Professor Paul Jowitt combined a private visit to Sweden with a lunch to meet some of the ICE members resident in the country.
Unfortunately the timing was not optimal as it coincided with the holiday season when Sweden is almost closed down. However, Paul and his charming wife, spent many hours mingling with the members and informing them in a very interesting way of the affairs of ICE. The members greatly appreciated this opportunity to meet him. Johan Onno, the Secretary General of SVR (the learned society with which ICE has a Co-operation Agreement) also participated.
The background is as follows. In the early years of the Institution Sir Thomas Telford was a frequent visitor to Sweden as Consultant and Supervisor of the Swedish mega-project of that time, Gota Kanal. In 1826 when the ICE had only 35 members 4 of those were Swedes all involved in this prestige project. Today when the ICE has more than 80,000 members the members with genuine Swedish extraction are still about the same! No President since then has, as far as is known, ever visited the country. The image shows the wine bill from one of Sir Telfords visits to Sweden.
At the European Local Associaitons Conference in Paris in May the ICE Representative for Sweden, Lars Graf, made a note of this fact and said it was about time for a new visit for a future President as the planning for this year probably was impossible to change. There are now more than 20 members resident in Sweden.
After the session Professor Jowitt surprised Mr Graf by saying that he would like to do something to amend the situation as he had grandchildren in Sweden which he planned to visit this summer. Furthermore it was soon found out that on his trip to the town where his grandchildren live he would pass Mr Graf's house. Hopefully Sweden does not have to wait 200 years for another President's visit!
Lars Graf, ICE representative for Sweden