Joining nations 1947-1990

ADAPTING TO CHANGE, I 97 5 - I 982

51

it was inevitable that Dr Girardi possessed both these qualities, together with a wide general culture and a lack of preconceptions which ensured a pragmatic approach to the problems which he had to face in office. The first of these was the determination of the Treasurer, Dr I Oehler, before the imminent expiry of his term of office, to increase in 1979 the annual remuneration paid in respect of the two secreta– riats from SF160000 to SF225 ooo which he regarded as a fairer figure. This was accepted by the Executive Council which recom– mended that the basic annual subscription of the principal member society in each country should be increased from SF700 to SF1500, resulting in increased subscription income of SF40 ooo. It was also proposed to abandon altogether the practice of allocating to the IIW part of the Assembly enrolment fee paid by accompanying persons, but to increase the amount paid by participants. These changes were duly approved by the Governing Council with the result that the IIW became increasingly financially dependent on attracting delegates and experts to its annual assemblies. The amendment of the Constitution the previous year enabled the Governing Council in Dublin in 1978 to elect to membership the Welding School of the Petroleum Training Institute of Nigeria - a body whose membership proved to be brief owing to its inability to contribute to the IIW. Invitations were received and accepted in Dublin to hold the 1981 and 1982 Assemblies in what was then the USSR and India respec– tively but in the event neither invitation was to come to fruition . Another decision taken in Dublin and which was not to be later reversed was to award the Edstrom medal to the author. A new problem which arose in 1978 was the future of the Multi– lingual Collection of Terms. On the one hand, the great majority of the member countries had refused to contribute, against an allocation of copies, to the financing of the impression of the latest section prepared by Commission VI on the welding of plastics. (As an excep– tional arrangement, a trilingual edition (English, French, German) was printed in Slovenia under the personal supervision of the Chair– man of the Commission, Professor Stular, and with the aic! of a sub– vention from UNESCO.) On the other hand, the official publisher of the Collection since the first section appeared in 1953, the Associa– tion Suisse pour la Technique du Soudage, decided to terminate its contract in 1979. The tentative solution reached at the Bratislava Assembly in that year was that the existing stock should be held and