OPAL ASSOCIATION INC

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

HELD AT

LEVEL 1

QT HOTEL,

STAGHORN AVE

SURFERS PARADISE

FRI 2 JULY 2019 AT 8 AM

 

PRESENT:

 

Paul Sedawie

Damien Cody

Sam Manis

George Em Christianos

Sally Patel

Ruth Benjamin Thomas

Yiannis Anastasiadis

Ken Wills

Edmond Lahoud

Ted Hamilton

 

 

MEETING OPENED AT 8 AM BY PRESIDENT

 

• Quorum established and meeting opened.
• Apologies Chris Gawthorpe ,Wayne Sedawie,Peter Sherman
• Presentation of accounts by Paul Sedawie
• Accounts circulated in meeting
• Accounts tabled and accepted by Sam Manis
• Account sheet to be emailed to all members

 

NOMINATIONS FOR OFFICEHOLDERS

 

All existing officeholders renominated and no new nominations – existing officeholders retained one additional year.

President Paul Sedawie

Vice president Yanni Anastasiadis

Secretary George Em Christianos

Treasure Sally patel

Publicity officer Edmond lahoud

 

Paul invited Damien Cody to update us on Andrew Cody’s medical condition.

 

Damien: Andrew has been in hospital for three months treating his leukaemia. Has had bone marrow transplant and needs another in three months to get out of the dangerous phase where he is susceptible to many illnesses. A large dose of a chemo drug has caused some brain damage including almost complete blindness but doctors hope this may reverse. He is in good spirits.

 

Paul and Meeting: Sent best well wishes to Andrew

 

Damien then spoke more about nomenclature in that the work that has been done by the nomenclature committee has been submitted to CIBJO who will work towards putting out a blue book on Opals – similar to that for pearls, diamonds etc. Also as a result of the work on nomenclature GIA and other associations are re-working their Opals literature, knowledge and teachings. The main focus here is to separate hydrophane from non-hydrophane Opals.

 

Paul: Circulated an exposure draft for proposed federal legislation which will make it a criminal offense to pay or receive payment of more than $10,000 in cash. This exposure draft was discussed with a view to determine what if anything the Association should do – should we make representations or try to exempt the industry? Some present argued we should be exempt due to the nature of the industry. Damien Cody suggested we have no grounds for exemption, as it would effectively be arguing that we should be able to cheat taxes etc. The purpose of the proposed legislation is to combat crime, money laundering, tax evasion, funding of terrorism etc. In any case it was decided to make a link to the exposure draft made available to members and flag the existence of the exposure draft and likely future legislation.

 

Certification

 

Certificates of authenticity were raised and after some discussion Paul referred to the recent email circular, The proposal is to test and qualify members who want to use the association’s stationery to issue certificates. Once qualified, the members would have to sign an agreement as between them and the association which would bind them to a set of principles and to the nomenclature to be used and prohibit certain practises (such as ascribing a value of the goods on the certificate) as well as indemnifying the association for any liability arising from their use of the forms. There would also be a disclaimer on the certificate but it wouldn’t have to be a long legalistic one as we would enjoy the additional protection of having qualified the certifiers as well as the indemnity from each one.

 

Certificates issued on the Association stationery are a helpful marketing tool.

 

Damien Cody mentioned that ICA have certain descriptive data which needs to be filled in on the seller’s invoice. However, when the goods are being sold by our members at wholesale and they are then on-sold, the end user is not privy to our invoices so this has its limits.

 

Damien also mentioned that as for origin, the science is still not quite there although they (Cody) have supplied over 70 samples of Opal from around the world to both GIA and the Guild in China as well as engaged an RMIT researcher to work on a way to distinguish and determine origin for certification purposes. This is a work in progress.

 

Ruth: Raised the possibility of designated certificates of origin for marketing purposes for example Champagne from Champagne, Fetta from Greece – Emeralds from Columbia etc. This is a point to further explore as ‘black opals’ could not be designated in the same way although a more narrow name might be able to be trademarked and reserved for, for example, Lightning Ridge, or even “boulder” reserved for Queensland Opals

 

Paul: Raised the recent discussion in Lightning Ridge where Max Novelli suggested that the Opal Association take over the booking and organising of Opal Association pavilions in fairs such as the Hong Kong fairs. Sam Carbone has been doing some of this work and it was suggested that a committee be set up and he head it up and the benefits are possibly a government grant as well as better bargaining power with UBM and HKTDC in relation to positioning of our pavilion which is very important.

 

Edmond LaHood: We need to attract a broader cross section and larger number of members.

 

Paul Sedawie: Perhaps we should have a reception or BBQ at each Opal event – inside Australia on the Opal trail and perhaps also in Hong Kong, Tucson etc. In the Australian opal shows it would be a opportunity for miners and dealers to gather in a casual atmosphere.

 

George: We could seek sponsors for these events too and in exchange for advertising they help offset some of the costs.

 

Ruth: Suggested we should look at doing something for the Opal Symposium in Coober Pedy 2020.

 

Several Contributors: Discussed helping miners with native title issues. In Queensland new leases or renewals are being held up by the state government at the native title stage where the minister needs to approve and such approvals are not forthcoming. Suggestions were that the association look into representations to government and campaigning.

 

George Yiannis Paul: Discussed that there was no commercial airline service into Lightning Ridge at all whereas there was a Regional Express service into Coober Pedy. George offered that to attract younger miners (and help the industry with buyers etc) we need a service and it needs to be affordable enough. Yiannis suggested making a presentation to Regional Express and focusing on tourism, not mining. Give them tourist numbers and growth etc. Also mentioned that in South Australia the government guaranteed five seats per flight for some years which underwrote the beginning of the service. This is something to follow up on as easier access to Lightning Ridge will be a benefit to individuals, the community, the economy, and the Opal industry. Flights would suit tourism, buyers, miners, medical purposes as well as government.

 

Meeting ended 845 am as many booth holders needed to go set up and man their booths

 

 

 

Kind Regards

 

Paul Sedawie

President of the Opal Association