From the SCI Archives: Guidelines for presentations on SCI (December 1946)

by Heint Gabathuler (Apr 15, 2015)

It was the time before Power Point and Prezi. And it was a time when people were used to listen: “Concerning the length of the presentations, we consider the following timelines to be the most appropriate: Not shorter than 45 minutes, not longer than 90 minutes”, writes Ralph Hegnauer, then SCI International Secretary, towards the end of a German-language document titled Der Internationale Zivildienst – Was ist er? Was will er?” [1]

 

 

I found several issues of this piece of paper, a typewriter-written 13 pages brochure, among the publications by and on SCI in the Archives. The guidelines were compiled for German-speaking Swiss SCI activists who wanted to present the movement in public. The first part of the brochure starts with biographical remarks on Pierre Ceresole

guided by high moral ideals that determined not only his thoughts but also his acts from his early youth,

continues with a description of the first services after World War I, then in India and in the Spanish Civil War, ending up with an impressive list of all services that took place from 1940 to 1946 – during the war exclusively in Britain and Switzerland, after the end of the war also in some of the war-devastated countries:

France, the Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Belgium, Czechoslovakia. Future projects for 1947 are also mentioned. The second part is dedicated to the arguments in favour of an alternative service for conscientious objectors in Switzerland. The aim of such presentations was apparently twofold: On the one hand, they should attract new volunteers for the movement that was growing quickly after World War II. And on the other hand, the activities of the movement were presented in the wider context of political campaigning for the introduction of a “civil” service as an alternative to military service. Arguments brought in favour of legal change were mainly pragmatic and clearly patriotic, and in no way directed against the army or military service as such. The document also contains an elaborated draft of a new legal act on alternative service - By the way, in Switzerland, such service was only introduced half a century later, and much later than in most other Western European countries!

Apart from the appropriate timeline, Ralph Hegnauer did not forget to remind potential speakers that depiction of personal experience made in the services was the very part of the presentation giving the whole thing flavour and the needed roundness. And he added that showing slides or handing around photos were good tools to animate a discussion – however according to his experience it was not predictable whether subsequent discussion would be lively, or not take place at all. This sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

 

Heinz Gabathuler, International Archives Coordinator

 

Reference

[1] Ralph Hegnaur: Der Internationale Zivildienst – Was ist er? Was will er?
[translation: International Voluntary Service – What is it? What does it want – some guidelines for friends who wish to hold presentations on SCI]. Zürich (1946)
In the SCI International Archives, the booklet is stored forever under the number 11102.05.