The present size and strength has not been easily attained. We have made mistakes, but hopefully we have learned from our errors and through the years have formulated policies to carry out our goals and avoid setbacks.
When our Federation was born, a very loose and vague constitution was adopted with few operational guidelines. The same people were elected and re-elected and kept in office year after year. Conventions were held every year, wherever expedient, either in Europe of the Americas, with little attention to regional considerations or geographic distribution.
As the membership grew and expanded to the far parts of the world, yearly conventions became a financial impossibility and a policy of biennial conventions adopted, to be held in the country of the current president. The realization was also brought home to our pioneering members that we could not retain so diverse a membership unless we also adopted a policy of rotation of officers and conventions by regions, and that our constitution had to be revised.
1958 - A committee was appointed to redraft the Constitution
In 1958 we elected our first Asian president, the late JOSEFINA PHODACA-AMBROSIO of the Philippines and a committee was appointed to redraft the constitution.
1960 - The further Policy was established
At the first Asian convention held in 1960 in Manila, the further policy was established, after protracted and heated debate, that we could not elect a president or hold a convention in a country with an unsavory record of human rights violations. Our members took the position that they would not honour such a country by conferring the presidency upon one of its citizens, no matter how personally popular or competent such citizen might be, or by holding an international convention of our organization, dedicated to the promotion of human rights, in a country which showed no respect for such rights. That policy since has been strictly followed. ESTHER TALAMANTES was then elected president.
In 1962 our convention was held in Mexico City where we elected the late Violet Alva of India our next president.
1964 - Our revised Constitution was adopted
In 1964 at the convention of New Delhi our revised constitution was adopted. Written into that constitution is the mandate that conventions should rotate by regions, that a president could not be re-elected and that no executive officer could be elected to the same position for more than two successive terms. A policy was also informally adopted that no country in any region should be given the honour of the presidency a second time unless there was no other member in any country in that region ready, able and willing to accept the presidency and hold the convention in her country.
2017 - A new Constitution was stablished
At the 36th Triennial International Convention held in Freeport, Bahamas from November 13 to 17, 2017.
Experience has also taught us that rotation of the presidency and the convention should also be orderly and follow a specific pattern.
Members are proud of their own countries and sensitive to any intended or inadvertent slight. We lost much of our South American membership when there was a misunderstanding about the convention that had been scheduled for Venezuela. When we seriously began to adhere to the policy of rotation, in our eagerness to be fair to the third world and developing countries, we by-passed Europe, with the result that our European membership eroded. We regained some, but not all, when we finally elected a European president and had an European convention.
Since 1960 we have had four eastern presidents and conventions, three in Africa, two in North America, three in South America and two in Europe.
Regular order must be followed and no region may be by-passed unless the region itself turns down the opportunity for a president and a convention. It should also be noted that were we to permit the presidency to go a second time to a country in a particular region, it would mean the other countries in that region would not have the opportunity to opt for the presidency and a convention for at least another ten years.