Executive board elected
Mid May, the members of the German Information Association for Cast Stone (Info-b - Informationsgesellschaft Betonwerkstein e.V.) met in Bensheim an der Bergstraße, a city in Hesse/Germany, for their 2017 annual conference. Aside from the common formalities and the reports of the executive board and management board, this year’s meeting was focusing on the election of the new ten-member executive board. In his opening speech, Richard Bayer, Chairman of the Executive Board at Info-b, looked back on a good economic year for the construction industry and constantly rising building permit figures.
The chances are looking good because cast stone continues to be “the most beautiful shape of concrete” - Richard Bayer states. The fact that this becomes also obviously visible in public was successfully achieved by the German Information Association for Cast Stone last year, when Info-b already celebrated its 40-year anniversary.
Marketing activities in 2017
Another pleasing aspect is the fact that the membership numbers of Info-b remain constant. According to Stefan Heeß, Managing Director at Info-b, this is due to the comprehensive activities of the Information Association, which include permanent and active presence at numerous events of the industry and the participation in important trade fairs such as BAU in Munich or NordBau in Neumünster, for instance. This was complemented by the successfully organized panel “practice of cast stone” which already took place for the seventh time on the occasion of the 2017 BetonTage congress held in Ulm. The exhibition booth at the NordBau trade fair in Neumünster is already scheduled as well as the presence at the national horticultural show in Bayreuth.
In addition, the association takes part in numerous lecture events, as every year. As far as publications are concerned, a new brochure on the subject of “Beton in neuem Design: innovativ, formschön, funktional” was published within the series “Vielseitigkeit von Betonwerkstein” at the beginning of the year. The series not only describes the latest developments in concrete technology, but also presents them in the proper light. At present, a brochure on the booming sector of infrastructure is in the pipeline.
New executive board elected for three years
The agenda of this year’s conference also included the election of a new executive board, i.e. of all ten members of the board of Info-b for the next three years (see Fig. 1). Richard Bayer and Stefan Heeß expressed their thanks to the retiring board members, Marion von der Heyde and Wolfram Reinhardt, for their activities and commitment to Info-b and cast stone over many years.
The “particular lecture” held at the end of the event, which is a tradition meanwhile, was focusing on “cast stone at the BAU 2017” this time. Board member Martin Möllmann not only gave a small insight on “what was going on in Munich” regarding cast stone; but, moreover, he once again emphasized the enormous significance of the BAU trade fair with its 250,000 visitors for the entire concrete and cast stone industry. Given the already now existing waiting lists, Möllmann appealed to the Info-b members “to make a fast decision if they want to take part in the next BAU in Munich (on the joint booth of IZB)”.
