The activities of the Central Office during June-December 1997 involved correspondence with National Delegates concerning the organisation of the 19th EREES, Task and Working Group Coordinators and Conveners concerning 11th ECEE, and related national or international organisations asking information about EAEE activities, and the publication of the Bulletin. The Secretary General participated to the :

1. XXIXth General Assembly of International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI), held during 18-28 August 1997 in Thessaloniki, Greece to attend the meeting of EAEE & ESC Joint Task Group TG6 and ESC Business Meeting.
2. XIVth International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering held during 6-12 September 1997, in Hamburg, Germany to attend to the meeting of ISSMFE Technical Committee TC4 on "Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering".
3. European Earthquake Engineering Round Table held during 29-30 September 1997 in Corfu, Greece as an observer.
4. Extraordinary Conference of Non-Governmental Organisations Maintaining Official Relations with UNESCO held on 21 November 1997 in Paris, France to represent EAEE.

The Central Office organised the Fifth Executive Committee meeting in Paris, France on June 19-20, 1997 upon the kind invitation of the French Association for Earthquake Engineering. The minutes of the meeting was prepared and forwarded to all Executive Committee Members as well as all National Delegates, the representative of ESC and UNESCO. The minutes were also published in the EAEE Bulletin Vol.16, No.1 and were inserted in the EAEE Home Page.

The First Announcement for the 19^th EAEE Regional Seminar to be held in Cairo, Egypt during December 1-4, 1997, prepared by Prof.M.Sobaih, the President of the Egyptian Society for Earthquake Engineering, were distributed to all National Delegates by fax and e-mail.

In general, efforts have been made to establish close contact between the members of the Executive Committee and the Central Office by fax and e-mail. All the documents prepared by the Central Office were first sent by fax or e-mail and later by mail to all the members of the Executive Committee including Honorary Members and representative of ESC.

The Third Meeting of the Joint Working Group, of EAEE TG6 on "Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and Microzonation" and ESC WG4 on "Microzonation" was held on September 21, 1997 in Thessaloniki, Greece during the XXIX General Assembly of IASPEI. The meeting was attended by nine members from different national organisations. The minutes of the meeting were prepared by the Coordinators and were distributed to all the WG members and it will be published in the next issue of the Bulletin. The fourth meeting of EAEE and ESC Joint Working Group will be held in Paris, France during the 11th ECEE.

All the preparatory stages for the Inco-Copernicus project (ENSeRVES) for establishing a Network among eleven European institutions (Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Italy, Greece, United Kingdom and France), proposed by Prof.Maruo Dolce, the Coordinator of TG3, has been completed. The first meeting of the project is scheduled for January 23-24, 1998 to be held in Rome, Italy.

The Secretary General participated to the Business Meeting of ESC on August 20, 1997 and the meeting of the Subcommission on Engineering Seismology on August 22, 1997 held in Thessaloniki, Greece, during IASPEI General Assembly. In both meetings the preparations for the next General Assembly of ESC to be held in Tel-Aviv, Israel during 23-28 August 1998 were discussed. It was decided that EAEE & ESC Joint Working Group on "Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and Microzonation" should organise a symposium on "Design Ground Motion" with A.Marcellini and A.Ansal as the Conveners.

All the minutes of the Executive Committee Meetings and information concerning Task Group activities were sent to the Editor of EEE.

The numbers of articles sent to be published in the EAEE Bulletin have been steadily increasing. In the last issue there were articles from Algeria, Iran, Italy, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Turkey and UK. The fifth issue of the Bulletin were prepared and published at the end of August 1997. This issue was printed as 1500 copies and were distributed to all Delegates, TG and WG Coordinators and Conveners, major earthquake related organisations abroad, all Delegates of the International Society for Earthquake Engineering and all Titular Members of the ESC.

The second issue for 1997 is under preparation and already articles have been received from Germany, Slovenia, and France.

The Internet-EAEE Home Pages that were created previously were updated continuously to contain all the published Bulletins as well as other related information forwarded to the Central Office.

The Central Office was informed by a letter dated July 3, 1997 from Mrs.Lisbeth Schaudin, the Director of the Division of Relations with International Organisations, that EAEE has been admitted into operational relations for a provisional period one year by the Director General of UNESCO. According to new classification by UNESCO, NGO's admitted to formal and operational relations are considered as the NGO's that have Official Relations with UNESCO. According to official sources, up to the present approximately 63 NGO's were admitted to formal relations and 120 NGO's were admitted to operational relations.

Following this development, EAEE was invited to attend the Extraordinary Conference of Non-Governmental Organisations Maintaining Official Relations with UNESCO held on 21 November 1997 in Paris, France. The Secretary General participated to this meeting to be more informed about the activities going on among different NGO's and UNESCO. In the Conference the Working principles of the International Conference of NGO's were discussed and accepted and a Liaison Committee were elected. Under the new system the First Int. Con. of NGO's will be held next year in 1998 in Paris.

It is believed that EAEE can contribute to and can benefit from different activities going on among different NGO's and UNESCO related to earthquake hazard mitigation, safer housing and environment against earthquakes, exchange of earthquake related information among different countries, adult education related to preparedness, and technical education related to earthquake engineering.

Information concerning EAEE and its activities were sent to following organisations: