CSBE/ SCGAB ANNUAL REPORT, 2015

President, Grant Clark

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, Board of Trustees

I attended the meeting of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) in St. Joseph, MI, 17th April 2015. The meeting was chaired by current President Terry Howell. The ASABE staff and council members were extremely gracious and welcoming. As part of the agenda I delivered a short report on the state of our own society. I would like to reemphasize to the CSBE Council and membership the value of our society’s association with ASABE. This amicable relationship is of mutual benefit and we should take care to nurture and strengthen it. Representation at the BoT meetings is a clear signal to ASABE of our commitment to this association between our organizations.

ASABE membership is stable and the society is in a favorable financial situation. There is a substantial restricted reserve fund that currently provides resources to invest in strategic initiatives of value to the general membership. CSBE council or members can put forward such proposals.

The ASABE Council approved the release of a white paper on Global Partnerships for Global Solutions. This paper describes how the ASABE aspires to “be among the global leaders that provide engineering and technological solutions toward creating a sustainable world with abundant food, water, and energy, and a healthy environment.” CSBE Past President Bernardo Predicala is part of the Global Engagement Task Force that authored this paper. This paper will also be a useful marketing tool for CSBE and associated institutions in Canada (e.g. university departments).

Incoming President Mary Leigh Wolfe is leading a review of the ASABE strategic plan, including the establishment of priorities for the next few years. The Board has invested a fair amount of time during recent meetings to establish and refine these priorities. The CSBE should consider how we as a sister society can complement and strengthen the ASABE’s strategic vision to our mutual benefit.

There is ongoing investment in visibility, accessibility and marketing of the ASABE, including redesign of the website’s content to be more useful, user friendly, and to better incorporate current media (videos, etc.). It was suggested that there be a line item in the ASABE annual operating budget to cover I.T. expenses, including software and website upgrades, as these are necessary ongoing costs. CSBE already has a small line item covering this kind of expenditure, but we might consider increasing it, given the importance of the online aspect of the society.

ASABE is very active in the development of standards, including collaboration with the Canadian tandards Association on farm machinery standards. As discussed in the past, it would be good for CSBE to identify members who are involved in standards development and support and recognize the activity of our own membership.

A recommendation was made to the ASABE Publications Council to reconsider an open access model for the management and financing of ASABE journals. I mentioned that this would be in alignment with many public funding agencies, such as the Canadian Tri-Council funding agencies (NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR).

Engineering Institute of Canada

I attended the meeting of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) at the Omni Hotel in Montreal, QC, 24th May, 2015, prior to the opening of the fourth Climate Change Technology Conference (CCTC) at that venue. The meeting was chaired by President Om Malik. The EIC is an excellent forum for the CSBE

to engage with and promote the interests of the broader engineering profession in Canada and I recommend our continued and active involvement with this organization.

Governor General David Johnston was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the EIC at a small reception at Rideau Hall on May 12th. His Excellency is the 11th Governor General to be so named, although the last one was John Buchan, the Lord Tweedsmuir, in 1936.

Twenty-one people received the honor of Fellow of the EIC at the Awards Banquet at the CCTC 2015. No CSBE members were nominated for this honor. We should make an effort to nominate our deserving members for this honor.

The current Executive Director, John Plant, is to be replaced by Guy Gosselin beginning July 1st, 2015. This change follows an extensive search process and was approved by the board. John Plant will act as interim Treasurer until a permanent replacement can be found for that position.

The member societies were reminded of the service provided by EIC in endorsing and accrediting the process by which the societies offer Continuing Education Units (CEU) through their course and workshops. This service is becoming increasingly popular as engineering associations implement formal requirements for continuing education of their members. CSBE can take advantage of this service.

Mark Rosen has asked to be relieved as Chair of the History Committee. The council agreed that the mandate of the committee is valuable and should be supported. They are soliciting names for people who have the time, interest, and expertise to continue this effort. Several people involved in the recent formulation of the CSBE historical overview might consider becoming involved in this way. Contact me or John Plant about this.

Traffic through the EIC engineeringcareers.ca site, hosted by Workopolis, has leveled off. CSBE gets a return on revenue from this service proportional to our membership. The decision was made to discontinue the contract with Diane Champagne to promote this service and the LinkedIn presence of the EIC.

Branislav Djokic again solicited the member societies for increased involvement in the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE), an umbrella organization through which several prestigious national societies advocate for the importance of science and engineering issues to Parliament. PAGSE publishes a newsletter that will soon be renamed PAGSE Science and Engineering Pages (from PAGSE Science Pages), runs a breakfast informational seminar series for Members of Parliament called “Bacon and Eggheads”, and generates reports and letters to Parliament on important science- and engineering-related issues. PAGSE hires graduate student interns to help research and write content for the newsletter and reports. They also solicit suggestions of topics and speakers for the seminar series. CSBE can contribute especially to the latter effort and by referring students as interns. We can also ask for PAGSE’s help to make government aware of issues that are important to our profession. EIC would like to have a member on the PAGSE committee. CSBE members can make their interest known through me or directly to President Malik.

