ISA Hamilton is pleased to report that it sent two delegates the ISA’s annual ISA Fall Leaders meeting, which for 2016 was held in Newport Beach, California, USA. Taking place Sept 24-28, 2016, the meeting included face-to-face meetings for the ISA’s various representative governing boards, standards committee meetings, and the society’s annual general meeting.
Brent Killins, our past section president, and Graham Nasby, a long-time ISA volunteer attended, on behalf of ISA Hamilton. In addition to his section duties as past-president, Brent is also the incoming District VP-elect for the ISA’s Eastern Canada district, known as District 13. Likewise, Graham was also attending the meeting in his new capacity as the Department VP-elect of the ISA’s department of Industries and Sciences, which oversees 12 of the ISA’s technical divisions.
A major component of the ISA Fall Leaders Meeting is the Council of Society Delegates. In the council, delegates from all of the ISA’s over 100 sections around the world gather to conduct the ISA’s annual general meeting and vote on any bylaw changes as required. Brent Killins acted as our official delegate for the ISA Hamilton Section.
On this year’s agenda was a proposed to merge several of the ISA’s geographical districts, which are groupings of individual ISA local sections. Per the wishes of the sections in Eastern Canada (District 13), Brent worked hard to ensure that we were not merged with another of ISA’s districts. At the conclusion Brent was happy to report that District 13 remains its own distinct Eastern Canadian Section, so that we are able to support both our English and French sections effectively while also keeping travel distances reasonable between the various sections in our district.
Graham, in his capacity as VP-elect of Industries & Sciences, was also able report on his efforts to rebuild the ISA Construction & Design technical division and the ISA Mining & Metals technical divisions. After both being dormant for the past 5+ years, each now has division leadership in place and a full committee of 8+ volunteers. Each of these divisions are currently working on publishing newsletters for November 2016, and developing their plans for 2017. Graham also spearheaded an effort to put in place quarterly reporting for the ISA’s technical divisions, and to dissolve two technical interest groups which were no longer active. The two groups that were dissolve were the Textiles technical interest group and the Glass & Ceramics technical interest group.
Several of the ISA’s standards committees met at the Fall Leaders Meetings. Graham attended meetings for ISA18 Alarm Management, ISA101 HMI Design, and ISA112 SCADA Systems. The ISA112 meeting was notable as it was the kick off meeting for the ISA’s newest standards committee, which expects to be working on a new SCADA Design Framework standard shortly.
Lastly the FLM was also an opportunity for volunteer leaders from the ISA’s various Canadian sections to get together for a group dinner and social events. A society-wide Gala dinner was held on the Saturday night in the hotel’s main ballroom and a Canadian dinner was held on the Sunday night at a harbour front seafood restaurant.
