Minutes of the 5th Annual General Body Meeting

9th October 2010 at 10:30 p.m.,
A.M.A. Complex, Ahmedabad.

Following members of the EC were present:

1. Mrs. Savita Punde, Honorary President
2. Mr. Rohit Marol, Honorary Vice- President/ Secretary
3. Mr. Jayant Dharap, Honorary Treasurer
4. Mrs. Bhakti Karkhanis Thakoor
5. Mr. Anuj Malhotra
6. Mr. Atul Katariya
7. Mr. T.M. Chengappa, Rep. of the Bangalore Chapter President

Mrs. Savita Punde chaired the meeting

1. The Hon. Secretary briefed all members with an update of all activities taken up since the new Executive Council took office.

The salient points were:

1. The formation of local chapter at Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, with chapter representatives joining the EC.
2. The setting up of the new ISOLA website- www.isola.org.in
3. The institution of ISOLA Honors and Awards
4. The revival of the ISOLA newsletter.
5. The recognition of BNCA by the education board.
6. Copy of the Audited accounts was presented for all members to study. It was accepted by all members.
7. It was decided to continue with the same Charted Accountant M/s. Shah & Dalal for ISOLA Central Accounts for the coming year. It was also agreed to continue the services of Mr. Rajanikanth of M/s. Vibhakar and Trivedi as an independent consultant for the year.
8. Copies of the new Bye-laws was made available to members, which was also circulated to all by mail. Certain points were raised by Prof. Bhagwat, some of which the EC felt can be incorporated. It was decided that after incorporating the revisions , the Byelaws will be sent to our chartered accountants and to our Lawyer for final check, before uploading it on our website and filing it with the charity commissioner.
9. The counting of ballots took place at this venue with Ms. Savita Punde supervising it. She then announced the results and the list of elected members is as follows :

For Fellows…

1. Ms. Varsha Gavandi
2. Mr. Rohit Marol
3. Mr. Sachin Jain
4. Mr. Manguesh Prabhugaonkar
5. Mr. Ashish Patankar
6. Mr. Abhijit Natu
7. Mr. Yogesh Kapoor

Associates who stand elected unopposed :

1. Mr. Anuj Malhotra
2. Mr. Shivram Somasundaram
3. Mr. Kishore Chundru

The meeting was adjourned with the President thanking the members for taking the time and effort to attend the AGM.

Rohit Marol
Honorary Secretary – ISOLA

Encl. 1. Secretary’s Report

ISOLA Secretary’s Report 2010

It has been a little more than two years since the current EC took charge and today at the 4th AGM it is time to look back and assess our achievements, failures and in progress works.

One of our first targets was to bring in transparency in the functioning of the EC. This has to a large extent been achieved through circulation of the MOM of EC meetings to the general membership and later from the 18th EC onwards by audio recording the meetings.

Some of the programmes under taken by the current EC and their status is as follows:

Local Chapters

The decision that formation of local chapters was desirable and would help strengthen ISOLA (as against the previous EC’s decision to discourage local chapters) was taken at the very first EC meeting. As it was necessary to lay down the ground rules for both formation of the chapters as well for running them, a Local Chapter Guidelines Committee was instituted at the 2nd EC meeting with member Avadhoot Kumthekar as the co-ordinator, Atul Kataria and Rohit Marol as members. Their efforts resulted in the local chapter guidelines which were duly passed in the 15th EC meeting and is now incorporated in The Society’s Byelaws.

This year Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai have formed local chapters. Delhi and Bangalore have already started operations with their representatives joining the EC, with Mumbai likely to join in soon.

ISOLA Website

The ISOLA Website Committee to revamp the Society’s website was formed at the 2nd EC meeting with Mr. Bobby Sujan as co-ordinator. After Mr. Sujan withdrew from the EC, it was taken over by member Mr.Sriganesh and Ms.Bhakti Karkhanis who formulated the initial concepts. Due to their preoccupation with the preparations for the Mumbai conference, it was finally concluded by Mr. Adit Pal, Ms. Geeta Dua & Mr. Rohit Marol, with inputs from EC members. The website is already up and running. Please do check out our website www.isola.org.in

ISOLA Awards

One of the current EC’s stated goals was to recognize and encourage talent at both the professional and student level. Towards this end it was decided to institute The ISOLA Honors and Awards and a committee to oversee the same was set up with Ms. Savita Punde as coordinator and Ms. Sujata Kohli and Ms. Geeta Dua as members. The very first ISOLA Honors & Awards were given at the 2010 Goa Conference. It has been decided to put together a document that would set forth guidelines for future Awards and incorporate learning from previous functions.

ISOLA Newsletter

At the 16th EC meeting it was decided to restart the ISOLA Newsletter, with Mr. Shrikant Bhale as coordinator. Due to complete inaction by this committee (despite several reminders) the Newsletter failed to take off and a new committee had to be appointed under Mr. Anuj Malhotra’s coordination. This year we have managed to bring out two Newsletters till date. We hope the next EC can take it forward.

