Joining nations 1947-1990

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EARLY DEVELOPMENTS, I 949- I 95 4

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fessor Jaeger succeeded Mr Goldschmidt as President, its member– ship being composed as follows : President, Past President, four Vice-Presidents, Treasurer, Secretary General, Scientific and Technical Secretary, one of the Vice-Presidents being a representative of the country where a forthcoming Annual Assembly would be held - an arrangement which has been maintained ever since. ANNUAL ASSEMBLIES It is of some interest to trace the evolution of the programmes of the early assemblies of the IIW since inevitably it took some time to arrive at the formula which has now been followed for many years. Jbe Paris Assembly in 1950 saw the introduction of preliminary meetings of the Executive Council and the Governing Council, the division of the Commissions into Groups A and B, each composed of six Commissions meeting simultaneously, and each holding three sessions spread over two and a half days, a plenary session with presentations by the Commission Chairmen, and a closing meeting of the Governing Council with the Chairmen of the Commissions at which Commission resolutions were discussed. The following year the IIW was invited by the United Kingdom to hold what was entitled a Congress to coincide with the Festival of Britain, itself organised to commemorate the centenary of the Great Exhibition of l 85 1. This Congress, held in London and Oxford, was unique in the annals of the IIW in that for five nights the delegates were lodged in three Oxford colleges undergoing what Professor Portevin described as a bain de j ezmesse which included a good deal of undergraduate behaviour, notably a ghost party which was long remembered within the IIW. The programme allowed for three ses– sions for each Commission together with a full-day plenary session for the presentation of reports, the innovations being, firstly, works visits, and secondly, three public sessions for the presentation and discussion of previously invited papers. Both of these innovations became permanent features of the Assemblies and the titles of the Public Sessions and subsequently Colloquia and International Con– ferences are given in Appendix III. They constitute a record of what were seen to be topics of contemporary interest and concern from 1951 to 1990.