The CCTC, hosted by the EIC, is underway as I write this report. The Honorable David Heurtel, Quebec Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and the Fight against Climate Change, addressed the opening plenary on May 25th. Attendance is down compared to the third CCTC in 2013 and, financially, the meeting is expected only to break even. The question was raised as to whether the topic of the conference is still of general interest to the engineering community or if is now too mainstream to generate much attendance at a specialized meeting like this one.

There is the possibility that the EIC will raise membership dues, which have been static since 1990. This was not decided at the meeting.

I will participate in an ad hoc committee to reexamine the strategic plan for the EIC and to develop an action plan.

The committee will be chaired by Richard Bennett.

Marketing Brochures

I am working with Helen Cohen-Rimmer (HCR Photo) to incorporate the Council’s suggestion and finalize the brochures for the CSBE. I will present the proposed brochures at the next council meeting for additional suggestions or approval.

Vice-President (Technical) 2014-2015 Suresh Neethirajan

The past 2014 to 2015 year has been very busy for CSBE due to several challenges. Significant amount of time was spent in attending meetings and overseeing and helping to co-ordinate the local arrangements committee for the CSBE Annual Meeting to be held at Edmonton - July 5 to 8, 2015.

Early in 2014, I chaired the CSBE Journal Steering Committee. We met several times through conference calls. The last meeting was held on December 16, 2014. The committee composition is made of Sri Ranjan, Mano Krishnapillai, Stefan Cenkowski, Grant Clark, and Qiang Zhang. We discussed the progress to be made on reviewing the journal paper submissions, and discussed ways to improve the timelines. The CSBE journal does make a unique Canadian contribution to science and industry, but the viability and the value of the journal was analyzed. Resources required for efficient journal management and concerns regarding the availability of peer reviewer’s pool were points of discussion of this committee. It was recognized that the editor’s role is too large, being a taskmaster, a volunteer, and doing the editorial work. We also considered hiring a manager to ensure that the journal operates in a timely fashion. Performance indicators were set to demonstrate that the CSBE Journal is moving forward in a desirable direction. Because of implementation of some of the strategies discussed from this CSBE Journal Steering committee, the timelines in processing the journal papers have considerably improved. Serving as a VP (Technical) and also as an Associate Editor (Instrumentation) for the CSBE Journal, I was able to appreciate the challenges from both the journal operations side, and also from the executive member’s perspective in serving the needs of the members at large, i.e., authors and readers of the journal. The CSBE journal has started to achieve new rapid turnaround times in processing the papers recently.  

I have been working very closely with the local arrangements committee and the technical committee to develop the technical program for the annual conference. Thanks to Ike Edeogu, Murray Tenove, Rick Atkins and all the other members of the Alberta Local Arrangements Committee of CSBE 2015 Edmonton for all their hard work, dedication and sincere efforts. A total of 6 sponsorships has been received from a variety of organizations namely Lakeland college ($750), OPI Systems ($1000), City of Edmonton ($2000 cash and $500 inkind), Beaver Plastics (app $2000 cash) Alberta Beef Producers ($1000 cash) and Serecon ($750). Thanks to Jason Price of the Government of Alberta for leading on this sponsorship engagement. Few letters of invitation were also prepared and sent to some of the international delegates towards assisting their Canadian visa application processes.

Dr. Stan Blade, the Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences of the University of Alberta will serve as the plenary speaker during our conference. On Wednesday July 8th, 2015 a panel will be held on 'The Impact of Social License on Sustainable Food Production in Canada'. Sean Royer - Executive Director of ARD, Lynda Kuhn - Senior VP of Maple Leaf Foods, Representative from both Beef Producer of Alberta and Ducks Unlimited will serve as panelists. A total of 108 presentations including oral and posters has been received from our members to date to present during the upcoming annual meeting. Three technical tours (Vegreville, Camrose, and the city of Edmonton) have

been organized to showcase the wild rose country of Canada. Fundamentals of Environmental Law, Prospective People Skills, Bio-Energy Dialogue Workshop and Measuring Sustainability – The Canadian Field Print Calculator are the 4 workshops tentatively arranged for as of now to be held on July 5th and July 8th.

With this annual report, I am concluding optimistically that the upcoming year will be an uphill task for CSBE focusing on a period of performance, membership engagement, and rebuilding our capacity. We are committed to an unwavering focus on technical operational improvements to enhance the mandate of our CSBE society.

