RETIRING PRESIDENT’S REVIEW

D.Phillip Woodruff: Triennium 1998-2001

 

Writing this report in September 2001 as we prepare to meet in San Francisco, what is uppermost in my mind are the terrible events of 11 September in the United States, and I am sure that all the overseas delegates at the IVC will share in extending our sympathy to all those who lost friends and relatives. Of course, the headquarters of our hosts in San Francisco, the AVS, are based in Wall Street very close to the World Trade Centre, but I understand that all the staff are unhurt, at least physically. The General Meeting of IUVSTA is only every three years, and this is inevitably a time to see old friends but also notice who is missing. On this occasion we have not, to my knowledge, lost any serving members of the Executive Council, but several past members have died and brief obituaries are included in the papers of this meeting. Professor Emile Thomas was one of the founding members of the Union and an Honorary President, while many current members will remember Gen’ichi Horikoshi who was Chairman of the organising committee of the IVC held 6 years ago in Yokohama.

At this General Meeting we have tried to continue to develop the somewhat streamlined format which was initiated in Birmingham three years ago. Formally, the GM is very important in the functioning of IUVSTA, but because it is so infrequent many delegates must feel remote from the organisation and a long meeting full of formal procedures is unlikely to improve this situation. For this reason we have reduced the number of separate oral reports of the different component activities of the Executive Council but provided short individual written reports. Some of the highlights of these individual reports will be described in oral overviews. Following the lead in 1998 of our past president, John Robins, I have also written a brief commentary on the written material and the function of this meeting. In doing so I have decided to make this as short as possible and have written it specifically for the benefit of those delegates who are new to IUVSTA or who had had very little contact with our Union.

So what has changed in the last three years and what has been achieved? The good news is that the scientific activities of the Union continue to flourish, with the Workshop programme being especially fruitful. As it happens I was a co-organiser of the very first IUVSTA Workshop held in Portugal in 1989, just before the IVC in Köln, although the original impetus for these meetings came from Tony van Oostrom, at that time the STD Director. It gives me especial pleasure to see how this idea has flourished and is now an important core activity of IUVSTA, and I am sure Tony van Oostrom would have enjoyed this success. Within the general area of the Scientific and Technical Directorate I should also highlight the fact that we have been able to meet our objective of awarding two IUVSTA Prizes this year, one for achievement in science and the other in technology. I congratulate the two winners, Kunio Tagayanagi and Wolf-Dieter Münz. One longstanding IUVSTA activity in the field of education is the Visual Aids programme, a series of educational packages aimed at aiding the purchasers to deliver instruction courses in the specific topics covered. When I first became involved in the Union some years ago these programmes appeared to have languished and the quality of the material was no longer appropriate; not surprisingly, there were also very few purchasers. During the last few years this programme has been revitalised with completely new material and major revisions of some of the old topics. During the present triennium the first new-generation visual aid package, in a fully electronic format, was presented at the Executive Council meeting held in Namur in Belgium (the venue of the very first conference which led to the eventual formation of IUVSTA).

In my inaugural address three years ago I explained that I planned to make some changes to the committee structure of the Executive Council in order to try to ensure that these meetings could operate more efficiently and with more participation by Councillors. In particular, I decided to accommodate the activities concerning external liaison and developing countries into the Education Committee rather than as independent committees. I think this has improved the general running of the Executive Council meetings, but our ability to identify ways in which IUVSTA, with its very modest financial resources, can have a real positive impact in developing countries has proved as elusive as it was before. Some new ideas in this area were crystallised earlier this year and may yet lead to positive actions in the future. One committee which has proved increasingly effective is Long-Range Planning. Originally the issues discussed here were often almost entirely truly long range in character, but in the last few years this has become a forum for initiating open discussion on almost any topic which does not obviously fall within the remit of another single committee. These discussions have often led to quite short-term and very positive actions; it may be that the committee name is inaccurate, but it has proved extremely valuable.

