Annual General Meeting 2022 – Minutes of Meeting | Amicale Citroën Internationale (ACI)

Amicale Citroën Internationale (ACI)
Minutes of Meeting
Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2022

Location: virtual (video / phone conference)
Date: 06-Aug-2022, 10-13h CEST

Participant List: see end of document

Welcome, Introduction of the Agenda, Designation of Chair of the Meeting

The ACI President welcomes the participants and presents the agenda. The Chair of the Meeting is chosen: Luka Stare.
A moment of silence is held for two key people we have lost in the last period:
Maurizio Marini, Delegate of Italy and organizer of the ICCCR 2008 Rome, as well as Robert Opron, designer.

Introduction of New Delegates

No new Delegate is attending the meeting.

Approval of Minutes of last AGM

The approval is made by open vote, by full approval of the voting Delegates present (no abstentions, no votes against).

Guest Speech

Speaker 1 – Xavier Crespin, L’Aventure – via video message, link see below (Ref 1).
Speaker 2 – Denis Huille, L’Aventure – presentation attached (Ref 2).Questions from the audience:
Will the different heritage organizations of the 14 Stellantis brands be merged under one roof?
D.H.: this is not foreseen at the current stage.

To which extent the number of cars stored in the Conservatoire will be reduced?
D.H.: the mid-term goals is to reduce the number of cars to ca. 600 cars (currently: ca. 650 cars). Especially 2 cars of the same model are not needed, one will be sold. Please watch out the auction upcoming at Sochaux later this year.
Speaker 3 – Henri-Jacques Citroën, ACI Ambassador.
- ACI is perceived as one of the largest reach network of French culture world-wide, to the unknown of many.
- Many attendees to his various lectures are surprised about the rich history and innovations of Citroën.
  Example: National School Professional de L’Automobile Garac – other examples in other countries.
- Dealer’s express concerns about dealership contracts being terminated by the brand, and Chinese OEMs are contacting these dealers now to ask them to sell Chinese vehicles.
- Dealer’s in Spain also approached the Chinese ambassador to discuss potential business opportunities.
- Social business network “LinkedIn” reaches out to a large number of businesspeople and business decision takers. Each post about
- Citroën history creates double as much interest, compared to normal business topics posts. His post about the anniversary of the
- Eiffel tower Citroën advertisement got 60.000+ views.
- Citroën one-year long storytelling about the 100 years of the brand has been an outstanding communications success.
- Citroën museum (www.citromuseum.com, Henri Fradet) soon to be visited by him.
- Threat: Citroën as a national French brand might possibly lose its fixpoint resp. perish in the rather “nationally not anchored” brand group Stellantis.
- Citroën has more potential to use the rich history of the brand in its communications.
  Denis Huille offered to include H.J. Citroën in next activities with the brand.

President’s Report

The Centenary celebration in 2019 was happening before the pandemic – we were lucky that it could be executed in perfect conditions, and perceived as an outstanding event.
More than half a million Euro financial support was given to the various EOTY since 2004 by the ACI.
New member / country of the ACI global network: Morocco now added.
Tight cooperation with L’Aventure in about a dozen team meetings, on various projects, Marketing and Communications, and also securing EOTY sponsoring’s.
Improving ACI and Delegate visibility in Brand Dialogues such as with Xavier Peugeot (Nov-2021), a series to be continued.
20 Years of Conservatoire – an event also positioning ACI prominently. Conservatoire been the “birthplace” of the “official ACI” founded in 2004 (whereas non-formally established, it had been existing since 1974).
Supporting international projects such as “Terra America” (Fanny Adam, indigenous expedition from Alaska to Ushuaia, in Traction Avant) via active engagement of ACI networks in the Americas.
Well connected with FIVA, in regular dialogue and exchange on top level.
Closely following EU-directives which might have an impact on our hobby, e.g. EU-Directive 1997/2006 on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (“REACH”)
>> request addressed to the Delegates: please address this threat to your national historic vehicle organization (FFVE, FEHAC etc.)
Spreading support of knowledge, e.g. by promotion of literature related to the heritage (e.g. books about Panhard & Citroen, CX, “What a Ride” by ACI Delegate Richard Bonfond about the Northern America’s history of Citroën, “The Great Citroën Book” 4-band encyclopedia released by L’Aventure etc.)
Move to a new server setup, and some statistics on communications followed.

Treasurer’s Report

The financial figures of the both accounts (events / general ACI activities) are presented and explained in detail. The figures and individual expense claims had been validated by the official ACI accountant prior to the meeting. The payout to the 2CV World Meeting Croatia 2019 was completed in full size, to the ICCCR 2022 (postponed to 2024) and 2CV World Meeting 2023 (Switzerland) in partial amount.

Approval of Board actions

The approval is made by open vote, by full approval of the voting Delegates present (no abstentions, no votes against).

Event Reports: 2019 EOTY = Citroën Centenary event in La Ferté-Vidame

Alain Thuret (Amicale France, event project member) has not answered the ACI request to present a summary statement. Thus, no presentation can be shared.
Denis Huille gives a short, positive summary about the event.
The ACI Board asks Denis Huille to emphasize a bi-directional information exchange between Amicale France and the international network.

Upcoming Events: 2CV World Meeting 2023

Willi Brändli, project lead of the event, presents the current status of the preparations and the agenda, and the confidence that the event can be held as expected. Presentation attached (Ref 3). Additionally, videos can be downloaded.

Upcoming Events: ICCCR 2024, Toruń/Poland

Piotr Majewski and Czeslaw Nosewicz, project team and ACI members, present the current status of the preparations, their strong intentions to run the event in 2024, and the confidence that the event can be held as expected. Especially it should be noted that also a smaller-scale event can be executed without becoming financially challenged: a concept is developed which mitigates that risk. Also, the ICCCR participation fee will be kept on the same level as last year, until Nov-2023: a statement positively perceived by the Delegates. Presentation attached (Ref 4). ACI and L’Aventure both express their strong interest to support the team / event.

ACI “Event of the Year“ 2025 Candidate

Only one application was received by the ACI Board prior to the AGM: the 2CV World Meeting to be held 2025 in Slovenia. Luka Stare, project lead of the event, presents the status of the preparations and the planned agenda. Presentation attached (Ref 5).

Discussion about the email submitted 11-July-2022 by Philippe Lasson (ACI Delegate France) to hold an ICCCR 2025 in France, instead of the ICCCR in Toruń.

ACI Board statement: no formal application had been submitted from France until today – so there is no other candidature.

Decisions about the ICCCR in 2026 (next EOTY “vacancy”) or 2028 (the traditional 4 year’s event rhythm of ICCCR’s) can’t be taken today and are thus postponed.

Reponses from other Delegates during the discussion confirm this position.

>> Election of the “ACI Event Of The Year 2025” takes place. The only candidate is the 2CV World Meeting 2025 Slovenia.
The election is made by open vote, by full approval of the voting Delegates present (no abstentions, no votes against).
The Board and the audience congratulate Luka Stare and wish the organizers a good continuation and preparation of the event.

As an outlook, potentially the 2CV World Meeting 2027 might be held in The Netherlands. The ACI Board is not aware about any other potential organization. There will not be any decision about this event since it must be elected first during the 2CV World Meeting 2023 in Switzerland, as the next upcoming 2CV meeting, and then a potential event team must hand in an application to the ACI.

Date/Venue of next AGM

Two options are presented: hold the event at the 2CV World Meeting in Switzerland in summer 2023, or like traditionally in the context of the Retromobile 2023. A discussion takes place amongst the Delegates. Herman Sluiter, Honorary Member, states that it is not correct to hold an AGM during a 2CV (single model) event, and thus the Retromobile must be preferred. David Conway states that the meeting held in a videoconferencing resp. hybrid format (both physically and virtually present) should be preferred so more Delegates can attend.

The Delegates are asked to vote. The voting is done publicly. 70% of the Delegates vote for Retromobile as next AGM venue, 17% do vote for the 2CV World Meeting as next venue. 3 abstentions (neutral) are recorded.

The audience is asking for a hybrid event which is confirmed by the Board. Denis Huille is asked to support in logistics in the conf room at Retromobile so that a hybrid event can be done technically.

Election of New ACI Board

The current Board members have expressed their interest to continue for another period. Additionally, a new Board candidature was handed in by Patricio Cardemil (Chile). Unfortunately, Patricio can’t attend the AGM. The Board asks the Delegates whether still his candidature should be accepted or not.

The Delegates discuss it and rather propose to postpone the candidature until the candidate can present himself. Herman Sluiter states that a candidate should also accept questions from the other ACI members which is not possible, and thus he can’t be a candidate at this stage. Rogerio Soares states that while he is representative for Patricio Cardemil, he can’t support his candidature but suggests that it should be postponed to the next AGM. Cinzia Apra states that a new candidate from the Southern America’s continent can be useful for the Board and thus takes a neutral position. A public voting takes place, the result is that all Delegates except for 2 abstentions are deciding that Mr. Cardemil can’t be a candidate at this stage. The decision made is that Mr. Cardemil is removed from the Board candidates list.

The election procedure is explained by the President. The secret voting takes place online by a voting tool, supervised by L’Aventure as neutral instance. The Delegates cast their vote via individual voting ID’s which they had received by individual email prior to the event.

The voting result of 18 expressed votes is that 100% of all participating Delegates vote for the current Board to continue their activities. The voting report is sent by Denis Huille to the ACI Board (Ref 6).
The President thanks the Delegates for their trust into the Board activities.

Any Other Business

The ACI Board asks the Delegates to again check for the various ACI contacts as shown on the ACI contact webpage

Contact

resp. whether they know about changes to email addresses. As one example, ACI Turkey can’t be reached any longer.
Known changes shall be reported to Dejan Orovic, info@amicale-citroen-internationale.org, so the references can be updated.

Herman Sluiter asks if the Board could write a statement by the ACI, and all other heritage groups within Stellantis, about pollution and energy transition, and also cultural history aspects of vehicles.

David Conway thanks the ACI Board for their continuous engagement also in difficult times, and refers to the pre-2004 success story of ACI. The President proposes to set up a dedicated session where David could talk about this era towards the Delegates.

An event announcement is made: the site La Ferté-Vidame where the Centenary event took place will be awarded the “Lieu de l’Histoire Automobile” (site of automotive heritage) award by FFVE (French branch of FIVA) on 9-Sep-2022. The Delegates are asked to spread this information to their clubs and members.

End of AGM

The President thanks the Delegates for their continued support, and Denis Huille for his engagement.
The AGM is closed at 13h CEST.

Participant list:

ACI Delegates attending and in alphabetical order:
Cinzia Apra, Hans Bohlmeijer, Manfred Buchgeher, Michael Cox, George Dyke, David Gerrie, Stephan Joest, Willem Klein Lankhorst, Czeslaw Nosewicz, Bengt Olsson, Dejan Orovic, Marc Roelandt, Sandor Schubert, Luka Stare, Per Westin.

Delegates respresented by proxies:
Guido Wilhelm, Philippe Lasson, Laurent Moret de Rocheprise.

Honorary Members attending:
David Conway, Herman Sluiter.

Guests:
Denis Huille, Henri-Jacques Citroën, Willi Brändli, Piotr Majewski.

References :

Ref 1 – Video Xavier Crespin: (ca. 33MB)