President-Elect 2014-2015 – Sylvio Tessier

The annual report for the president “in waiting”, aka President-Elect ought to have been a daunting task for all of my predecessors.  Actually, my review of past Perspectives seems to suggest that the task might be as recent at Ron Macdonald’s turn as President Elect.  Our by-laws dictate a number of tasks for the President Elect to fulfill, such as membership to the Nominating Committee and the Bylaws Committee, carry out a forward planning process, and reporting to Council for the Awards Committee.

So, this report will cover the forward planning task associated with the job.  Mainly through past experience in various government offices, and my time at Université Laval, time in agricultural equipment manufacturing industry, and some 10 years involvement in grants selection committees (Mechanical Engineering, Discovery Accelerator Supplement, etc…) serving the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, I came to appreciate the evolution breath of biosystems engineering.  The VP membership will assuredly report that our membership is stable, which is good news.  What is not so good is that while Biosystems Engineering/Bioresources Engineering/Génie Agro-alimentaire department are churning relatively large number of students, we fail in recruiting them into our Society.  This issue is not new; it has been contemplated by my predecessors for a long time.

Few of you recall that my original specialization plan was food engineering, and that my M.Sc. was squarely in that area.  How many practicing and recent graduates with food engineering interest do we cater to?  I know quite a number, but do we retain them all?  Do we “serve” them appropriately?  By looking at the Technical program for our AGM 2015, we could conclude: not bad…  Now, what do we do for our Environment stream graduates?  There again, I know a number, but do we cater to all of the Environment Engineering graduates?  And again, the technical program of AGM 2015 does cover that territory.  Last winter, I taught a class of 44 Biosystems Engineering students at University of Manitoba; about half of them had in mind Environment Engineering, the other half Biomedical Engineering:  I did try my best to tweak the course content to keep their interest, that is quite a department from the original Civil Engineering content in that class.  But I unfortunately cannot report that the Society will count 44 new members two years down the road on their account.  Recently, a couple students graduating from Biomedical Engineering made it into the Faculty Medicine, and study towards an up and coming new breed of physicians.  Not the beginning of a new trend: I reviewed a number of top notch Discovery grant applications for NSERC prepared by M.D. with an engineering degree as backbone to their practice.  Will they abandon their Engineering skills once MD’s?  But how can we offer them something more than a banquet to “chew” on?  That is the question. 

I used the word “cater” often enough to suggest that the Society is there for the members.  My forward planning will focus primarily on building on the work from Qiang, Grant and Bernardo, both in terms of Council membership, technical programs, and promotion of the profession with the engineers we collectively train and mentor, and the Societies that seem to attract them based on focus.  This effort will begin with a brainstorm session in parallel with the AGM 2015, and I am specifically inviting department

heads, undergraduate program chairs, and interested engineers practicing in Food, Biomedical, Environmental Engineering to come and share their interests, with the objective of making the Society a better care taker of their professional development and needs.

Past-President 2014-2015 –Bernardo Predicala

As the Society’s Past President, I was involved in a number of things, including serving as Chair of the By-Laws and Nominating Committees, as well as of the Advisory Council of Past Presidents. As such, I convened the Council of Past Presidents last 23 October 2014, which was attended by 5 Past-Presidents, the current President and President-Elect, and our Society Manager. We discussed critical items for the Society from the point of view of each participant, including those initiatives from past terms that may have been lost in transition but still have significant potential value to the Society. As Chair of the By-Laws Committee, I have been compiling throughout the year any needed amendments to the By-Laws that has come up, in particular those pertaining to eligibility to Member Emeritus status as well as those needed to be in compliance with new requirements of the Canada Corporations Act. These proposed By-Laws amendments will be put forward for approval by the general membership at the upcoming AGM. At the same time, I have compiled the changes needed for the Procedures & Operations Manual to keep it up-to-date, particularly those dealing with procedures related to Member Emeritus and the guidelines for Fellows nomination. As part of the tasks of the Nominating Committee, I have worked with the Council to identify positions with term ending this year, and to search for suitable nominees for the impending vacancies. The slate of candidates will be standing for elections which will be held in time for the AGM. Finally, as an ex-officio member of the Awards Committee, I have worked with the committee Chair in evaluating the nominees and selecting the awardees for the various Society Awards to be given out at the upcoming AGM.

Vice-President (Membership) 2014-2015 – Harry Huffman

This was an extremely busy year for me but I did manage to participate in most of the CSBE-SCGAB Council meetings via conference call as well as the ASABE Membership Development Committee meeting in December and the CSBE Membership Engagement Committee meeting in April (both also via telephone conference calls).

I have reviewed the Bylaws and Procedures Operational Manual regarding “member emeritus” and have recommended some additions to be considered at the annual meeting.

I prepared a welcome letter for new members who joined our organization in 2014 to accompany the Membership Certificate that was prepared by John Feddes and mailed to each new member.

This will be done again this summer for new members joining in 2015. Any others who would like a membership certificate can contact Society Manager, John Feddes or myself.

