Part IV

Part three of the early history of ISPA, published in the September issue of the WGR, reported about the period covering the colloquia in York (1979) and Jerusalem (1980) and informed you of the serious illness that befell Calvin Catterall in the spring of 1980. How would his recovery develop and how would it influence his work for the ISPC? Nobody could know when we met in Jerusalem but the predictions were not too good. Fortunately it seemed at the beginning to turn out better than expected. Already in his letter of July 18th he reported, »……my memory functions seem to be about average……. "I am currently somewhat weak and temporarily a little confused at times but I feel that I can take of some of the ISPC work that I have had to give up over the past few weeks…..hope I will be able to carry the thought content…."

Sadly, he probably had been too optimistic as very few letters followed from him during the fall and they, indirectly, told that he was not back on track. The impression was that he continued to feel tired and short of energy. That was confirmed also in communication from US members who had met him. Yet he outwardly tried to prove that he was well by mentioning a number of initiatives to be implemented. The major one was in a December 1980 letter.

"The big news is that I have decided that it is time to formalize the organization. The idea was suggested to me by someone who was at Israel….." Years later, considering how this evolved, the following thought came to my mind: Was that decision his signaling that now he felt well and back to his usual standard OR could it be that, subconsciously, he felt that it was high time to realize his dream? Whatever, the reason, Cal began a period of a high level of activity. He presented a draft of a constitution, based on already existing US associations’ constitutions. People who were close to him then say that he probably composed the constitution without help from others. This constitution was published in the May 1981 WGR and a vote was asked for from the readers along with a vote to indicate whether or not to establish a more formal association. That WGR also indicated that the International Liaison Panel had already approved both issues.

In the August 1981 WGR he announced that the constitution was now "formally accepted by the majority of those who voted……and that our new association can be established during the Stockholm colloquium in the summer of 1982." Even though he did not communicate very much with me during this constitutional process, I had the impression that he was now back to his former, almost hectic, level of activity and full of initiatives and ideas, as usual. For example, he arranged a traveling seminar to China in June 1981 and worked successfully with the Psychological Rights of the Child and kept in touch with Stuart Hart’s newly established Center for the Study of Children’s Rights in Indianapolis, Indiana. During the fall of 1981, Cal made a European Trip. He visited Sweden for discussions about the 1982 colloquium. He stayed in my home for a few days during which first and foremost two items were discussed:

He, on his side, still trying to convince me to run for the first president of ISPA as in his previous letters. I, on my side, reminding him of his many promises to supply ISPC with an audited survey of its financial status. From Copenhagen he went on to Wurzburg, Germany to meet Bernhard Meissner (BM). He spent several days there and from Bernhard’s reporting from then I am here to mention, that Cal at a conference arranged by BM gave an interesting keynote titled "The Development of School Psychology and its Perspectives from an International Aspect." Further Cal during his stay tried to convince BM to run for being elected as the treasurer in the association to be formalized during the Stockholm colloquium. BM argued that he had no idea of how to handle financial affairs of an organization, but Cal held out a prospect that he himself as the Executive Secretary of the new association would handle all the daily financial matters. BM finally accepted to run, also because he felt a real personal need for professional international contacts being one out of a total of only about 15 school psychologists at the time working in the whole of Bavaria.

Also Italy and England he visited and met members for discussions about coming events and initiatives. . I was informed that the material for a ballot for the election of officers was ready by December 1981 and would be distributed with an issue of WGR in late 1981 or early 1982. But no WGR came and no communication from Cal either. I should have been aware that something was not as it should be but I had just taken a new job and was, in fact, responsible for running my old job as well as my new one. My hands were more than full. Since I had tried, in vain, to speak to Cal about the financial accounting of ISPC, I had a foreboding feeling that the account was empty and that he had drained his own personal bank account as well. At last a WGR came in late April 1982 and had the ballot material enclosed. Later I learned that its production and mailing was made possible by The Brain-Wave Technologies Corporation Ltd., Montreal as pay for an order form for the "Mangina diagnostic tool of visual perception« printed in this issue of WGR."

Late April was almost too late to carry out the election process but somehow Cal succeeded because by July 25th letters were mailed to the people who had been elected. These were: Anders Poulsen as President; Herbert Bischoff (Anchorage, Alaska) as President-Elect; Bernhard Meissner (Wurzburg, Germany) as Treasurer; and Ludwig Lowenstein (UK) as Secretary. These people were elected to the job of putting together a viable organization called the International School Psychology Association (ISPA). The circumstances surrounding its beginning were somewhat shaky, to say the least, but more about that in the next installment.