Shail Mahanti, a new auditor, Mr. Oleksandr Sergeyenko was nominated and approved by the attendees.
 

PLANS FOR 2021 – NEW SCHOLARSHIP INTRODUCTION

The Section plans for 2021 were addressed but were limited in detail due to the pandemic.

Section Vice Chair Matthew Wilder introduced the plan for the creation of a
new Vancouver Section Scholarship, dedicated in memory of Dr. John S. MacDonald.

A short video was shown, depicting segments of an interview with Alfredette MacDonald.
In the video, Mrs. MacDonald comments on the motivations and inspirations of Dr. MacDonald,
and indicates that Dr. MacDonald would have been pleased with a Vancouver Section Scholarship
named in his honour.
 

SECTION SCHOLARSHIPS

The 2021 Vancouver Section scholarship award winners were not announced at the meeting,
as the Section decided to extend the application deadline to April 30th. The 2021 scholarship
awards will be announced shortly thereafter.
 

SECTION AWARD WINNERS

Section Chair Steven McClain announced the winners of various Section awards for 2021:

Past Section Chair Recognition Award

   – Michael Paraskake

Outstanding Small Technical Chapter

   – Joint Aerospace & Electromagnetics Chapter, Dave Michelson

Outstanding Large Technical Chapter

   – Joint Power & Energy Chapter, Kenny Poon

Outstanding Student Branch

   – SFU Student Branch, Daina Baker

Outstanding Affinity Group

   – Life Members AG, Carl Zanon

Outstanding Section Volunteer

   – Carl Zanon

Vancouver Section Service Award

   – Ljiljana Trajkovic

Section Chair Steven McClain took the opportunity to recognize and thank Dr. Ljiljana Trajkovic for over 20 years of service to the Vancouver Section as Chair of the Joint Section Chapter, Circuits and Systems Society.
 

NEXT AGM DATE:

The anticipated date of next year’s AGM is March 26, 2022. This is subject to change.

 

ADDITIONAL AGM DETAILED INFORMATION

Additional information, including slides and videos, will be posted, when available, on the AGM 2021 webpage.

Any questions or feedback regarding the Vancouver Section AGM may be directed to Vancouver Section Chair, Steven McClain. (email stevenmcclain at ieee.org)