The term of initial membership for students was clarified as being between 5 and 16 months. A membership application made in September at the start of fall school term would run until December 31 of the following calendar year. Any application received between January and August in the current year would only be effective until December 31 of that same year.

I promoted membership in the CSBE-SCGAB at an engineering meeting hosted by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Affairs in October 2014 and again at a careers night held at the University of Guelph in January 2015.

I researched the possibility of adding a sub-category of International Member to recognize the reduced ability of potential members from low income countries to afford the standard international fee to join CSBE-SCGAB and ASABE. A reduced fee schedule, similar to that used by ASABE was approved by Council at our April 15th, 2015 meeting starting for 2016 fees.

Our big concern early this year was the large number of members who did not renew their membership for 2015. As of the end of February 2015, 158 members and 95 students had not renewed their membership. I requested that the Regional Directors try to make a personal contact with these potential members as I did with all of the unpaid international members to give them a gentle nudge to re-join the fold. At the April meeting of Council, I was given approval to send out a letter via email to all unpaid members asking for them to reconsider or failing that a reason for not renewing. I sent out 210 emails to unpaid members on May 1st, 2015 with 9 invalid emails being bounced back to me. Of the potential 201 recipients, I received 14 responses (7%) with 7 not interested in renewing for the following reasons; 4 – no longer relevant to my work, 1 – budget cut at company, 1 – unemployed for 3 years so cannot continue with cost, 1 – retired for 4 years & no longer interested. For the 7 positive replies; 3 – payment processing issues, 3 – just did   not get around to it yet, 1 – department no longer covering my membership so will now need to pay myself.

It would appear that the various personal contacts by Regional Directors and the Vice President (Membership) were effective, since the over-all 2015 membership numbers did rebound significantly and are now essentially the same as last year. Not sure why members do not renew in a more timely manner.  

Membership

Statistics

Date Number of Members

September 2013 660 paid including students

May 2014 570 paid including 125 students

May 2015 574 paid including 107 students

       

Ending on a bright note, we are welcoming 10 brand new members, 30 student members and 19 graduate student members for 2015.  

Journal Editor 2014-2015 Ramanathan Sri Ranjan

The University of Manitoba has been hosting the Open Journal System (OJS) free of charge since 2009 to help with the online review process.  Over the past six years, I have customized and updated most of the pages in the OJS system to help with the review process of papers submitted to our journal.   

        The entire collection of past journal papers are now available online and can be accessed here: http://www.csbe-scgab.ca/publications/cbe-journal/browse.   The scanned papers were Optical Character Recognition (OCR) processed to enable them to be searched using keywords.

        Section Editors have management level access to the Open Journal System (OJS).  When papers are submitted to the journal, the Section Editors assign it to three other persons on the Editorial Board to review the paper through the OJS online system.  Those assigned the paper can either review the paper themselves or get it reviewed via a personal email to one of their colleagues who are more likely to oblige to review in a timely manner.  Each person serving on the Editorial Board is expected to review about 6 to

8 papers in a year.  If you are interested in serving on the Editorial Board, please contact the Section Editors who are listed below:

1. Soil and Water Systems Engineering:  Dr. Mano Krishnapillai, Memorial University, NL2. Machinery Systems Engineering:  Dr. Hubert Landry, PAMI, SK3. Bioprocessing Systems Engineering:  Dr. Valerie Orsat, McGill4. Biological Systems Engineering:  Dr Stefan Cenkowski, UofMb5. Building Systems Engineering: Dr. Qiang Zhang, UofMb6. Waste Management Engineering: Dr. Grant Clark, McGill7. Information Systems Engineering: Dr. Suresh Neethirajan, Guelph8. Renewable Energy:  Dr. Amit Kumar, UofAlberta

        The Section Editors will also serve as the Technical Committee of our Society to help with the evaluation of the conference paper abstracts, formulate Technical Sessions, and solicit worthy papers for submission to the CBE journal.  Beginning in 2014, the processing time lines for the accepted papers have been published.  To further improve the timeliness of the publication of manuscripts the Council has unanimously voted to approve the following incentive policy:

(a)  Reward each reviewer with a credit of $50/manuscript towards page charges of their own manuscripts published in the CBEJ. A credit will be given for a review of acceptable quality and detail, as determined by the Section Editor, received within THREE weeks of assignment of the review. The total credits used by a reviewer towards publication of a single manuscript shall not exceed $100. The credit must be used within two years of being awarded. 

OR

(b)  Reward each reviewer with a credit of $50/manuscript towards registration in the CSBE-SCGAB Annual Conference. A credit will be given for a review of acceptable quality and detail, as determined by the Section Editor, received within THREE weeks of assignment of the review. The total credits used by a reviewer towards registration at a given conference shall not exceed $100. The credit must be used within two years of being awarded.

