Dear Martin,
I here enclose a further note to your emails dated 28th  April and 5th May.

An old say tells that two men one in front of the other are equal.
Translated into common words this means that everybody's ideas have the
same rights. This implies that the only thing that can make a man's ideas
prevail over another man's idea is the ability of the first man to
demonstrate that his ideas are better and fit better to time and place.
Well, this demonstration should be based on a discussion and not on
apodictical statements.

Your reply to my letter dated 23rd April and to Martin Hinz's letter dated
11 April and Michael Snodin's letter dated 25 April does not contain any
demonstration in favour of the Task Force thesis against our opinions

does not demonstrate that it evaluates the Task Force thesis against our
opinions; it rejects any possible suggestion and it prevents members of
ICOM not belonging to the Task Force from discussing.

Just for example, both Hinz and Snodin and myself were rather perplexed as
for what relates to the need to collect 50 members to create a new
international committee. Your reply was not that clear: "we had extensive
discussions about the number of ICOM members need to make a proposition for
a new international committee". Which discussions? Which were the reasons
leading to the choice of 50 members? Was it the simple fact that the Task
Forces believes that "the committee should really be international"? Can we
be updated with the discussions taking place inside the Task Force in order
to evaluate them?

The need to update ICOM members with the discussions taking place inside
the several working groups makes me think of a problem I have formerly
risen  with no success  inside the Executive Council : the need to write
down and file in the documentation centre all the minutes of the
discussions taking place during Standing Committees sessions or during
working groups.
A few written notes do actually exist: for example as for what concerns the
Ethics Committee.
This should be necessary mainly to guard the cultural process developed
inside ICOM, to know the deep reasons of certain decisions and the path
that has been followed to adopt them. I believe this point should be
included in the Task Force document!

Always concerning the number of members required to create a new committee,
my document contains a few notes about the birth and development of
international committees and invites the Task Force to make a research on
how the current international committee were born and how they developed.
Has this research been done? Do you believe this will have to be done
before setting new rules? Your reply does not tell. However this is an
important research, as the creation of new rules must be based not only on
the analysis of the present time but also on the experience  that is to say
on the knowledge  of the past.

I don't want to be too long, so I will leave behind some other points of
discussion, some of which are however fundamental and would require, to be
resolved, some further researches from the Task Force. And namely, I refer
to the multiplicity of the different financial legislations and to the
several bank rules.
I repeat that I find it very difficult to justify the dogmatic statements
like the ones you made in relation to my note on the necessity of a
standing committee for the international committees and in favour of the CE
role: "According to the Task Force it is absolutely necessary to have a
body in charge of the International Committee". Why?

I would also like to reply to Linda Young that I do not see a risk linked
to the existence of many committees if we consider their function, which is
to say to create inside ICOM a place where all the different interests of
ICOM members can find a point where to meet, discuss and produce inside the
general space of the association. On the contrary I believe this is one of
the most important priorities of ICOM.

And finally, I do not wonder that you consider "that our proposal are
balanced and represent a coherent entirety", I would be surprised of the
opposite!

Giovanni Pinna
Member of the Executive Council

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