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UIS BUREAU ANNUAL MEETING

April 19-20, 2006
Dept. of Geology, American University of Beirut - Lebanon


  Session 1,
Wednesday April 19, 2006
14:00 Beirut time		 Session 2,
Thursday April 20, 2006
8:30 Beirut time
President Andrew James EAVIS
Vice-Presidents Alexander KLIMCHOUK
  Pavel BOSÁK
Secretary General Fadi NADER
Adjunct Secretaries Carlos BENEDETTO
  Roman HAPKA
     Stein-Erik LAURITZEN
  Efrain MERCADO
  Andrej MIHEVC
  George VENI
  Kyung Sik WOO
Honorary Past-President Hubert TRIMMEL
Past-President Julia JAMES
Dept. Protection (Head) Jean-Pierre BARTHOLEYNS
Scribe Sandrine EL-NAWWAR


1 - OPENING SPEECH OF THE UIS PRESIDENT
The UIS President opened the meeting by welcoming all present officers. He announced that Fritz OEDL passed away on April 5, 2006, and made a brief account of OEDL's numerous achievements. Andrew Eavis ran through the Agenda of the meeting and declared the start of the 2006 Annual UIS Bureau Meeting.

2 - ELECTION CONFIRMATION FOR BUREAU MEMBERS
The last election results (Kalamos - Athens, August 2005) were announced. Official letters of appointments for all members of the 2005-2009 Bureau were distributed.

3 - APPROVING MINUTES OF LAST MEETING (Athens, August 2005)
1) All the members agreed that the preparation of the minutes of the last meeting took a lot of time and that the future minutes should be finalized in a more rapid time (less than a month for the annual meeting and three months for a General Assembly).
2) The minutes were approved.

4 - RESTS FROM THE PAST
1) Affiliated members: 2) UNESCO
The UIS should be represented in UNESCO through the heritage and protection department. A close UIS relationship with the IUCN should be sought (e.g. following the proposed Memorandum of Understanding with IUCN).

5 - THE LABEGALINI DOCUMENTS
All documents prepared by LABEGALINI should be incorporated into the Internal Regulations, except: 1) Instructions for ICS Organization and 2) the Code of Ethics.

1) GUIDELINES FOR ICS ORGANIZATION The bureau members agreed on the following:
  1. Accept to change the title to "ICS General Recommendations"
  2. Accept a few comments and amendments.
2) INTERNAL REGULATIONS
The Internal Regulations were reviewed item by item, including revisions proposed by Pavel BOSAK, George VENI, Paul WILLIAMS, Roman HAPKA and Fadi NADER, and were further modified and approved by all present Bureau members.

6 - FINANCES UPDATE
All UIS money was transferred to the Slovenian Bank account (total worth some 52,000 US Dollars). Fadi NADER will write a letter authorizing Mr Pavel BOSAK to act as UIS Treasurer. MIHEVC is charged to hire a company in Slovenia to annually audit UIS finances and meet associated legal obligations.

7 - THE BBS
The Bureau members agreed to pay the requested amount of money to P. Deriaz (2000 Euros) to work on the next BBS. The information should be spread without copyright. The Bibliographic Commission will be directed to examine means of reducing costs such as by distributing BBS via the Internet.

8 - IJS: ACTUAL SITUATION (BUDGET)
The Bureau members agreed on paying 5000 US $ to support publication of the next volume of the IJS, a sum requested by Jo De Waele and his team.

9 - COMMISSIONS AND WORKING GROUPS UPDATE
NADER wants a brief report from the commissions every 3 to 6 months to know what is happening in the various departments and commissions. It was approved by all Bureau meeting members that the commissions' work should be officially followed by one of the Vice-Presidents.

10 - NEW DELEGATES: Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand
APPROVED

11 - PROPOSAL FOR "WORKING GROUP FOR ARTS AND LETTERS"
The Bureau members approved the proposal for working group for Arts and Letters -submitted by Ian CHANDLER (Invitation to join this Group in the next UIS Bulletin).

12 - WEBSITE
1) The website should be for information, simplified, comprehensive and free for all. 2) It took some time to make changes and updates since Kalamos-Athens August 2005. Hopefully, such delays - mainly related to delays in providing data for webmasters - will be avoided in the future.

13 - KARST INFORMATION PORTAL (KIP): PROPOSAL FOR UIS TO BE MEMBER OF THE FOUR-MEMBER STEERING COMMITTEE
The UIS will take part of the KIP project and make sure that it incorporates all the existing similar efforts to avoid duplication and serves the UIS objectives as well. The Bureau decided to have KLIMCHOUK as their representative in the KIP project. KLIMCHOUK will be in the USA for this year as a visiting scholar.

14 - UIS BUREAU MEETING 2007
The present venue-possibilities for the 2007 UIS Bureau Meeting were discussed: The majority of the Bureau meeting members decided to go to FEALC (Puerto Rico); the ones who can will continue to Kerrville to check on the progress of the 15th ICS.

15 - 15th ICS
VENI made presented the organization work of the 15th ICS with a committee including 65 members. Bureau members agreed on a flag for the UIS.

16 - SLOVAKS-VENEZUELANS PROBLEM
1) The UIS should work more on the Code of Ethics and have a draft revised copy to revise, discuss, and possibly approve at the 2007 Bureau meeting.
2) An official letter will be sent from the Secretary General to both parties, inviting them to participate in a meeting during the FEALC Congress to resolve this problem.
3) MERCADO will coordinate a meeting with Mr Urbani and Mr Schmida in Puerto Rico next year.

17 - UPCOMING SPELEO-EVENTS
1) EUROPEAN REGIONAL CONFERENCE OF SPELEOLOGY
2) ESPELEOFORUM

18 - VARIA
1) Fadi NADER and Julia JAMES will follow up the UIS Brochure.
2) Arrigo CIGNA and Efrain MERCADO will attend ISCA Congress (mid October, Bermuda), representing the UIS Bureau.
3) KLIMCHOUK introduced the newly established Ukranian Speleological Institute.
4) MIHEVC gave a presentation on the proposed "Karst Museum" /Slovenia.

19 - CLOSURE
The President closed the 2nd session around 13:30 Beirut time by thanking everyone. Also, Secretary General thanked everyone for coming to Beirut.

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