Minutes from the ICOH National
Secretaries meeting - Europe,

on 13 October 2001 in Prague, Czech Republic.

Participants:
Ruddy Facci (chair)
Milan Horvath (Czech Republic)
Giacomo Muzi (Italy)
Arne Wennberg (Sweden).

Invited countries :
Hungary - Gabor Galgoczy
Slovenia - Metka Terzan

1. The Chairman opened the meeting and welcomed the participants.
Arne Wennberg was invited to work as “ad-hoc secretary ”

2. News from ICOH (Chairman).

ICOH is working in many directions and on many levels. One of the main goals with all work within ICOH is “transparency” and this is important. All messages are sent to all officers and transparency should be within the whole organisation, on and between all levels.

The ICOH budget is aimed at improving knowledge and to prepare meetings where ICOH has agreed to pay for participants. But the budget is very restricted. ICOH is not a bank, and has no intention of being one.

ICOH cooperates with several organisations, such as the International Ergonomics Association, International Occupational Hygiene Association, ISSA, ILO and WHO.

In connection with the Singapore congress, a special group for language matters was created. This group has decided to propose Spanish as a third official ICOH language (together with English and French). This proposal will be presented to the Board meeting in Rome in March next year.

A task group has updated The Code of Ethics. It has also been translated to Spanish.

Another group is presently working on ICOH Benefits / Fees. The question is “What does ICOH do for me?” This is an important question, primarily related to the membership fee. Different fees for different categories and/or different countries have been discussed. But the most important task is to convince members that a membership is really worth the money.

The ICOH website is now working very well : The Website address is: http://www.icohweb.org

Three new networks have been created: (1) Education and Training, (2) Information and Communication Technology and (3) Women, Work and Health.

3. Tasks for and proposals from the National Secretaries.

The National Secretary for Germany has proposed that the President should produce a one page Newsletter two or three times per year and this should be sent to all National Secretaries to be translated to the language of his/her own country and then distributed to all members in the country. The meeting supported this proposal. It is important that each secretary has an updated list of members. Such a list can be obtained from the ICOH secretariat (contact Mrs. Saadiah Awek) (icohsg@signet.com.sg).

The number of members should be increased. This was discussed in Singapore and it was decided that this is an important task for the National Secretaries. A goal was set: 25 per cent increase during 2001 and another 25 per cent during 2002. This could be easy for those countries that presently have few members, while more effort probably is needed in countries with a larger number of members.

Ruddy Facci sent earlier this year a mail to all National Secretaries with five questions to be answered. So far, only 25 per cent have answered. This is not good. It was decided that these questions should be mailed once more and all National Secretaries should kindly take the time needed to reply.

It was proposed at the meeting that ICOH should establish a link to a scientific journal, or, even better, start its own journal. The latter has, however, been tried but was not, for different reasons, very successful. In such a journal, it should be possible to publish results and reports from the Scientific Committees.

It proposed that organising joint meetings involving several Scientific Committees would be an important task for ICOH. Perhaps meetings of ICOH members on a national level could be a good way to improve the position and reputation of ICOH. One way of doing this could be to encourage the national members to participate in some other national meeting, and then organise an ICOH members discussion during that meeting.

Break for Lunch

4. General Discussion and discussion of what is of benefit to the ICOH members.

All members should be encouraged to participate in Scientific Committees. Each Committee has to have one international meeting during each triennium.

The Scientific Committees should be encouraged to organise their international meetings in developing countries in order to make it easier for members in such countries to participate. It is expensive for these members to pay air tickets to Europe and North America and also to stay there during the meeting.

Meetings not organised by ICOH and its Scientific Committees could in many cases involve such a Committee as co-organiser. This should be encouraged and it could also be possible for ICOH to financially support a couple of participants, preferably from a developing country.

It was discussed whether it could be possible to start an ICOH Scientific Report series. As an example of making such report at very low cost, the Swedish Work Life 2000 Workshop Reports were mentioned. Something similar, where the Scientific Committees should be responsible for the text, would probably improve the position for ICOH.

It should be stressed that free membership of one or several Scientific Committees is an important benefit for the ICOH members.

It was mentioned that India proposed, at the Singapore congress, that the membership fee should be put in relation to the GNP (Growth National Product) for each country. A fee related to the number of members in the country has also been proposed, but that would be more complicated and probably result in very strange differences between different countries.

It was discussed if some kind of accreditation could be of benefit for members and membership. It was decided that ICOH should not have the task of giving accreditation to individuals. However, membership of ICOH, should be of value in an individual’s CV. It is probably already so in some countries. This is, however, something that not could be ruled by ICOH.

It was proposed that an ICOH member application form should be attached to the next congress announcement.

5. The 27th ICOH Congress in Iguassu Falls, Brazil, 23-28 February 2003.

Chairman reported the status for the Congress and the 2nd Announcement was handed out for distribution.

The congress will perhaps be larger than any of the previous conferences. The main theme will be “Equity in OH” and all Keynote presentations (in all 10) will, in different way, be related to this theme. The will also be Round Table discussions (totally 26) with contents related to the Keynote presentations. The Congress Scientific Committee will decide upon the content of and participation in these discussions.

About 70 mini-symposia will be organised by the ICOH Scientific Committees, which are responsible for the programme, content and participation.

There will also be free oral sessions with up to 500 presentations and poster sessions with up to 1000 posters.

The ICOH National Secretaries are expected to participate in the Congress and also to take an active part in the different sessions. In order to make it possible for the Congress Scientific Committee to put the Secretaries in sessions, where their competence is best used, the Secretaries should inform the committee about their particular competence. They will later get a question about this and are kindly encouraged to reply properly.

6. The meeting was closed and the chairman thanked the participants for their active participation in the meeting and reminded them that the next National Secretaries’ meeting will be held in Iguassu Falls, in Brazil, in February 2003, when all the National Secretaries are expected to participate.

Dr. Metka Terzan was invited to be the ICOH National Secretary for Slovenia , and she has accepted.

In 2002 there is supposed to be a National Secretaries meeting in Africa and another one in Asia.

All Secretaries will get the agendas as soon as they are ready.

Arne Wennberg
Secretary ad-hoc

Ruddy Facci
ICOH Vice President