Our story continues after the foundation of EUROAVIA in 1959 with the first years of activity. The period from 1960 to 1969 was marked by many important events!
During the beginning of the 1960s, the Central Committee (C.C.) performed their first moves with industry partners. EUROAVIA’s first sponsor was Kontor industries that also provided contacts to further expand the network. Among other partners at the time, we can find Dr. Theodore von Karman, Mr. Hugh Dryden and the Scientific Aeronautical Society of Germany. Also, one of the very first projects that established the bridge between students and industry was born after the Assembly of Representatives of 1963, the Practical Training Centre (PTC). The PTC’s aim was to provide practical training opportunities to students in aerospace industries around Europe.
The C.C. understood right from the start that delivering updates about the activities of the association to its members was of great importance. In 1963, the Assembly of Representatives decided to start publishing the “EUROAVIA News”, a journal that would publish aeronautical and space-related articles from universities and companies, as well as updates from Local Groups and information about international activities. The first edition was published in 1964, it was edited in London and printed in Aachen.
This decade was not a smooth ride, a critical moment was reached when the C.C. had to move from Aachen to Delft due to the lack of participation of the new generations in the German group. The new leading group took over in 1967 and introduced some changes to the organization. First of all, the statutes were officially published in English to avoid any kind of misunderstandings. In 1969 the bylaws were presented and introduced.
The center of all EUROAVIA’s activities were its Local Groups, and by 1967, the association had around 600 members. The Assembly of Representatives was the most important event of the year at an international level and would shape the future of the association while connecting with members from the other Local Groups. The most active Local Groups at the time were Aachen, Berlin, Delft, Munich, Stuttgart, Paris, Poitiers (France), London, Darmstadt (Germany), and Toulouse. Some new groups took a step forward and joined the association in this period, such as Bremen (Germany), Cranfield (UK), Haarlem (Netherlands), Hatfield (UK), Stockholm (Sweden), and Zurich (Switzerland).
By the end of the decade, the association celebrated its 10th anniversary with a big event in Aachen, the city where EUROAVIA was established. The event defined the goals for the next years: attract younger students by promoting more trips, training sessions, social gatherings, university events, and activities to get EUROAVIAns together.