        In 2012, the Canadian Biosystems Engineering Journal was registered with CrossRef (www.crossref.org) as a member organization allowing the assigning of Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to a paper published in our journal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier). I have used the following system to identify our papers.  The http://dx.doi.org is the DOI resolving website. The number 10.7451 identifies our journal.  Following that, I have used CBE.year.volume.first_page_number as the format to identify each paper.  When you type this URL into a web browser, it will take you directly to the .pdf file of the paper.  Therefore, please publicize your papers by providing the DOI link of your paper instead of sending the .pdf file of your paper.  This will help properly register the access count with the DOI system.   By providing the DOI link you can help improve the impact factor of our journal.   

        I thank all the authors, reviewers, and the Section Editors for their support in making the publication of our journal possible.  We need your continued support in a timely manner to make our journal a successful vehicle for disseminating your research.  

Webmaster 2014-2015 René Morissette

Revamped Awards SectionThe Awards section (http://www.csbe-scgab.ca/csbe/awards) was redesigned to give more exposure to award recipients. On the main page, a general introduction is shown with a dynamic mosaic of the 2014

Award recipients. On the left, a first menu links visitors to each award description and form with full citations for recipients of this award. A second menu was also set to show award recipients by year. At this time, only 2014 and 2013 awards recipients were extracted from the booklet, previous years will come shortly.

CSBE LinkedIn group moves with EICFor the benefit of our members, the CSBE LinkedIn group will join the LinkedIn network of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC). A new sub-group has been established for this purpose within the EIC LinkedIn network. The current CSBE LinkedIn group has been closed on September 1st 2014. We invite all current CSBE LinkedIn members to join this new group.

Reorganization of the CSBE LinkedIn group in this way will give us access to a wider network of professionals, diversified employment offers and recent discussions in the field of engineering. The EIC Linked network has 570 members across Canada and includes LinkedIn sub-groups for the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering and Canadian Engineering Management. If you do not yet have a LinkedIn account, take advantage of this opportunity to create one.

Notice to current members of our LinkedIn group: your LinkedIn membership was not automatically transferred to the new group, which may explain you didn’t receive the discussions and comments posted there. You must join the group as a new member by following this link:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Canadian-Society-Bioengineering-8152433

Annual General Meeting 2015 in EdmontonI was involved in the meeting organization at different levels:

Installation and configuration of a paper submission system (OpenConf). Configuration and maintenance of an event section on our website

(http://www.csbe-scgab.ca/edmonton2015). Configuration of the registration system with online payment. Creation and configuration of a Paypal account to accept online and onsite payment. Sending of several (7) emails to current and past members (list of about 1000 emails) through our

newsletter platform. Training of members of the committee for the use of the paper submission system and registration

management (database, reports, Paypal). Participation in committee’s meetings. French translation of the Award citations.

Newsletters and Notices to membersA total of 9 newsletters and notices were sent between July 2014 and June 2015 to a list of 665 members. The opening rate is about 30 %.

1. Invitation to submit your paper to CBE Journal (August 2014, AGM 2014 Canadian authors only (255))

2. AGM 2014 special issue (August 2014)3. Summer Perspectives Newsletter (September 2014)4. ASABE 1st Climate Change Symposium: Extended Deadline (October 2015)5. Call for Nomination - CSBE Awards 2015 (November 2014)6. Fall Perspectives Newsletter (December 2014)7. Happy holidays from CSBE/SCGAB (December 2014)

8. Winter Perspectives Newsletter (March 2015)9. Spring Perspectives Newsletter (June 2015)

Job postingCareers section on our website was more active this year with 8 jobs posting compared to 4 in 2012-2013 and only 3 in 2013-2014. This mean our website (and Society) is a valuable place to announce opened positions and it is growing recognition of recruitment agencies.

Website statistics reportBetween July 2014 and June 2015, CSBE website was visited 14578 times (1215 monthly average) with 39290 pages viewed. An average of 2.70 pages per visit with duration of about 2:29 minutes was met, which is 5% more than the previous year (about 13858 visits).

The audience was mainly English (74 %) and French (8 %) and came from Canada (53 %), USA (12 %), India (3 %) and many other countries (Brazil, China, Germany, Philippines…). 

Main traffic came from organic search (56 %), followed by direct access (24 %), site referral (18 %) and social media (1.7%).

Main pages/sections viewed were the home page, Edmonton 2015 portal, Publications, ASABE/CSBE joint meeting news, CBE Journal information page, Join CSBE, and Careers page.

Visitor browser preferences were Chrome (48 %), Internet Explorer (21 %), Firefox (18 %), and Safari (9 %). 89 % of visits were from a desktop/laptop station while 11 % were on mobile (phone and tablet). Last year, 8 % were on mobile devices.