Looking back at the Presidential Messages which I have written for the IUVSTA Bulletin during the last three years I am struck by the frequency with which I raised issues related to the IUVSTA world-wide web site (also now the vehicle for publishing the Bulletin). The web is an incredibly powerful new tool at our disposal in disseminating information, yet is also one with many hazards. Not least of these is ensuring that information is kept up to date – a badly out-of-date web site is almost worse than none at all – and we have certainly had some problems with the IUVSTA site during this period, in large part associated with the change in the webmaster who actually installs the material on the site. Nevertheless, I think the site is a huge advance for our organisation. Not only is it a source of (usually!) up-to-date information on recent and new activities, but it provides a valuable archive for many documents which allow Councillors, Divisional Representatives and Officers to check on the procedures which we operate. For an organisation which meets infrequently and even then with only a sub-set of those who we serve, this instantly-available information is big benefit. At one time the main activity of the Publications Committee was publishing the (paper) News Bulletin. The advent of the web might have been seen as reducing the work of this committee, yet the reality is that, especially for those who had to do all the hard work, the effort required has greatly increased but the benefit has also improved vastly.

Finally, I should acknowledge the role of the many members of the Executive Council during the last three years. All the Committee Chairmen and Officers have worked hard and effectively to fulfill their remits and, in some cases, to extend them. We started the triennium with new people in two of the key Officer roles, Bill Westwood as Secretary-General and Hartmut Wahl as Treasurer. Both have been extremely effective and it has been hard to imagine that they had not been doing these jobs for much longer. The Secretary-General certainly has by far the largest paper (or email!) load of any of the officers and Bill has done well to keep us all in order and ensure the union has functioned effectively. I am also happy to acknowledge the role of our Past President, John Robins, who will retire from office this year. Having a Past President like John – and indeed President Elect Marie-Genevieve Barthés-Labrousse – to discuss problems with has made my job easier and smoother. I am also sure I am handing over the Presidency to an able set of hands.

 

Certificates of Recognition

presented at GM-14 to

Council Members and Committee Chairs who are ending their terms

 

John L Robins

Praeses, Propraeses

President, Past President

John O'Connor

consilarius

Councillor

Allan Morton

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

Dirceau Pereira

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

Ross Douglas

consilarius

Councillor

Petr Repa

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

J-P Duraud

consilarius

Councillor

G. Damanne

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

Horst Hoffman

consilarius

Councillor

M.A. Chesters

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

Gyorgy Radnocki

consilarius

Councillor

Shri A.S. Raja Rao

consilarius

Councillor

Gady Golan

consilarius

Councillor

Katsuya Nakayama

consilarius

Councillor

Tong Soo Park

consilarius

Councillor

Orlando Zelaya-Angel

consilarius

Councillor

J.W.Niemantsverdriet

consilarius

Councillor

A.W. Kleyn

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

Zhong-Yi Hua

consilarius

Councillor

Marian A.Herman

consilarius

Councillor

A.M.C. Moutinho

consilarius

Councillor

M.I. Calada Ferreira

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

P.K. Kashkarov

consilarius

Councillor

Peter. Lukac

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

J.L. de Segovia

consilarius

Councillor

J. Soria

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

Lars Westerberg

consilarius

Praeses delectorum

Councillor

Publications chair

Alex Dommann

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

G. McGuire

consilarius

Alternate Councillor

John T. Grant

praeses divisionis

ASS Division chair

Y. Yasuda

praeses divisionis

EMP Div Chair

R. Wiesendanger

praeses divisionis

NS Div Chair

H. Stoeri

praeses divisionis

PST Div Chair

Akio Yoshimori

praeses divisionis

SS Div chair

John H. Weaver

praeses divisionis

SS Div Chair

J. Verhoeven

praeses divisionis

TF Div Chair

Antti Korhonen

praeses divisionis

VM Div Chair

Robert A Childs

praeses divisionis

VS Div Chair