Council Meetings of ISUF, 2003

ISUF Council Meetings were held during the Trani conference, between 4 and 6 July. The meetings included reports from the President, the Secretary-Treasurer and the Editor of Urban Morphology. Among other matters discussed were the ISUF conferences in 2004 and 2005, the web site and the future of ISUF more generally.

President's report

The President, Anne Vernez Moudon, began by noting that the group was meeting for the tenth time. The anniversary prompted her to stress that it was time to ask questions about the future rather than the past. The past did, however, offer cause for both encouragement and reflection in looking forward.

The experience of the ISUF members taking part in the International Urban Form Study workshop in Seoul was extremely positive and Moudon felt the project offered a possible model for future events. With the potential to form the basis for major publications, the project was a significant and palpable manifestation of the genuinely international status of ISUF. The workshop and associated keynote lectures, which attracted large audiences, also raised the prospect of increasing membership in Korea. Other encouraging signs included the widening circulation of Urban Morphology, improvements to the web site and the good attendance at the fourth major conference. Causes for reflection were the mixed success of the commissions and working parties and the limited scope of the web services.

Moudon moved on to what emerged as the central topic of the meeting, the future of ISUF. Both J.W.R. Whitehand and David Prosperi, who attended the meeting as adviser to the Council, had prepared reports on possible directions for the organization. Moudon felt that there was a need to develop on two main fronts. First, it was crucial that ISUF reviewed the services it offered to members. The fundamental service was the exchange and communication of information with the aim of building and disseminating knowledge. The principal means the organization had to achieve that aim were the journal, the web site, conferences and seminars. It needed to do more.

The second matter for attention was the administrative structure of the organization as a whole and of its sub-groups. Moudon asked the Council to consider a number of points for immediate action: formulate a plan of services to members; set out a timetable identifying their timing and frequency (given available resources); prepare written job descriptions for Officers and Council Members; develop written specifications for other administrative duties, conference procedures, and commissions and working parties; and establish an application process for those wishing to take up a position, propose a working party or commission, or host a conference or seminar.

For the mid- to long-term, Moudon suggested a number of further actions: separate admin-istration and communication from academic and scholarly functions (for example, the journal should not be the main channel for disseminating administrative business); increase the frequency of communication between Officers and Council Members on the one hand and the rest of the membership on the other; formalize the non-profit status of the organization and establish a bank account in Switzerland, where accounts do not attract fees for currency exchange.

Summarizing, Moudon reiterated that the big issues for ISUF are clarifying and elaborating the services offered and the administrative structure of the organization.

Secretary-Treasurer's report

Michaël Darin's report as Secretary-Treasurer began with a financial review. Income from subscriptions for the two years to July 2003 was £11 000. A small amount of money had been lost owing to administrative problems in Groningen. The balance in the current account was about £4000 and in the deposit account about £9000.

On non-financial matters Darin identified two main issues. One was the fact that there were no longer ISUF bank accounts in either the Nether-lands or the USA. This exacerbated the problem of the cost of currency exchange, a problem that would be avoided if a Swiss account were opened, as suggested by the President.

The second issue was the nature of the post of Secretary-Treasurer. This related to the changing nature of the organization as noted by Moudon and discussed in more detail in the reports by Whitehand and Prosperi. In Darin's view, the post as presently constituted was no longer suited to the changing nature of the organization. He felt that the functions of the post required two separate officers. In line with the idea of setting out more detailed job descriptions, the separate positions of Secretary and Treasurer should have specific duties, with a clear indication of the authority delegated to each.

Darin announced that he wished to step down from the post of Secretary-Treasurer as soon as possible after appointments to the new positions of Secretary and Treasurer had been agreed.

Editor's report

The Editor, J.W.R. Whitehand, reviewed the main editorial developments over the past year. The main change had been that Michael Conzen had become Book Review Editor. The editorial team had kept to schedule. Michael Conzen's success in identifying the urban morphological literature worldwide and securing expert reviewers had allowed enlargement of the book review section. In general, contributions to the journal by authors from outside the English-speaking world were not as numerous as the Editorial Board would have wished. The rejection rate for articles remained at about 60 per cent. There were just enough good quality articles to sustain two issues of the journal per year. The time-lag between the receipt of revised articles and publication was very short. The journal continued to suffer from a relatively low profile. This was not helped by the fact that libraries were struggling to meet the increasing cost of subscriptions to periodicals and were consequently reluctant to add new journals. However, Urban Morphology was now covered by the main indexing and abstracting journals. It was noted that the journal was one of the least expensive academic journals of its kind and that more should be made of the fact. Whitehand agreed and suggested in response that developing the administrative structure of the organization as envisaged by the President and others provided the opportunity to include a publicity officer, a post Whitehand felt was highly desirable.

Elections and the future of ISUF

As advertised in Urban Morphology, Volume 7, Number 1, an election to three vacancies on the Council was to take place at the General Meeting of ISUF. The incumbents, Professors Whitehand, Petruccioli and Malfroy, had agreed to continue for a further term. No other nominations had been received by the 1 June deadline. Prosperi expressed concern that the range of people involved in the organization, both at the executive level and in the Council, was not being widened. He advocated making the administrative procedures more open, citing other, larger, academic and community organizations as models. He suggested that in lieu of an immediate change in procedures, the Council should exercise its right to co-opt members. However, a number of members said they valued the small, intimate nature of the organization and would regret these characteristics being lost. Nevertheless, it was also acknowledged that, with several Council Members nearing retirement age, it was important that a larger number of younger members took on organizational roles if ISUF was to continue to thrive.

A point that attracted broad consensus was that, in the process of widening membership and participation, it was important to reinforce the core ideas and principles that had brought ISUF into existence. It was suggested that recognition of this be underlined at the major biennial conferences by including specific sessions on core typological and morphological theory, such as the session that had been organized during ISUF 2001 in Cincinnati. It was further suggested that the inclusion of such sessions could be mandated as minimum content in the specifications for hosting a conference. Another idea floated was to include a `keynote' speaker or theme paper for each session to identify and review relevant central theory.

It was agreed to overhaul working procedures to facilitate faster, more effective action. The authority of the principal Officers (the President, Secretary-Treasurer and Editor) to make executive decisions, including, for example, appointing a publicity officer, was emphasized. This was seen as a step towards clarifying the distinction between the `executive' function of the Officers and the `legislative' function of the Council.

Tasks identified for the Officers, assisted by Prosperi, included drafting job descriptions for Officers, drawing up specifications for conferences, seminars, commissions and working parties and setting up administrative procedures for inviting and evaluating applications for the same. It was also agreed to proceed with establishing non-profit status for ISUF in Switzerland and obtaining a Swiss bank account.

Other business

A proposal to set up a new Working Party on Spatial Technologies and Urban Form was approved in principle. This would replace the Working Party on GIS and Cartography. The Chair and Secretary would be Dr Keith Lilley, of the School of Geography, Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Proposals for the membership of the Working Party were to be submitted to the Secretary-Treasurer for formal approval by the Council.

Arrangements for ISUF 2004, to be held in Glasgow and Newcastle upon Tyne, were approved. A decision on the venue of ISUF 2005 was deferred, pending the drawing up of more formal guidelines for the submission of offers from institutions.

The status, contents and management of the ISUF web site were to be the subject of further action.

Karl S. Kropf, Roger Evans Associates, Kidlington, UK and Urban Morphology Research Group, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. E-mail: kkropf@rogerevans.com