Social media. About 242 visits were referred from social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Research Gate…)

Annual Report from Treasurer (2014 Fiscal Year End) John Morgan

2015 Treasurers report for the fiscal year ended December 31 2014 and 2015 budget with 2016 projections

Financially CSBE has sufficient cash inflow and savings to carry on for the foreseeable future.

The 2015 audit shows that the year ended with an excess of revenue over expenditure of $29,631. This means that a number of areas were managed extremely well: The journal, web site, office and savings investment. There is also an element of luck - the currency conversion of our dues from ASABE is not managed brilliantly yielding some unexpected yields on US$ to CAD$ conversions as they fixed the rate above market in a falling conversion rate environment – this often works against us when the CAD $ is rising.

Also several programs for students were significantly underspent- regional directors need to get moving there is some reasonable money available for student events.

Notable areas of increased funding for 2015 are: Webpage software licensing renewal – a 3 year cycle, and a projected web page rebuild for 2016. And new for this year is a journal reviewers incentive to encourage timely reviews of journal articles with the goal of making the CSBE Journal a more attractive site to publish research papers. The CSBE foundation has implemented a program to fund student awards winners to travel to the AGM.

CIGR and AIC fees are being paid the auditor however has recorded them under a different heading.Council is reviewing the AIC membership and fees.

Proposed 2015 Budget and Statement of Revenues, Expenditures and Holdings

Operating REVENUE

Actuals 2013Thornton and Company

2014 Budget Actuals 2014Thornton and Company

2015 Budget 2016Projected Budget

Member ship fees $23,365 $23,000 $33,985 $28,000 $28,000AGM revenues $40,128 $10,000 $16,000 $49,000 $49,000Canadian Bio Systems Journal $12,883 $5,000 $12,500 $8,000 $8,000Advertising -Operating REVENUE $76,376 $38,000 $62488 $85,000 $85,000

EXPENDITURESASABE charges $2,391 $2,400 $531 $2,400 $2,400Annual General Meeting $29,442 0 $3746 $39,000 $39,000ASABE board president's discretion $1,205 $2,000 3380 $3,500 $3,500Business taxes licences and memberships

-- $100 $100 0

CDN Bio systems Journal $2,080 $1,200 $2,592 $2,600 $2,600 Journal reviewer’s incentives $3000 $3000CDN Bio systems Journal Translation and post

$1,295 $1,300 $526 $900 $600

CIGR Dues -- $900 $1,000 $1000AIC dues $1,000 $? 0CSBE council Teleconference $1000 $1,050 $915 $1,050 $1000Consulting fees --- 0 0 0EIC Affiliation dues and directors Insurance

$2,102 $2,102 $2257 $2,102 $2500

General and student awards $2,250 $2,250 $1700 $2500 $2500Interest and bank charges (credit card handling)

$2,676 $500 $37 $200 $200

Society Manager honorarium $16,683 $12,000 $13,000 $12,000 $12,000Office CSBE manager $1,567 $3,000 $4,103 $4,100 $4,200Professional audit fee $777 $1,400 $1,104 $1,200 $1,200Under grad student dues $1,20 0 0 0 0Under graduate recruitment - $6,000 $3,380 $6,000 $6000Travel -CSBE manager's $2,472 $3,000 $2104 $1,000 $3500Web site $2,893 $300 $248 $310 3000 Misc. Other $2,538 $500 $500 $500TOTAL EXPENDITURE $72,491 $41,002 $39,465 $83,462 $88,700

OTHER INCOMEExpense recoveries (rebates) $1,492 $600 $3,838 $600 $600Interest income $963 $1,000 $2,770 $3,000 $3500Donations --Total Other $2,455 $1,600 $6,608 $3,600 $4,100

EXCESS (DEFICIENCY) OF REVENUE OVER EXPENDITURE $6,340 ($1,402) $29,631 $5,138 $400

Net assets at the end of 2014 were $175,825 an increase year over year of $29,631 up from a low of $139,885 in 2013

End of year combined cash was $51.819 with an additional $102.536 in a long term securities portfolio at BMO Nesbitt Burns. The current portfolio value $105,470, pointing to a hoped for 7% per annum yield.

The audit results and the 2015 budget with the 2016 projections are in the above table

Alberta Regional Director 2014-2015 – Ike Edeogu

Another year has gone by, and it seems to have all happened in a blur. Wow, what a year it’s been! Not to mention, yours truly and his gang of cohorts continue to plug away towards what we hope will be a sweet ending to the year. Yes, Alberta (Edmonton) is proud to be hosting the 2015 CSBE/SCGAB ANNUAL CONFERENCE in July, along with its AGM and Awards Ceremonies!

