IIW History 1990-2015

in these documents available to industry and the general public. Modernisation was the key to upgrading IIW’s service to the membership and, following its initial presentation to the Executive Council, the WG Strategic Planning , under the guidance of the Chair Dr Giulio Costa (Italy), was then given official approval to provide a new-found platform to guide IIW through the 1990s. The final report was delivered to the Executive Council in July 1992 after several meetings, the last being in Madrid, Spain, in May 1992. 15 The report was comprehensive and covered both the strengths and weaknesses of IIW and looked at the ‘big picture’ opportunities rather than solving the specific problems that IIW currently faced.

Giulio Costa

One of the strengths of the Institute was its high professional standing in government, industry, research institute and university circles. The current structure of IIW was considered to be a powerful administrative machine for communication between welding societies and individual specialists of many disciplines on a worldwide basis. IIW did have weaknesses, the most important of which had been evident for some years – the length of time that it took for actions to be implemented. One would suspect that such criticisms were aimed at the long-held constitutional requirement, 44 years in fact, for the registered office to be situated in the country where the General Secretary was based, at that time the UK. It was commented that legal opinion, as defined by English Law, meant that the Institute was an unincorporated company, a matter that would not have sat well with some members of the Executive Council since it meant that IIW had no legal status at all. The final conclusions of the report did recommend a number of initiatives and a need for the Executive Council to be restructured so that Vice-Presidents became responsible for specific areas and operation of corresponding working groups. During Eaton’s Presidency 1990-1993 the concept of a single

LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS findings of the WG Strategic Planning a total of 12 members responded with suggestions. Inevitably, many were to question the current practice of having both a General Secretariat in the UK and a Scientific and Technical Secretariat in France. secretariat was progressively developed and received increasing support by most members of the Executive Council. Mr Robert Salkin (Belgium), who was President 1987-1990 was not, however, in favour of a single secretariat although the incoming President in 1993, Mr Raül Timerman (Argentina), with an industrial background, fully supported a single secretariat. 16 Following the release of the

Robert Salkin