Looking back to the last year in office there were 3 events that have characterised the activities: the past European Congress in Bussolengo / Italy the next EVU Congress '99 in Widnau / Switzerland and the registration of the V-Label in most European countries. The EVU Congress '99 in Widnau/ Switzerland will be organised by the EVU secretariat. I am glad to say that there was a donation from the SAPV in Bern and there is the constant assistance of Renato Pichler, President of the SVV who was elected Deputy Secretary last year. This brings me to the officers: Marcel Hebbelinck, President; Igor Bukovsky, Deputy President; Hildegund Scholvien Treasurer and Renato Pichler, Deputy Secretary. The EVU has a very good working team at the moment. Marcel has dedicated a lot of his time to contacting member societies, writing articles for the EVU News, helping and giving advice whenever it was needed. He organised a CM in the South of France in April. The same can be said for Igor Bukovsky although he had less time because of his work as a university teacher. Hildegund has taken over control of the membership and finances of the EVU and she helps me with the secretarial work as much as possible. Only those who know the mess and confusion the finances were in when EVU and IVU still had their members united can imagine the amount of work she has done to sort it all out. Hildegund has organised the AGM in Schaaffhausen and I am sure it will be a satisfying event. H. Scholvien, Prof. Marcel Hebbelinck, Sigrid De Leo There is a very clear structure and good communication between all of us now. Renato Pichler is of invaluable help and the fact that his office is only 25 km away from the EVU office saves a lot of time. He does the layout for the EVU News and has also made the layout for the congress flyer. Renato's help is often needed as a computer professional. He is responsible for sending the Internet version of the EVU News to John Davis, the webmaster of the IVU who puts it on the Internet. The EVU has 400 pages on the web at this time and interest is increasing. The EVU News is published regularly 4 times a year and is known and appreciated not only in Europe but worldwide as well. The EVU took part during an important 3-day health exhibition in Solothurn / CH. We had a stand together with the SVV and the German Vegetarier Bund (Hildegund and Günter Scholvien looked after it) and 3 lecturers spoke in the name of the EVU to an interested audience: Dr. Hartinger (on vegetarianism in general), Dr. Guthauser (on diet and cancer) and Barbara Rütting (on changing to a healthy lifestyle). I took part in several events to make the EVU known to interested circles. In fact I am often contacted by radio or newspaper journalists, societies, students, agencies for market research and many other people. In spring there was a Council Meeting in the South of France which I could not attend because I was too busy finishing the EVU News, preparing the documentation for the congress and making the hotel reservations. In May there was a President's Committee at my home where a lot of things were discussed. Hildegund, Marcel, Renato and Hans van Boven have dealt with the registration of the V-label throughout the year and I am happy to inform you that the label is now registered in most European countries. The electronic-mail is getting more and more important although I can see also the negative side of it. Sometimes it does not work like recently with the ivu talk line, or mail gets lost, which also happened. But being able to send a message and get an answer back in an hour's time from the other end of the globe is simply fascinating and in my view is helping the vegetarian cause more than anything else. During the last year I got more than 3000 emails and even if not all were answered I still had to read them. One big problem in Europe remains the language. Of course EVU's official language is English, but not all our members speak English well enough to express their opinion clearly and how many can read a rather difficult article in English? We only have to look at the ivu talk line and see who is taking part in the discussion: only a handful of native English speakers out of more than 100 participants now. We would have far more readers of the EVU News if it could be translated into German or French and published in print media. Sometimes I have doubts whether all the energy, time and money which I put into the job as the EVU secretary are really worth it and wonder should I not rather help some local animal protection group or vegetarian soci-ety but then I get some feedback from somewhere that because of my help co-operation between two vegetarian groups has been established or peo-ple get inspired and find new enthu-siasm in their activities that I con-vince myself to go on with the work despite the uncountable difficulties I have to cope with. I am glad to say that gradually a good relationship is growing between the secretariat and the EVU members which shows in regular contacts. Finally I would like to thank Marcel (and Diane), Igor, Hildegund (and Günter), Renato and a lot of our members for their constant work and help without which we could not have done what we actually did last year to make the EVU more and more known and respected. Sigrid De Leo, Hon. Secretary of the EVU, Widnau, August 1998