2015 CSBE/SCGAB Conference - Local Arrangements Committee (LAC)A rallying call for volunteers to help plan and host the 2015 conference went out to provincial members of CSBE/SCGAB and non-members in September last year. The LAC boasted a total of 20 participants including, LAC Chair and CSBE/SCGAB member - Rick Atkins, CSBE/SCGAB Society Manager - John Feddes, VP Technical - Suresh Neethirajan and CSBE/SCGAB Webmaster - René Morissette. The LAC has held 10 planning sessions between late September 2014 and early June 2015.

The LAC decided on the theme, “Innovation in Water, Energy and Biosystems (iWEB) -Positioning the Globe for 2050” for the 2015 conference. It was chosen as the theme in order to reflect the diverse nature and expertise of the CSBE/SCGAB membership, as well as to solicit the participation and collaboration of professional non-members of related interest, as we collectively journey ahead into the future.

2015 CSBE/SCGAB Conference - Professional Development WorkshopsAs part of the conference program, the LAC approached two non-technical and two technical speakers to host workshops on Sunday and Wednesday, respectively. Unfortunately due to low enrolment, three of the four workshops were cancelled and the LAC opted for only one technical workshop on Wednesday.

2015 CSBE/SCGAB Conference - Technical Session Oral and Poster PresentationsAbout 110 presenters from across Canada, the U.S.A. and abroad responded to the “Call for Papers” first issued in December 2014. Of these, the highest numbers of responses were broadly related to topics on biosystem management, bioprocessing, water management and energy.

2015 CSBE/SCGAB Conference - Technical ToursThree technical tours are being organized as part of the conference program. Two of the tours are scheduled to take delegates to sites located outside Edmonton, while the third tour is targeted at sites within the city. The tour sites span a range of bioengineering interests and innovation within Alberta in the fields of bioprocessing, food processing, energy, water management, biosytem management, and information and electrical technology, as we strive to diversify our provincial economy.

2015 CSBE/SCGAB Conference - Panel DiscussionA panel of representatives from government, the primary production industry, the value-added, food processing industry, and a non-government organization, will discuss “The Impact of Social License on Sustainable Food Production in Canada”. The discussion is anticipated to highlight the influential role consumers’ play today in determining the future of the food industry in Canada. Interestingly, the influential effects of the food industry’s “social license to operate” is being experienced at every level along the food supply chain, and is most certainly another level of detail bioengineers must factor in when designing and supporting sustainable food production systems in Canada,  towards 2050 and beyond. 

Saskatchewan Regional Director 2014-2015 – Joy Agnew

This will be my last annual report as SK Regional Director. After four fun and interesting years on Council, I am stepping down but will continue to be actively involved in the CSBE.

The last four years has seen a major transition at the University of Saskatchewan; the department of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering was merged with the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. While some view this merge as a loss for the CSBE/SCGAB, the society now has access to students in more disciplines as Chemical, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering have absorbed the courses and streams previously offered by Ag/Bio Engineering. Many of the fourth year design and graduate student projects in these disciplines have an agricultural or bioengineering aspect, so these students and faculty would certainly benefit from a membership with the CSBE/SCGAB.

The agricultural engineering industry in Saskatchewan is stronger than ever with several large equipment manufacturers calling Saskatchewan home and smaller manufacturers receiving support from programs such as NRC’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP). The CSBE/SCGAB offers significant benefits to industrial members, as evidenced by the successful industry-academia collaborations showcased at the CSBE/SCGAB conference in Saskatoon in 2013.

In 2015, the final group of graduates to receive a B.Sc. in Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering convocated from the University of Saskatchewan. Congratulations to Joshua Coté, Jason Cousins, Brennan Crooymans, Joël Denis, Dustin Eichhorn, David Epp, Ryan Green, Alanna Howell, Luke Lowenberger, Jonathan Schuba and Charley Sprenger. Congratulations also to the students who were selected to receive CSBE/SCGAB design project awards:

CSBE/SCGAB Undergraduate Design Project Award:

Design of a cherry pitter for small intermediate cherry producersJason Cousins, Ryan Green, Luke Lowenberger, Supervisor: Lope Tabil

CSBE/SCGAB Undergraduate Thesis Award:

Point row control for air seedersBrennan Crooymans, Joël Denis, Jonathan Schuba, Joshua Coté, Supervisors: Joel Gervais and Ross Welford

CSBE/SCGAB Graduate Thesis Award:

Effect of Pretreatment on the Breakdown of Lignocellulosic Matrix in Biomass Feedstock (Ph.D.)Kingsley Iroba, Supervisor: Lope Tabil

I hope to catch up with some fellow Saskatchewan members at the CSBE/SCGAB conference in Edmonton in July! Best of luck to the incoming SK Regional Director, Dr. Venkatesh Meda! 

