What’s new since our last Leipzig congress? Well, the news is that the Leipzig congress not only is a scientific success but also a financial one, due to the effectiveness of the LOC headed by Kai Von Klitzling. Kai was able to get support from the city and from some sponsors and kept expenses under control and made a profit for WAIMH, which is the first time for long in WAIMH congresses history. In fact every congress brings WHAIM 50 USD by participant, then the profit- if there is any- is split between LOC and WAIMH. In 1989, Lugano made a profit, mostly because of a large subvention from the city, Chicago made losses, then Tampere made quite a good profit, but Montreal made a large loss. Paris brought no extra money nor did Yokohama. Therefore Leipzig is the first congress bringing extra money to the organization since long.
We have asked every participant about his or her feelings on the Leipzig congress and you will know about this soon. But clearly people were pleased but the scientific content, by the ambiance and by the organisation. And this success makes WAIMH financially secure. This is important since our next congress is- as a rule- outside Europe, i.e. in South Africa, and is more at risk to yield no extra profit for WAIMH than congresses in Europe or in USA or Canada, or anywhere where we have large affiliate’s societies.
One reason for the success of the Leipzig congress is the leadership of Kai von Klitzling, with a strong LOC and PC working closely together, along with an excellent conference organizer. We as WAIMH have gathered quite an experience in organizing and running world congresses, and we can help LOC into budgeting, sponsoring and abstract handling. But there are clear advantages in having a long term contract with one Conference organizer, who gets to know the organization and our procedures. This why we have launched a bid for a long term contract between WAIMH and an international CO. The board will make a choice within a month from now between the bids received and this will be applicable to the congress in Scotland, 2014, after Capetown.
Now for the first consequence of our major organisational changes, i.e. the growing place of the affiliates into the board through the two delegates, Martin St André and Maree Foley. Both have launched a survey of all affiliates, the detail of which you will read in this issue of the Signal. Now, we now Who is Who Wherein WAIMH much better and every affiliate delegate can get in touch with a member of another affiliate directly. This is a major step and I thank Martin and Maree and the helping staff from the office for this task done effectively and in due time.
Now we can launch a monkey survey of all affiliates to know about their desires and wishes in terms of training, so that we can organize world or regional congresses around this major goal of our organisation which is the sharing experience and the transfer of knowledge.
Capetown congress organization is in progress: we have a site visit there just before Eastern, with minimum costs to WAIMH. We will participate in a one day mini congress organized by Astrid Berg. The Program committee has started work, with Kai von Klitzling as chair, Neil Boris, Mark Tomlinson.
So start preparing your intervention in Capetown!
With best wishes
Antoine Guedeney
President
Vol. 19 No.1 Spring 2011 – President’s Perspective
Authors
Guedeney, Antoine,
the President of WAIMH,
France
