Joining nations 1947-1990

INTERNATION AL CONFERENCES

(i) The production of an annual supplementary number of Welding in the World containing abstracts of the previous year's Commis– sion documents; (ii) The creation of a database containing entries for some 400 Commission documents still considered to be of interest; (iii) The sale of software containing the database, together with annual supplements, to member societies and others. Another item reported to the Governing Council at Sofia of pri– mary concern to the Scientific and Technical Secretary was the deci– sion of the International Organisation for Standardisation to recognise officially the IIW as a standardising body. This decision necessitated the adoption of new procedures within the IIW for drafting and approving documents intended for immediate recognition as draft standards. In the interval between the l 987 and l 988 Assemblies, the regional policies approved in 1986 began to be put into practice. The first example took the form of intermediary meetings in Brazil of three Commissions - II Arc Welding, IX Behaviour of Metals Sub– jected to Welding, XII Flux and Gas Shielded Electrical Welding Pro– cesses. These meetings served to bring a number of South American e>..'j)erts into direct contact with the IIW for the first time and resulted in the formation of two regional Commissions (II and IX). A further result was an application for Associate-Membership from Uruguay which had previously been in membership. This was duly approved by the Governing Council at the l 988 Assembly in Vienna, together with similar applications from Chile and Greece, thus demonstrating the wisdom of introducing this type ofmembership. Additional evidence of the enthusiasm of the Brazilian delegation for a stronger IIW presence in South America was provided by its invitation to hold the second Regional Congress in Rio de Janeiro in l 992, an invitation which the Governing Council accepted four months before the first such Congress was held in Tasmania. There was general welcome for the evidence of growth derived from the new regional policies but in 1988 the Governing Council had a more contentious issue to tackle - the method of assessment of national subscriptions which had been calculated according to an out-of-date formula for the past three ye ars while efforts were made to find a permanent solution to this problem. A detailed report from the Treasurer indicated that no more satisfactory index of the impor– tance of welding in each country could be found than the level of