epi Information 4/2010

Information 4/2010 Reports 123The By-Laws Committee 1978 – 2010C. Eder (CH)former Chairman of the By-Laws CommitteeAt its first meeting on 8/9 April 1978 in the assemblyroomof the hotel Penta in Munich the Council (consistingof members from 11 member states) set up a By-Laws Committee with 22 members and instructed thisCommittee with the preparation of By-Laws. In its firstmeeting on 28 June 1978 at Paris, this Committee firstelected Mr H. Mulder (NL) as president and Mr D.Hijmans (NL) as secretary, since only these two personswere known by the Committee members for a goodknowledge of the three official languages. The Committeediscussed several principles to be included in theBy-Laws and made decisions on 25 September 1978 atLondon, on 12 and 13 December 1978 at Amsterdamand on 29 March 1979 at Brussels.A working group consisting of Messrs. J.S. Bushel(GB), C.E. Eder (CH), M. Lemoine (FR) and J.E. Schönhöfer(DE) held six meetings over several days (at Luxembourg,Basel, Regensdorf, London, Brussels andBasel). In these meetings, the working group workedout a first draft for By-Laws with the help of the By-Lawsof national bodies and considered the decisions of theBy-Laws Committee. The By-Laws Committee wasinformed of the work and asked for its approval. ThisCommittee had a meeting at Munich on the 18/19March 1980. It discussed the draft and brought it to theCouncil for approval. The Council asked in its meetingon 28 and 29 May 1980 at Milan for some modificationand thereafter put into force the final wording of theBy-Laws in its meeting on 4 November 1980 at Vienna.At the same meeting, the By-Laws Committee whichconsisted of 22 members was dissolved. Furthermore,the Council set up a new By-Laws Committee consistingof the four members of the working group and fixed itsterms of reference. The following persons have beenmembers of the Committee:1980–1982 J.S. Bushel1980–2010 C.E. Eder1980–1987 M. Lemoine1980–1987 J.E. Schönhöfer1983–1988 G. Edmunds1987–2000 K.-F. Dräger1987–1993 C. Madeuf1988– T.L. Johnson1993–1996 L. Nuss1996–2008 T. Schuffenecker2000–2005 L. Steiling2005– D. Speiser2008– P.J. Moutard2010– J. JantschyThe protocols show that the Council in its later meetingsvery often issued rules, set up Committees and fixedterms of reference as well as made other decisions,which had to be effective for an unlimited validity period.As it has become more and more difficult to find all thesedecisions and to get and to keep an overview, theBy-Laws Committee itself prepared a systematic collectionof all decisions made by the Council with the help ofpreliminary work by the president of the EPPC, Mr FelixJenny. The By-Laws Committee also prepared a draft fora decision for entering and keeping this collection inforce and asked the Council for approval. The Councilapproved the proposals on 3 October 1994 at Funchalwhereupon the Secretariat handed out to each Councilmember a complete loose-leaf-collection.Over the years, it has become more and more difficultand expensive to deliver the corresponding documentation,i. e. all the old and the new papers to all Councilmembers, especially to the new elected substitute Councilmembers and the new elected committee members.As the complete collection of decisions was held incomputer record of the Secretariat and was accessibleto the public through the internet, the Council decided inits meeting on 27 and 28 May 2008 at Vilnius that theupdated collection of decisions must be accessible to allmembers of the Institute via the internet and no paperedition shall be delivered. The collection of decisions hasbeen made fully accessible, not only to the members ofthe institute, but also to the public since 2010.Next Board and Council MeetingsBoard Meetings84 th Board meeting on 19 March 2011in Hungary/BudapestCouncil Meetings70 th Council meeting on 23-24 May 2011in Ireland/Dublin71 st Council Meeting on 5 November 2011in Germany/Darmstadt