Chairman Cees de Jager welcomed the representatives and invited people. He proposes to change the agenda at one point (11).
Ratislav Skoda announces the creation of a Slovakian skeptical society, which has for the moment some 40 members, mostly academicians. Irishman Peter O’ Hara assists at the meeting since there a skeptical organisation does not currently exist in Ireland.
Stephan Matthiesen presents the new association, being the first real national skeptical organisation in the United Kingdom. It has already some 100 members/
Some questions arise about ASKE’s relation with The Skeptic magazine, which already existed in Britain since 1987 but remains independent from ASKE. Mike Hutchinson regrets that ASKE began with publishing his own review The Skeptical Intelligencer, which is more than a simple newsletter and will be in competition with The Skeptic. However he is certainly not opposed to the new association, of which he is personally a member.
The membership application of ASKE is unanimously accepted.
The term of the chairman (C. de Jager) ends this year; he is available for re-election. No other candidates being nominated, he is unanimously elected for a new term of three years.
Treasurer Tim Trachet presents a report of the financial situation. All the member organisations have paid they contribution or explicitly promised to do so during the World Congress in Heidelberg. On the other hand, there are no real budgetary difficulties. Since representatives of some East European countries have financial problems to participate at foreign meetings, the treasurer proposes to schedule a financial aid for future meetings.
Copies of the Annual Report are distributed during. The ECSO board proposes to include in the report some articles published by the member organisation that could be of global interest. Stephan Matthiesen proposes to include a list of publications and gadgets sold by the member organisation.
Wim Betz, co-ordinator of the working group, already gave a resume of his activities during the congress session on alternative medicine. His contacts with members of the European Parliament and his activities in the COST B4 European programme on scientific evaluation of alternative medicine. His e-mails about the European situation of alternative medicine received interesting reaction, esp. by people in Norway and the Netherlands and Dr. Habermann (Germany). He makes a appeal to other organisations to give the names of their medical experts so that he can put them on his e-mail list.
Barry Karr suggests to initiate a CSICOP mailing list about health.
Wim Betz insists that it is important that each organisation should contact European MPs in its own country. In trying to influence politicians, it is better to use slogans than voluminous scientific reports, he argues. The Council thanks Dr. Betz for his work and mandates him to speak in ECSO’s name with the European authorities.
Jan Willem Nienhuys, ECSO responsible for the 1999 congress (in The Netherlands), announces that Maastricht will be the meeting place, being a symbolic city for Europe well situated, not far from Belgium and Germany, and attractive from a touristic point of view. The local university agrees to receive us. As date September 17-19 is accepted. In case there are problems with the date from the point of view of the university, a week earlier our later will be chosen, with a slight preference to move it a week later. A Call for Papers is launched. The theme will be "Pseudoscience in the 21st Century".
It was already agreed that the Czech organisation Sisyfos should organise the 2001 Congress. Jir i Her t announces that the project for a meeting in Prague is supported by the president of the Czech Academy of Sciences and by the new Czech minister of Health. As a theme, he proposes postmodernism, since this current is very popular among Czechs and even President Vaclav Havel is known as a supporter.
The Chairman requested all organisations to think about proposals.
Paul Kurtz and Richard Gordon announce that the Third World Congress will probably organised in 2000 in Sidney, Australia, just before the Olympic Games there. Paul Kurtz hopes that a minimum of Europeans will be present, although he realises that distance may be a problem. He asked for a co-ordinator to be appointed to co-ordinate the mailing in Europe.
The Fourth World Congress should probably be organised in 2002 in Los Angeles.
It is in the opinion of the Board that ECSO is not yet strong enough to have a real documentation centre. However, the member organisation are asked to exchange their periodicals. Since there is of course a language problem, it is suggested that the periodicals should include abstracts in English. Wendy Grossmann proposes that it should be easier if the organisations communicate abstracts via e-mail
The Chairman made elaborated the proposal to organise a European opinion poll about pseudosciences. Each organisation should organise the same kind of poll in this country, with a uniform questionnaire prepared by a small committee.
Some practical objections were raised. It was remarked that such polls already exists in some countries. Paul Kurtz suggests that a pilot project in two our three countries should be executed first. Robert König (GWUP) will be asked to draw some concrete proposals. All the member organisations are asked to send the results of such opinion polls in their countries to the secretary.
The next meeting will be during the next European Congress in Maastricht, September 1999.
Minutes made by Tim Trachet