Minutes of the International Emergency Team UK (IETUK) Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Trustees and Members on 20[th] March 2022, held at East Restaurant, Pudsey, Leeds, UK
Attendees:
Mehrban Sadiq Newcastle upon Tyne Richard Kotter // Shahid Rasul // Dr Iqbal Syed // Nasir Jamil // Mohsin Hussain // Muhammad Ali Bradford Cllr Almas Gohar Leeds
Apologies received from:
Daryal Oprey
Professor Terrence Fernando
Diane Lewis
Matters arising from the previous meeting (AGM June 2019) - No outstanding issues.
After brief introduction from the participants, Mr Sadiq emphasised on the need to kick start in earnest the (physical) work of the Charity again after a relative (and mostly digital) lull of almost two years because of Covid 19 lock down / restrictions imposed by the UK government.
It was informed by the Mr Sadiq that Professor Terrence Fernando, Diane Lewis and Steven Garcia had stepped down as Trustees because of personal reasons. Mr Sadiq told the meeting that, currently, there were ten Trustees on the Board which needed to bring down in order to streamline the working of the Charity.
Cllr Almas Gohar was re-instated as Patron-in-Chief of the Charity.
Mehrban Sadiq was re-elected as Chair of the Trustees, followed by Richard Kotter (a Senior Lecturer in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development at Northumbria University), Muhammad Ali, Daryl Oprey. Dr Shahid Rasul, a Senior Lecturer from Northumbria University with a background in engineering & project management, was freshly elected as a new Trustee to handle media and accounts. Mr Mohsin will work along with him.
Dr Naveed Anwaar, also a Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University with a background in ICT and programming, was appointed to the IETUK Management Committee to oversee the IETUK website re-design & updates.
The total number of Trustees would be five for the year 2022, subject to any increase or decrease if, deemed necessary, in future.
Richard Kotter would act as Secretary of the Charity.
Cllr Gohar advised the participants to remain focus on couple of projects before venturing on lofty projects, firstly, addressing on capacity building. The charity had already started developing further a WhatsApp Group, the IETUK website, an online charity bank account and linked facilities to now claim (from the UK government) Gift Aid for donations received for its work.
250 Aquabox Filter boxes (£250.00 per box), given to IETUK by the Aquabox charity in Wirksworth (https://www.aquabox.org/), will be shipped by the Kasguma Health and Welfare Trust charity to Azad and Jummu (AJK) Kashmir and the KPK province of Pakistan in the next few weeks, with half of the consignment going to the Punjab Emergency Services (Rescue 1122) with oversight from their Emergency Services Academy in Lahore (Director-General and also Head of the Safety Wing there).
The Kasguma Health and Welfare Trust had also agreed to ship firefighting equipment for AJK, KPK and the Punjab Emergency Services in Pakistan, which was donated to IETUK by different UK Fire and Rescue Services, in the very near future [currently in their warehouses in Oldham]. The remainder of the firefighting equipment donated by different UK Fire and Rescue Services to IETUK will be send to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and India in different arrangements to be agreed with community leaders in Newcastle upon Tyne.
It was also agreed that Fundraising Appeals would be launched from the platform of the Charity to raise funds for the Ukrainian people and welcome them in our cities. Details would be worked out in the following meeting.
The meeting discussed in detail the request from the Punjab Emergency Team to provide training in fire safety and high-rising building regulations. It was decided to visit Punjab Emergency Services (aka Rescue 1122) by the end of this year and impart further face to face training. As part of the last IETUK delegation to Pakistan 2 years ago (March 2019), and also digitally afterwards, some faceto-face training as well as policy scrutiny advice had been rendered. In the meantime, the Punjab Emergency Services should make arrangements locally for logistics and paperwork.
The meeting was informed that a businessman had promised to donate land in AJK for raising Community Hub. Cllr Gohar warned the Trustees to tread along carefully avoiding any partisanship which could backfire our ambitious pursuits. The meeting was informed that the Charity donated [in country/situ] a motorbike to a rural Maternity Hospital in AJK (run by the Hope Welfare Trust; https://www.hopewelfaretrust.org/what-we-do/) in 2020. As a result of successful experience, they are now developing a fleet of up to 6 motor bikes to provide rapid response to any emergency call.
IETUK is envisaging to visit Bangladesh in near future to initially study in which areas our Charity could be of some use to the Fire and Emergency services in Bangladesh, particularly perhaps in relation to cyclone, floods and Monsoon rains. The current Lord Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne, Cllr Habib Ur Rahman, has been liaising with authorities in Bangladesh and Newcastle City Council and local businesses to facilitate the trip.
It was agreed to find ways to generate funds for the charity as the existing funds were well under one thousand pounds which was too meagre amount to start any meaningful and sustained projects. Therefore, it was decided to approach influential businessmen for donations, organise fund raising events, dinners, etc. over the current and next year. Also explore other avenues which support philanthropist works.
Cllr Gohar also proposed / suggested to explore if we could develop links with an NGO in Pakistan and approach UK Foreign Aid Commission for funds. Mr Sadiq and Mr Kotter stated that for now we have a virtual office at the Emergency Services Academy (ESA) of the Punjab Emergency Services, as well
as an IETUK in-country co-ordinator through one of their officers at the ESA in Lahore, but that we should indeed look into this in earnest.
Mr Kotter informed the meeting that during 2021 and 2022 held delivered several international presentations on IETUK projects / outcomes [co-ordinated with the Chairperson, Mr Sadiq, also]. This included GADRI 2021 as well as IDRiM2021 [held globally online across all continents by the International Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management on the 24[th] of September 2021, as well as the 5[th] Global Summit of GADRI [Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes] also globally virtually online across all continents. These opportunities for dissemination came at no cost to IETUK. Mr Kotter further delivered a lecture online to the International Seminar on “Disaster Risk Financing Awareness towards Disaster and Climate Change Resiliency held at the City and Regional Planning Department, University of Engineering & Technology (UET), Lahore, Pakistan on the 06[th] of March 2022, jointly with the Graduate School of Business, Philippine School of Business Administration, Manila, Philippines.
Mr Sadiq also delivered an invited contribution to this. Again, no costs accrued to IETUK for this.
Mr Kotter informed the meeting that Director General of Punjab Emergency Services, Dr Rizwan Naseer has been approved as a Visiting Fellow by Northumbria University for four years and he would be invited to deliver a Public Lecture in Newcastle upon Tyne by the university in the future at a mutually agreeable time [likely when Dr Rizwan would also have a London business anyway]. Dr Rizwan will also contribute to a panel discussion at the next Dealing with Disasters international conference, which is organised in hybrid fashion by Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne on the 9[th] and 10[th] of June 2022.
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