Joining nations 1947-1990

ADAPTING TO CHA GE, I 97 5- I 982

49

centre, the nucleus being the Welding Institute's information service which would be transferred to the IIW. However, the report of the Working Group intimated that it had subsequently been announced that France and Germany were planning, with government aid, to create a joint documentation centre with which the IIW was invited to associate itself. The Working Group in principle favoured this second solution which would not entail any major commitment by the Institute. A further decision taken at Sydney was to restrict the terms of reference of Commission IV to electron beam, laser and plasma welding, the other processes nominally covered by this Commission to be the subject of study groups in the event of sufficient interest being forthcoming. The Metallugical Research Center of Iran was elected to member– ship at the 1976 Assemhly hut, hecause of the revolution in that country, this membership was not destined to be of long duration. The Australian delegation did not agree with the practice by which the Organising Committee of an Assembly was required to ask accompanying persons to pay, with the Assembly enrolment fee, a contribution for the IIW and so this contribution was not collected at Sydney; this action was difficult to reverse and it was agreed that in future the enrolment fee for accompanying persons should be fixed at 50% of that of participants, the fees for 1977 being SF100 and SF50, making SF150 for a couple instead of SF160 (SF 80 + 80) previously. Because of increased attendance, the income from enrolment fees increased at the 1977 Assembly when the Governing Council agreed also to increase the basic subscriptions of member countries to com– pensate for the decline in income derived from steel consumption which had been adversely affected by the recession. The 1977 Assembly, held at Lyngly outside Copenhagen, was marked by the relatively rare event of an amendment to the IIW's constitution in order to make the qualifications for membership less rigid and thus facilitate the membership of developing countries where, experience had shown, there did not normally exist an organisation eligible for membership if the 1948 text were strictly interpreted. · Another example in 1977 of the increasingly flexible attitude of the IIW was the creation of two new Select Committees, dealing respectively with aluminium and underwater welding, their functions being essentially to stimulate work on their subjects within the various Commissions and to draw conclusions from such work.