On 10 November, during our successful 57th World Planning Congress in Doha, Qatar, members convened both in-person and online to endorse and discuss critical governance matters of the Society.

The quorum of 60 members was easily reached with in-person and online participants.

As this was our first entirely hybrid Annual General Meeting (AGM), there are certainly a number of issues to learn from and to improve for future hybrid AGMs.

The meeting was chaired by outgoing President Martin Dubbeling. After formally acknowledging and approving the respective Minutes of the 2020 AGM and the Minutes of the 2021 Special General Meeting (SGM), Secretary-General Frank D’hondt presented the Annual Report 2020-2021, shared with all members prior to the AGM through our member area.  The Annual Report is the largest to date published and illustrates both the vibrancy and diversity of our truly global Society, with planners from over 90 countries. By formally acknowledging the Annual Report, members expressed their appreciation for the collective action of all members and special representatives in bodies such as the Board, the Scientific Committee, the Congress Team and last but not least or Secretariat.

By acknowledging the Annual Report, members implicitly acknowledged the Board’s responsive actions following the resolutions accepted at last SGM (Feb. 2021), including

  1. Board’s restoration of a Board position as Treasurer (and Ana Peric’s appointment to that position);
  2. Board’s determined steps and roadmap towards achieving Society’s oversight over the ISOCARP Institute as a separate legal entity;
  3. Board’s response to the ‘ad hoc working group on strategy’ by establishing its first Strategic Plan since 2017, open for incremental improvement and implementation suggestions, as well by restoring the member area on our new website.

Board’s motion “To allow the Board to co-opt the first runner up of the 2020 Election to fill the current Board vacancy until next Election in 2022, anticipating a Constitutional reform to regulate by elections” was formally approved after a lively discussion on striking a balance between a conservative and progressive approach towards our constitutional rules on elections.

The AGM also formally approved both the annual accounts 2020-2021 and the proposed budget 2021-2022, while acknowledging the financial information provided on the ISOCARP Institute.

This was followed by a handing over ceremony from the outgoing to the incoming President, Dr. Pietro Elisei, presenting his inauguration speech. Prior to the AGM, outgoing President Martin Dubbeling presented the traditional ‘State of the Profession’ as his farewell speech.

Taking over the chair of the AGM, President Pietro Elisei, moderated a final open discussion with the members, including a series of motions that will be included in the draft minutes. Due to a combination of a challenging hybrid format, a full agenda and the constraint in time, online members experienced problems to follow and properly contribute to the AGM – points for future improvement.