Dear colleagues,
it appears that there are serious problems in the IFIP secretariat. When I phoned three days ago to the secratariat in order to reach Plamen Nedkov (the executive director, you may know him since he attended meeting 2/2002 in Lisbon) I was informed by Dorothy Hayden that Plamen has been put out of his job (and is not any more allowed to enter the secretariat) since last Friday.
I wanted to speak to Plamen in order to inform him about very good progress regarding the "IT and sports" initiative, especially about the possibility of organizing a first conference in Cologne in September 2004. When I made the first the contact with Deutsche Sporthochschule Koeln (German Sports University Cologne) concerning IT and sports (an initiative which was started by Plamen Nedkov one year ago) I did that without asking GI (Gesellschaft fuer Informatik, the national IFIP partner in Germany) in order to get the official permission to establish such a contact. Indeed, my discussions with the Sports University were absolutely informal until February 2003. At the occasion of the council meeting in Bilbao (March 2003) when Plamen reported on these contacts, apparently the IFIP president (Klaus Brunnstein) got the impression that Plamen and myself wanted to establish an IFIP event in Germany without any involvement of GI. Please believe me that this impression is not correct. I could clarify that with Klaus Brunnstein in a telephone call - and Klaus as well as GI (which has meanwhile been officially informed) declared that they support my initiative.
*However* my action (for which I apologize without feeling guilty in the slightest way!) as well as maybe some other events (perhaps of similar "relevance") appear to have disrupted the atmosphere between Klaus and Plamen in a way that dramatic actions have been taken with Plamen as an obvious victim.
As former TC6 chairman and as German delegate to TC6 I declare that I have always appreciated the work done by Plamen. Visibility of IFIP (and particularly of IFIP TC6) has been improved considerably by him. I feel that the preparation of activities would be significantly damaged without such an experienced person.
Thus I have two points:
a. Clear information of what happened in the IFIP secretariat (and why it happened). Would you, Augusto, ask for that information in your position in TC6 chairman? You could mention my phone call to Dorothy Hayden and my irritation about the IT and sports conference preparation (which has been sorted out but which still appears to remain in the backyard).
b. Secondly: Even if there have been problems or mistakes: Would it be impossible that the different parties come together and sort them out for the benefit of IFIP? This would be enormously welcomed by me and probably by lots of others. Personally, I foresee severe problems for IFIP if we cannot come to such a solution.
Best regards Otto Spaniol (TC6 delegate of Germany and former TC6 chairman)