At the 148th Joint Committee meeting (IFRF Board of Directors) held in Birmingham, UK, on 24th November 2003, a strong commitment was made to rethink radically our approach to IFRF technical and communications planning for the new activity Triennial 2004-2006.

This new plan should be ready for presentation at the 149th Joint Committee Meeting to be held at Noordwijkerhout, NL, on 11th May 2004, immediately preceding the 14th IFRF Members’ Conference.  It is of course planned to make a full presentation of our approach for the future, to our Members at MC14 (12th-14th May 2004).

We need to assimilate the feedback collected from our Members at the series of TOTeMs held in the last three years and via the National Committee meetings.  This activity is well in progress.  A new Services Development Working Group was set up and a first meeting was held at IJmuiden on Thursday 19th February 2004 – under the Chairmanship of Roger Dudill, Chairman of British Flame and main contact person for IFRF Member, Air Products.  The Japanese and the American Flame Research Committees are corressponding members of this working group.

 Roger Dudill
Chairman – British Flame

As we all know, one of the major changes in industrial life in recent years is the ever increasing rate at which change takes place. This in turn requires a new managment approach from IFRF.

Accordingly the Joint Committee formed a “Monitoring Council” for the new Activity Triennial comprising the Senior Officers of International Flame.  The name “Monitoring Council” is that used in the IFRF statutes/bylaws. In present situation the intention is for the Monitoring Council to provide an Executive Committee for the IFRF, to assist in the redevelopment of the IFRF Services.

This group held its first meeting on Friday 20th February at IJmuiden and will continue its work at a second meeting to be held on 23rd of April 2004 with a review of the Triennial Activity Plan for presentation to the Joint Committee and the IFRF Members at the 14th Members Conference.

The Members of the Monitoring Council are as shown below.

Nico Thijssen
President, IFRF

Barrie Jenkins
Vice President, IFRF RS

Mikko Hupa
Vice President, IFRF NET

Marie Jose Fourniquet
General Secretary

Hartmut Spliethoff
Superintendent of Research

 Neil Fricker
Deputy Superintendent of Research

Tsuneaki Nakamura, the Retiring Superintent of Research is presently a Member of the Council.

Tsuneaki Nakamura
Retiring Superintendent of Research