1998 Annual Report of the Board to the General Assembly
This report can start very much like the one of 1997. Also 1998 was an unspectacular working year for EurEta. The Board, Registration Committee, Working Group and a small Executive Group were active in the development of the Association. In the discussions with representatives of National Members a new viewpoint became of increasing importance: EurEta has to ask its members once more, what exactly they wish EurEta to accomplish for them and if they are willing to finance those goals.
Membership, as far as National Members are concerned, has not increased during 1998. However we gained Cyprus as another Supporting Member besides Austria. At the end of the year the following 11 countries were represented with National Members in EurEta: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The Register showed again a reasonable but not overwhelming growth. There were 287 new registrations. In total we had 874 paying registrants, i.e. 2 from Belgium, 9 from Denmark, 157 from Finland, 15 from Hungary, 314 from Italy, 17 from Sweden and 360 from Switzerland. We still hope, that it will be possible in the near future to register professionals in all member countries and thus to increase the number of registrations substantially.
The annual meeting of the General Assembly, held together with meetings of the Board and the Registration Committee, was hosted by our Danish friends of Teknisk Landsforbund. It was planned to have the meetings from 7 to 11 May in Copenhagen. Because of a general strike of the Danes we had to postpone our meetings to 3 to 7 September. The General Assembly, besides the statutory items, passed the revision of the Statutes changing some articles in the version of 1995. In the revision of the Statutes the decision was made that in the future there should be an auditing firm as well as two lay auditors to look at the accounts. The General Assembly also issued the Standing Orders which contain the rules for the pursuit of everyday business. With pleasure the Assembly accepted Cyprus as a Supporting Member. This Supporting Membership is not thought to last forever. It is tied to the question, where the correct place for Incorporated Engineers in the European system of engineering and technical professionals is - in EurEta, in FEANI, or solely with EU recognition through the relevant Directive? If Cyprus would find out that their engineers are at the right place in EurEta they would apply for full membership, otherwise they will draw back out. The reports of the Registration Committee and of the National Members were again a very valuable exchange of information and views. The General Assembly was pleased to have for the first time a representative of Ireland as a guest.
The General Assembly was also introduced into the first pages of the "EurEta Homepage", which were designed by Karsten Duuss in Copenhagen. All those present took home stickers with the new corporate identity of EurEta and the address of our homepage: www.eureta.org. The further work on this very efficient PR medium was and is done by the President. The most time and money consuming task is also here the translation of the publications into the other EurEta languages. We ask for understanding that not everything is translated right away.
The cultural program organised for us by our Danish hosts, in particular by Erik Jensen, made out of us fans of the Danish Capital of Copenhagen and its surroundings. The public bicycles will stay in many of our minds. Last but not least we got a good insight into the Danish education system by visiting a Technical College.
The Board met twice in 1998. On 6 and 7 March 1998 the Board prepared the meeting of the General Assembly at the already very familiar Hotel Verenahof in Baden, Switzerland. The meetings of the Board before and after the meeting of the General Assembly on 3 and 7 September 1998 in Copenhagen dealt with the situation in the member countries, with possible new members and with contacts to other European or global organisations. Major topics were public relations and publicity. Also the question was discussed once more, if EurEta could take part in some EU programs like Leonardo, and this will be followed up in 1999.
The Registration Committee had just one meeting in 1998, on 4 September in Copenhagen preceding the General Assembly meeting of the following day. Besides examining special cases for registration, the Registration Committee issued a Registration Handbook for the National Members, which should make it easier for them to hand in applications for registration. The Registration Committee had to take notice of the resignation of its member Giuseppe Jogna, who is not President of the Consiglio Nazionale dei Periti Industriali of Italy any more.
As we already stated in the last year’s report, the registration of standard cases proves to be a purely formal matter since the National Members take the full responsibility for those cases. For that reason, the registration of standard cases is handled now more fluently with the help of the office of EurEta. More difficulties come up by the judgement of special cases, where sometimes also language barriers pose problems for the judgement of a formation curriculum. But especially in such cases, where a formation might have taken place in different countries, the judgement from a European point of view and the issuing of a European certificate makes sense and helps to tear down national barriers.
It is the task of the Registration Committee to edit the Appendices C and D of the Registration Regulations. Appendix C will describe the national formations accepted as of EurEta level and Appendix D will list the schools leading to the respective Diplomas. The task to produce those two appendices is a very difficult one. The Chairman of the Registration Committee did again a tremendous job but he is confronted with great difficulties to get the necessary information together. We will be very glad if the National Members reinforce their support in this matter. Also the work of the Working Group, which was presented at the meeting of the Registration Committee in Copenhagen was time consuming. It proves to be difficult to develop criteria which give a more accurate scale to compare formation systems of such a wide range as we face them on EurEta level.
The office of the Association is still led through the President at the office of his school. He did this with the help of several people, first of all of Graham Guest, who took the minutes as a Secretary of the General Assembly, the Board and the Registration Committee. Graham Guest also was a great help in the field of making and keeping new and old contacts. A good job was also done by Elisabeth L�thy who was in charge of the financial transactions and the book keeping. There were others who contributed to the tasks which the office had to fulfil. With all this help we could manage to keep the costs and the income of the Association in balance. The present form of the office has been good to get EurEta started but it is not efficient enough to fulfil the needs of a growing European professional association.
The contacts with the National Members are crucial for the functioning and the progress of the Association. They consume a lot of time because responses very often come only after several interventions. We hope that it is possible to professionalise the correspondence on both sides in the future. On 5 August another meeting between EurEta and the Engineering Council of the United Kingdom took place in London. The main subject was again the question which level of British professionals should be eligible for EurEta registration as standard cases. It seems that we have still a way to go until we can register the first Incorporated Engineers from the UK. As we wrote already last year, the further development of EurEta into other English speaking countries will depend very much on progress in this matter. In September the President visited the "Hochschultage f�r Berufliche Bildung" in Dresden, keeping up the contact with our German Member BVT. In November the President was invited to the big and impressive National Congress of our Norwegian National Member "Forbundet for Ledelse og Teknikk (FLT)" which is held only every four years.
The contact with WFTO (World Federation of Technology Organisations), where the President of EurEta is a member of the Board, was kept in 1998 mainly through our PR Manager Erik Jensen who in June attended the WFTO Symposium in Cape Town, South Africa. The President and Graham Guest visited FEANI at their new seat in Brussels on 1 April. They met there the President of FEANI, Sir John Cullen and the Secretary General Sirkka P�yry. In September Graham Guest took part in a Seminar of FEANI on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) which was held in the course of their annual business meetings in Lisbon. We are convinced that on the European platform FEANI and EurEta have to stand together to represent the engineering professions to the best of their interest. Graham Guest has again had an eye on a larger number of other international organisations, including the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE), the European Consortium for the Learning Organisation (ECLO) and the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). In November he represented EurEta at a Focus Group meeting of the Institute of Continuing Professional Development (ICPD) in London. EurEta is very much in favour of any contacts which serve the interests of our members and of the professionals registered with EurEta.
We think that we can look back at 1998 with the conviction of having made again a few steps forward. We are on the way to develop views of what the Association should be in the near future to the best of the engineers we represent. We express our gratitude to all those who took part in our work or supported our goals by any means. Special thanks go to the hosts of our General Assembly, the Danish Teknisk Landsforbund.
Aarau, 29 May 1999