Joining nations 1947-1990

10

JOINING NATIONS

congresses organised by the Institute, but work to be carried on continuously under the direction of the Chairman. Progress reports to be submitted twice a year for circulation to the member societies. Officers - President, three Vice-Presidents and Treasurer to serve non– renewable terms of three years (exceptionally the initial Treasurer and one of the initial Vice-Presidents to serve for five years). The Secretary General to serve indefinitely renewable terms of three years. Languages - English and French At the first meeting of the Governing Council the first significant disagreement arose . The French delegation objected to the provision by which the office of Secretary General was indefinitely renewable and proposed a maximum of two terms after which the new candidate must be of a different nationality from that of hi~ predecessor. The difficulty was resolved by appending the French proposals to the Constitution which would be reviewed after two years - a decision which was to have significant consequences in 1950. Another difficult problem was that of finance . The Secretary General envisaged an expenditure of £600 in l 948 and £7 50 in l 949. It was finally agreed to fix for l 948 the subscription of each member country (Austria being exempted) so as to bring in a total of £620. The level of subscription ranged from £i50, payable by the UK and the USA, to £20, payable by Denmark, Norway and South Africa. The budget included expenditure of £300 for General Secretariat staff salaries, this money being paid to the (British) Institute of Welding as the employer of the Secretary-General and his staff and the owner of the accommodation which they used. An identical arrangement was made when the Scientific and Technical Secretariat was set up , the amount paid by the IIW in respect of each Secretariat being the same; happily this solution to the problem of the remuner– ation of the Secretariats has proved to be a durable one. Another item of the original budget was the provision of £65 to cover postage and telephone . In this connection it is perhaps of interest to record that in 1948 the sum of £1 would buy 160 standard rate postage stamps or 240 copies of popular newspapers. THE IIW LAUNCHED