Minutes of Meeting of General Assembly in Venice at the 14th Congress, 1998
1 Opening
The Chairman, Gioia Meconcelli Notariani, opened the meeting and welcomed the members present.
2 Previous Minutes
The Minutes of the 1995 General Assembly were unanimously adopted.
3 Treasurer’s Report
Joh. Krul reported on the Income and Expenditure for the financial year ending 31st December 1997 which showed a deficit of Dfl. 25.337,54, and the Balance Sheet for the same period which showed the Association’s capital to be Dfl. 88.166,87. The documents were distributed to members before the meeting. The deficit resulted from the costs incurred in publishing the 1995 Congress Annales. He noted that financial support for the publication had been received from some members, and appreciation was expressed for this generosity. Warm thanks to Annet van Wiechen for her assistance were also expressed. The Auditing Committee, represented by Pierre Stumper, had reviewed the accounts of the Association and stated that they were a correct reflection of the financial position. The Treasurer’s report was unanimously approved.
4 Auditing Committee
Pierre Stumper was proposed and re-elected for 1998-2001 and Jan-Egbert Kuipers was proposed and elected for the same period, both by a majority show of hands.
5 Election of the Board of Management and the Officers
The Chairman did not wish to offer herself for re-election to the Board. She was thanked for her services over the last three years. The Deputy Chairman, Anne Hochuli-Gysel, the General Secretary, Keith King, and The Treasurer, offered themselves for re-election in the same executive capacities. The meeting of the Executive Committee before the General Assembly had proposed Jennifer Price, Anne Vanlatum, and David Whitehouse to serve as Board members.
From the floor, Wladimiro Dorigo proposed Ermanno Arslan, and Ermanno Arslan proposed Wladimiro Dorigo as Board members. These proposals were not considered further as a) Article 9 of the Statutes of AIHV requires recommendations for election to come from ten members and to be submitted before the meeting of the General Assembly, and b) the candidates were unwilling to serve on the Board.
Anne Hochuli-Gysel, Keith M King and Joh. Krul were re-elected to the Board for 1998-2001, and Jennifer Price, Anne Vanlatum and David Whitehouse were elected for the same period.
The Executive Committee proposed Jennifer Price to serve as the Chairman of the Association for 1998-2001, and she was unanimously elected.
6 Election of the Members of the Executive Committee
The membership consists of up to six members elected by the General Assembly, and the Chairmen of the National Committees. The current elected members, Silvia Funfschilling, Axel von Saldern, Marianne Stern and Marie Dominique Nenna, were re-elected by a show of hands. No new members were elected.
7 Report of the General Secretary
- AIHV now has 460 personal and institutional members from 32 countries.
- A questionnaire was sent out to members in autumn 1996 and over 150 responses were received. The results showed that the composition of membership interests in different historical periods is well balanced. Those primarily working in pre-Roman, Roman and Medieval glass were equal in number to those working on Renaissance to 18th century glass, and those interested in 19th and 20th century glass were not far behind. The questionnaire provided useful information about how members would like the Congresses to be organised, including the duration, the length of the papers, and the merits of simultaneous sessions. For the congress in Italy more coherence in the treatment of subjects had been attempted by emphasising the relationship between form and function; artistic culture; taste and design; use and markets; and production technology. It was hoped that this approach would offer a more rounded programme, setting subjects within their historic, socio-economic and aesthetic contexts. Comments from members about this experiment will be welcomed.
- It was hoped that AIHV would evolve into a more communicative
and dynamic forum, working with
other cultural and scientific
institutions and using new communication
technologies. Three initiatives to be considered by the General
Assembly were outlined:
- An internet site to collate and disseminate news about forthcoming congresses, conferences and exhibitions in the history of glass. Information might be provided in the form of a newsletter on the AIHV website and emailed to members, with a printed copy for members without email. This project would require a network of correspondents in member countries to provide information, operating through national committees and through close links with related organisations.
- Weekend conferences and thematic study sessions to be organised with some of our national committees and friends in other organisations. Members were requested to develop this activity.
- The glass section of ICOM has asked AIHV to consider the co-ordination of the timing of the congresses and meetings of the two organisations, as their goals were complementary and many people were members of both. It was therefore proposed to bring forward the date of the next but one AIHV Congress [ie the 16th] by one year to 2003 to avoid a clash with the ICOM Glass meeting in 2004.
- The Board had received an invitation from the Corning Museum of Glass to host the 15th Congress in USA in 2001 and hoped that the membership would endorse the Board’s recommendation to accept their offer. 2001 will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Corning Museum of Glass, and Corning plans to inaugurate a major new conference facility and to redesign the exhibition areas before the congress. An major exhibition of Islamic glass, Glass of the Sultans, is planned to coincide with the date of the congress and will be co-organised with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Board had also received an invitation from the British national committee for the 16th Congress of AIHV to be held in London in 2003. and hoped that the membership would also approve this offer.
Thanks were given to the Deputy Chairman and the Treasurer for their help and support; the Secretary and Editor, Annet von Wiechen, for the smooth running of the international secretariat and for the efficient production of the 13th Annales for publication; the members of the Italian Congress Organising Committee for generously giving their time to the organisation of this Congress; and the Chairman, Gioia Meconcelli Notariani, who through difficult personal circumstances had courageously pursued her professional engagements and steered the AIHV towards this most successful Congress.
8 Any other business
It was commented that there were too many people at the Congress and that the programme lacked a guiding theme, while others expressed the view that the Congress should be open to all wishing to attend and the programme should cover as wide a number of subjects as possible to reflect the Association’s international status.
It was also thought that the proposal to hold weekend conferences was not to be recommended as there are already many other events in glass and in other fields which created heavy demands, while other members supported the proposal as a welcome extension to AIHV activities between the triennial international Congresses.
The matter of the official languages of AIHV was raised. These are French, English and German, and in certain circumstances the language of the host country is used in Congress communications and the Annales. French and English are used in all mailings. Several members argued that Italian should be added to the list of official languages of AIHV because of the volume and importance of the work being undertaken in Italy and the large number of Italian members of AIHV. This led to a lively and prolonged debate, as other members argued that the best course for making the AIHV congresses and publications universally accessible contributions to knowledge would be to reduce the number of permitted languages to two or one. As the matter could not be resolved at the meeting of the General Assembly it was proposed that the meeting should appoint the Board and Executive Committee to examine the issue of AIHV adopting more languages. This motion was carried by a majority show of hands, with eight members opposing it and one abstaining.
The meeting was closed by the new chairman, Jennifer Price, who noted that the vigorous discussions during the General Assembly was a sign of the health of AIHV, showing that the membership cared deeply about its affairs and its future. She hoped that the issues would be considered thoroughly by the Board and Executive Committee before being brought to the next General Assembly in 2001, and encouraged members to make contact with the Board on this and other issues raised in the meeting.