ISOLA Education Board

It was resolved to form the ISOLA Education Board at the 17th EC meeting held on April 11th 2009, with Prof. Shaheer as co-ordinator and Prof. Shishir Rawal, Prof. Deepa Maheshwari, Dr. Surinder Suneja, Mr. Abhijit Natu, Prof. Haroon Salim, Prof. Rukkumany, Mr.Nikhil Dhar, Ms.Nina Chandavarkar and Ms.Nupur Prothi as members. As BNCA Pune had applied for ISOLA recognition of their landscape course, the ISOLA Education Board was requested to look into the matter. After several deliberations & a lively debate on the same, an overwhelming majority of the board opined in favour of recognition of the course. A resolution to recognize the course based on the recommendation of the education board was passed at the EC’s 22nd meeting held on 22nd May.

The board was also asked to look into the following issues

a. Formulating minimum standards/ criteria to ensure professional standards for ISOLA in order to assess course eligibility.
b. Formulate a system to assess ISOLA recognized programs every few years.
c. Whether ISOLA should hold eligibility exams to admit those members who are from nonrecognized colleges.

The education board actively participated in the workshop on landscape education held by the School of Planning & Architecture in New Delhi.

Resource Centre And Professional Standing Committee

The resource centre was formulated at the 17th EC meeting with the member Prof.Deepa Maheshwari as the co-ordinator. It is hoped that with the formation of the local chapters, the Resource Centre will gather momentum.

The Professional Standing Committee was formed with Ms.Shweta Agarwal as the co-ordinator. She has given a brief note on how the committee can move forward. The case of the Rajkot Advertisement for short listing of landscape architects with EMD was a case which was taken up by the committee. However despite several phone calls and letters from the president, the EMD clause could not be revoked. It is hoped that the Professional Standing Committee would play a strong role in the future.

ISOLA Code Of Conduct

At the 17th EC meeting a committee to formulate the ISOLA Code Of Conduct was formed with Mr. Jayant Dharap as the co-ordinator. A well compiled initial document has been done. It is hoped that the next EC will take it forward.

ISOLA Bye Laws

In the 18th EC meeting it was resolved to declare the existing byelaws void ab initio as they had not been registered and duly passed as per the provision of the memorandum and rules & regulations. A committee with the president, Mrs. Savita Punde as coordinator and Ms. Sujata Kohli and Mr.Avadhoot Kumthekar as members was constituted to formulate the society’s byelaws. The committee with excellent inputs from members, our Chartered Accountants Mr. Bharat Shah and Mr. Rajnikant Trivedi as well as our legal advisor Ms. Vibha Datta has put together the draft copy of byelaws, which was posted to you and needs to be passed at this AGM.

Manual Of Procedures

At the 19th EC meeting held on 30th Sept 2009 members decided to make a committee to formulate Manual of procedures for running ISOLA. Members keenly felt a need for this document as it would clearly set out how the society functioned, especially in the case of formalities to be followed by incoming EC members. Mr. Rohit Marol as the co-ordinator of this committee along with member Mr.Avadhoot Kumthekar have put together a document. It is to be hoped that future ECs would continually add to the same.

Mentoring Programme

The President introduced The Mentoring programme in October 2009. Some initial work on the same has been done by member Mr.Prashant Bhat. This however needs to be taken further by the incoming EC.

Another landmark was the shifting of ISOLA offices to its own rented premises. ISOLA also supported, besides the workshop on education, the Garden Expo-2009, thus reaching out to the landscape industry. We also sponsored the NASA ISOLA Landscape Trophy, thus encouraging interest in Landscape architecture at the undergraduate level.

One of the sterling achievements that this EC can be proud of is the restoration of constitutionally correct running of the Society. The earlier unconstitutional practices such as student voting, concentration of power within the Governing Body, the marginal peripheral role of the EC was corrected by the declaration of the then in force bylaws as void ab initio. I am proud to say that every member of this EC was unanimous in taking this momentous decision.

It was also decided that the ISOLA registration certificate needs to be redesigned as there were many errors in the old one. Ms. Savita Punde with Ms. Geeta Dua have brought out a draft final design which is going in for final approval. With this we should be able to issue new certificates within the next 6 weeks.

Looking back at the performance of the EC, by and large there has been above 70% attendance from all except Mr. Shrikant Bhale who attended less than 30% of the meetings. This situation only ends up adding additional load on the performing members, especially when some members have resigned. Atul Katariya, who had around 50% attendance I must say was actively involved through mail whenever needed. We do hope that the next EC will take note and have all performing members.

I would like to thank every EC member both past and current who have each contributed to the achievements of this ECs term.

In addition, I would like to especially thank all ISOLA members for supporting and helping to achieve our stated goals.

Rohit Marol
Hon. Secretary – ISOLA
9 th October 2010