Sonja Eggerickx was elected unopposed as the new President of IHEU at the General Assembly held in April in New York City. IHEU’s first woman President, Sonja was also recently elected President of IHEU’s Belgian member organisation UVV. Fluent in Flemish, French, German and English, Sonja edited the Flemish journal Mores for many years. Professionally Sonja is a Senior Schools Inspector.

Larry Jones (US) is now First Vice President and Rob Buitenweg (Netherlands) was re-elected as a Vice President at the General Assembly. Joining the IHEU Executive Committee is Roar Johnsen who was elected a Vice President. Roar has been active in the Norwegian Humanist Association since 1979 and is President of the Norwegian Humanist Association. Roar has participated in four IHEU Congresses, and has organised the successful Oslo 1986 IHEU World Humanist Congress. Professionally Roar is a consultant specializing in IT Service Management.

Outgoing President Roy Brown has since been elected Chairman of the IHEU’s Growth and Development Committee which has a new member: Christer Stumark, the Chair of the Swedish Humanist Association.

The new Executive Committee now consists of:

Sonja Eggerickx (President), Larry Jones (First Vice President), Jack Jeffery (Vice President), Rob Buitenweg (Vice President), Roar Johnsen (Vice President), Roger Lepeix (Treasurer), Babu Gogineni (International Representative, ex-officio) and Suresh Lalvani (Director of Operations, ex-officio).

A Fund Grants Committee which is a Sub-Committee of the IHEU Executive Committee has been created with Larry Jones, Roar Johnsen and Roger Lepeix as members.

The Growth and Development Committee consists of: Roy Brown (Chair), Babu Gogineni (Secretary), Larry Jones, Levi Fragell and Christer Stumark.

IHEU’s GA set the stage for a radically new direction for the organisation as IHEU’s future Growth and Development work would focus on South Asia and Africa where projects of significant size would be taken up directly or through IHEU’s member organisations.

The GA thanked the New York Society for Ethical Culture for their generous hospitality, and accepted with thanks the invitation from the Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands to hold the next IHEU General Assembly in Berlin in 2007.