Copenhagen 2007 - Fashioning Technology

Report by the President
The General Assembly was opened by the President, Hans-Joachim Braun. He thanked local organisers Jan Tapdrup and his team. He also thanked Barton Hacker, the rest of the Programme Committee, and ICOHTEC officers for their efforts. He was of the opinion that the symposium had started in a promising way and that it will be a good model to emulate for future ICOHTEC conference organizers.
Furthermore, the President transmitted news related to the celebration of the anniversary that SHOT will have during its 2007 meeting in Washington, DC.
The President proposed the following changes to the By-laws, Article 14 (black = old text, green = revisions):

The Executive Committee will consist of the five officers (Article 17), the immediate past president, the immediate past secretary general, and twelve other members. The five officers are to be elected by ballot at the regular meeting of the General Assembly every four years and three of the other twelve members are to be elected by ballot at the regular meeting of the General Assembly every year; unless one third of the members present at the General Assembly requests a postal ballot of all members currently in benefit, in which event the secretary general shall conduct such a postal ballot within one month of the General Assembly. Elected members to the Executive Committee shall not serve for more than three consecutive terms of four years each.
He also proposed to change the Article 17 in a way that the president will serve one term of four years and other officers up to three successive terms. The assembly accepted these changes.

Election of the New Executive Committee
When the General Assembly at the Leicester symposium decided that the new executive committee was to be elected at the General Assembly in Copenhagen, a nomination committee was elected to prepare the matter. That committee was chaired by James Williams; other members were Mats Fridlund, Alex Keller and Erich Pauer. After hearing the proposal of the nomination committee modified by the old Executive Committee, the assembly discussed the following:

Nominees:
 1 year term: Vasily Borisov*, Tatsuya Kobayashi*, Karel Zeithammer*
 2 year term: Paula Maria Diogo, Mats Fridlund*, David Zimmerman*
 3 year term: Takehiko Hashimoto, Thomas Kaiserfeld, Eva Vamos
 4 year term: Patrick Bret*, Serafina Cuomo, Rebecca Herzig
 * = present in the Copenhagen symposium

This proposal was also accepted unanimously. It was proposed that the following past presidents will continue to act as the members of the Executive Committee:
• R. Angus Buchanan *
• Alexandre Herlea *
• Carroll Pursell
Also this proposal was accepted without objections.

Report by the Secretary General
The Secretary General, Timo Myllyntaus, explained strategic lines accepted in the Beijing symposium and how ICOHTEC had followed those lines during the past year. The website has been reformed, the renovation of the Newsletter continues and a series of country reports has been started.
He reported about the plans concerning the future symposia. The 35the symposium will be held in Victoria, Canada from Tuesday 5 to Sunday 10 August 2008. The Executive Committee had discussed during the spring via email the main theme and the title of the symposium, and its suggestion is “Crossing Borders in the History of Technology”. The chair of the Local organising committee, David Zimmerman, reported briefly about the preparation of the Victoria symposium mentioning that his staff was ahead of the schedule in several matters. In addition, the website of the Victoria symposium has been opened at http://icohtec.uvic.ca/
After discussion, the General Assembly decided to nominate the following colleagues to the programme committee for 2008: Mats Fridlund (chair), Lars Bluma, Finn Arne Jørgensen and Joy Parr.
The assembly decided that the committe’s first task will be to prepare a Call for Papers in cooperation with ICOHTEC officers and LOC by mid-September. The CfP should include subthemes, instructions for preparing a paper and session proposals. After discussion, it was decided to experiment with a double deadline for paper and session proposals in order to support participants’ efforts to apply for travel grants. The first deadline will expire on Monday 14 January (for those needing early decision) and Monday 3 March (for others).

The secretary general reported on the forthcoming 23rd International Congress of History of Science and Technology, to be held in Budapest on 26 – 31 July, 2009. The main theme will be Ideas and Instruments in Social Context. The congress has opened its website, which is available at: www.conferences.hu/ichs09 .

The meeting decided that we will aim at 3 to 4 ICOHTEC -sessions and that everybody is invited to submit paper and session proposals until the deadline on 3 March 2008. The executive committee will make the decision on the basis of the proposal by the programme committee in early June, because ICHST has set the deadline for symposia proposals on 30 June 2008.

The following three persons were elected to the programme committee: Reinhold Bauer (chair), Finn Arne Jørgensen, and Outi Ampuja. The committee’s tasks were similar to those of the Victoria programme committee. Its immediate task will also be to prepare a Call for Papers in cooperation with ICOHTEC officers and LOC by mid-September.
The secretary general reminded colleagues that in Leicester the General Assembly discussed the symposium of 2010 and asked for further information on the proposal of the Finnish city Tampere. He had prepared guidelines on organising a joint meeting with TICCIH. After the General Assembly discussed these guidelines and the cooperation of ICOHTEC and TICCIH in the preparation of the joint meeting, it decided that the venue of the 2010 symposium will be Tampere. After that resolution, the assembly authorized the president and the general secretary to negotiate with the LOC and representative of TICCIH on organising of the joint symposium. It was discussed dates and the assembly ended to recommend the period Tuesday 10 – Sunday 15 August to the dates of the symposium.

Report by the Treasurer
In his report, the treasurer Wolfhard Weber mentioned that the economic situation of ICOHTEC has remained stable. The accounts were examined by Angus Buchanan, whose conclusion was that ICOHTEC has been run prudently and its finances are on a sound basis.
Weber also reported that during 2006 the number of members had increased slightly and that he had managed to collect more annual fees than in 2005. In addition, the treasurer announced that the Turriano Foundation had decided to donate annually 2000 euros to ICOHTEC to support graduate students to participate in our symposia.

Report by the Editor
Alex Keller reported on the editing of ICON and regretted to inform members that there have been some delays. However, ICON volume 12 is almost ready. It is in the proof stage and will be out this autumn. It was decided that James Williams will be the guest editor of volume 13 (Copenhagen volume) and Bart Hacker will edit the volume 14 (Military history volume). It was the assembly’s wish that these two volumes will be published by the end of 2008.

Report by the Newsletter Editor
The Newsletter editor Stefan Poser was sorry to report that disturbing external messages had been distributed via ICOHTEC’s mailing list. He hoped that this problem will soon be sorted out. Then he informed members about an ongoing reform of the Newsletter, the main aim of which is to diversify the contents of this publication. Series of bibliographies and country reports have been started. He suggested that members became more active in submitting their contributions and announcements to the Newsletter.

General Discussion
Attendants agreed on the importance of communication. Discussants were pleased that ICOHTEC’s website was reformed during the past academic year. Its graphical style was considered elegant; nevertheless, the utilisation of available opportunities further was proposed. After discussion, the assembly proposed that ICOHTEC’s website should be updated more frequently in the future, and that more information should be provided to members.
The President, Hans-Joachim Braun, thanked all attendants for participating in the General Assembly and its lively discussions. Thereafter, he closed the meeting at 19:58.