Manitoba Regional Director 2014-2015 - Chelladurai V

It was a fun and challenging year as Manitoba Regional Director. I have participated in all of the Council and membership engagement committee meetings. The major success of our Manitoba region is the creation of a very vibrant CSBE student chapter at university of Manitoba. The student chapter helped me a lot in organizing regional activities. Manitoba section of CSBE organized a networking BBQ at

University of Manitoba on September 9, 2014 along with CSBE Undergraduate Student Chapter and Biosystems Engineering Graduate Students’ Association (BEGSA). I have also invited executive members of CIFST (Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology) and 6 executives from CIFST participated in this networking event. The total attendance for this event was 98, which include graduate and under graduate students, academic members of department of Biosystems engineering and industry members. I also participated in Manitoba School Science Symposium (MSSS), the showcase event for school students to display their scientific knowledge. To create awareness about our Biosystems engineering to school students, CSBE awards have been given to the projects related to bioengineering field.  Four CSBE members (Tasneem Vahora, Annette Kroeker, Senthilkumar Thiruppathi and Aadesh Rahkra) helped me to choose 2 projects CSBE awards (one each from junior and senior category) out of 358 projects displayed in MSSS.

This is my final report as Manitoba regional director, and I sincerely thank all the volunteers helped me to organize regional activities in last 5 years. I am looking forward to work with our incoming Manitoba Regional Director.

Ontario Regional Director 2014-2015 – Hugh Fraser

I became Ontario Regional Director fall 2014 and it has been challenging, fun and interesting. I have participated in most Council and Membership conference calls when able. In my opinion, our relatively small technical organization, with such a diverse and changing membership, two languages, spread over such a huge country, with membership that cannot attend all technical meetings because of distance, cost or time, it is important to find ways to connect with grassroots members. For this reason, for the on-line newsletters of December 2014, March 2015 and June 2015, I randomly called (yes, using that thing called a telephone that seems to be so seldom used anymore) about five Ontario members per newsletter to solicit a little information (about 100 words) about what they were doing, how long they had been a member, and what advice they had for younger members. It was easy and painless, using a short template I sent to them. This has been both interesting for me and also for those I call because I find members are genuinely pleased, but surprised to hear from someone on Council. I plan to continue doing this in the coming year. Check out what members have told us at http://csbe-scgab.ca/

I also participated in a Jobs Fair at the University of Guelph in January 2015. Along with Vice-President Membership, Harry Huffman, we spoke to undergrads about jobs in Agricultural Engineering and opportunities joining CSBE. It was fun event and students were very interested in learning from a couple of grizzled veterans. There were perhaps 30 companies involved and perhaps 100 students attending.

I look forward to the coming year.

Society Manager – John Feddes

The duties of the Society Manager include the following:

Record the minutes of Council meetings and the annual business meeting and distribute the minutes to Council members within one month of the meeting.

Carry on correspondence for the Society. Serve as the office liaison with ASABE office. Assist in preparing CSBE awards, commendations and student awards for the Annual meeting Pay Society expenses. Arrange for preparation of auditors report for AGM. Serve as the office liaison with affiliate societies.

Report election results to Council and the annual business meeting. File an annual summary with the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs Canada. Preserve all documents of the Society except those assigned to other officers or committees. Carry out general secretarial duties including keeping of committee lists, bringing appropriate

documents to meetings and correspondence. Receive all By-law changes but not responsible for making the changes. Publish and supply in quantity the Awards Booklet to the AGM. Invoice the authors for page charges Print and mail the CBEJ Serve as Secretary-Treasurer for the CSBE/SCGAB Foundation Send out Foundation donation tax receipts

As you are aware, CSBE-SCGAB Society and CSBE-SCGAB Foundation offer several awards every year. Please email me for information. Applicants must be a student member of the Society.  The Foundation will pay the membership dues for first-time-ever Graduate Students. Email me for information.

The minutes of the 2014 AGM at the Montreal CSBE/SCGAB ASABE conference are posted on our web sitehttp://www.csbe-scgab.ca/csbe/documentation/public/6487-agm-minutes-and-audit-reports

In 2012, the Foundation established a new program. To help our students with their travel to our CSBE-SCGAB Technical Conference and AGM, the CSBE-SCGAB Foundation will pay the fees for base conference registration for the winner(s) of student awards. In addition, the Foundation will provide $100 per student to a maximum of $400 per academic unit (biological/bioresource, biosystems,... eng. programs), to be used to defray the costs of travel and accommodation for attending the conference. The students must be members in good standing of the CSBE-SCGAB in order to be eligible for the awards, fee waivers, and travel support. Eligible academic units (biological/bioresource, biosystems,... eng. programs) are asked to contact the CSBE-SCGAB Foundation (John Feddes) by June 1st of each year, and provide the name, CSBE-SCGAB membership number, and project or thesis title of each winning student who are planning to travel to the conference site. I need a copy of base conference registration receipt for each student who is requesting support. I will issue a cheque to each student at the Edmonton Annual meeting.