xxth GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF IUGG VIENNA (AUSTRIA)

IAGA NEWS N0.29
both of the meetings of Executive Committee held between
Assemblies. This had, indeed, been recommended by the
Executive Committee retiring in 1983 to the incoming
Executive Commit tee. After discuss ion it had been felt
that a new Executive Committee should meet in the first
year of its quadrennium [Minute II, 1984: IAGA News
No.23, page 43 (1984)]. There were critical items on the
agenda of the current meeting of the Executive Committee
which would have made it unwise not to hold this
meeting. The conclusion drawn was that, while it would
be financially good not to have the Executive Committee
meeting between Assemblies, it was simply not practical
to carry out the business of the Executive Committee by
correspondence during the two two-year intervals between
Assemblies.
Part of the problem is that member countries are loath
to agree to an increase in the unit of subscription to
the Union and a motion for an increase had been defeated
at the 1983 General Assembly. Bearing in mind that it is
now over a decade since the last increase, and taking
note of the inflation of costs of travel and
subsistence, publishing, mailing, and telecommunications
during this period, the Executive Committee felt that
the difficulties of making ends meet at the Association
level were in part owing to there having been no
increase in the annual subvention available and received
from Union funds. The Secretary General was directed to
rehearse these matters to the Division and
InterDivisional Commission Leaders when advising them of
the level of support available for the General Assembly
in 1991.
The Secretary General reported that IAGA News No.28 had
been published in March, 1990, and that the copy for the
Transactions of the 1989 Scienti fie Assembly had been
sent for publication in the IUGG Chronicle on 10
September. He informed the Executive Committee t hat the
IUGG Publications Office in Paris was to cease operation
at the end of 1990 and that the responsibility for sales
of IAGA publications was being transferred to the
Association Secretariat (that is to say, to the
Secretary General: another job for him!).
The Secretary General reviewed decisions made anent two
requests for commercial use of the address lists of
authors published in section D of IAGA Bulletin No. 53.
One request had been satisfied by the Exeter Local
Organizing Committee providing a list of registrants at
the Assembly. The second applicant had been given a
negotiable price for use of the address list, in accord
with the wishes of the Executive Committee, but no reply
had been received and the Secretary General had had to
assume that the matter had been dropped.
The Secretary General closed by reporting that Working
Group II-G had been renamed "Ionospheric Irregularities,
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