Testimonial: Amélie Mummendey (1984-1990)

In 1987, I took over from Jaap Rabbie the function of treasurer of EAESP. So, after a while, all the documents were sent to my office in Münster. These documents turned out to be a 'collection' of a grand diversity of cheques, bank statements from all over the world and more than a decade or so, receipts, and even cash in wonderful currencies, but also letters etc etc. First, Sibylle Classen, my university secretary at that time, and I tried to create an intelligent system to structure the chaos, to find out who did and who didn't pay the fees and how to get some idea about the financial situation of our Association. We tried our best, but 'mission impossible'. This was the point at which we began to create the future. Sibylle started immediately by inventing and implementing rigorously a transparent and simple procedure to get membership fees regularly. Soon thereafter, we convinced American Express to offer the possibility to pay by credit card which caused enormous savings of international bank charges. Later, this could be extended to conference fees etc. (completely new for a Credit Card Company at that time).

All the different EAESP Meetings, in particular East-West-Meetings and meetings of the EC, provided extraordinary possibilities for individual exchange of research but especially knowledge, ideas, political situation and developments. This was really extraordinary and fantastic. During Executive Committee meetings, continuously, support by West Europeans for East Europeans was planned and later organized, sending publications, journals, monographs but also other things. Given the precarious relationship between West and East Germany it was highly interesting for West- and East Germans to meet and talk in a relaxed and open minded environment.