IFSR Newsletter 1996 Vol. 15 No. 2 June
IFSR President Bela H. Banathy, IFSR Newsletter 1996 Vol. 15 No. 2 June
Bela H. Banathy
Your Executive Committee is most appreciative and is encouraged by the fine participation at the April Board meeting and, most significantly, the willingness of our member organizations to work on the goals of IFSR. For some member this meeting was their first. We welcomed the Presidents of the Korean, Polish and Slovenian Systems Societies and the representative of the Italian Society. The Slovenian Systems Society and the Instituto Andino de Sistemas of Peru were admitted as new members. Representatives of several potential new member organizations were also present.
The Board has resolved to engage in joint action in the carrying out of the purposes of IFSR by establishing a Standing Committee for each of the IFSR purposes. Several member organizations have already appointed representatives to the Committees. The Committees will be self organized and will proceed with their work. A member of the Executive Committee will serve as a liaison to the Committee. The definition of the Committees’ tasks comprised the agenda for the Saturday Strategy meeting (April 13).
As we enter into a new phase of our joint work, we should remind ourselves that we can only build on the pioneering work accomplished by those who established and guided us through the earlier years of IFSR. At the meeting we paid special tribute to Robert Trappl, George Klir, Gerrit Brokstra, and Gerhard de Zeeuw, Past Presidents of IFSR. We welcomed Prof. Dr. Robert Trappl as Chair of the newly established IFSR Advisory Board.
At the Board meeting we reported on the new status of Systems Research, the Newsletter, membership development, the IFSR Book Series, the Fuschl Conversations, the sponsorship of the Ashby lectures and the EMCSR meeting, and a sponsored research project. We now add to these a set of tasks in which the Standing Committees are engaged. Our overall aim – shared with all member societies – is to empower IFSR to become a dynamic living and creative Federation, which will attain its purposes and make contributions to this member organization and the global systems community.
The Board unanimously voted for an additional two years’ term for members of the Executive Committee. Members of the Committee expressed their appreciation of the Board’s confidence and pledged their continuing services to the Federation.