Hírközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány, Évkönyv, 2006
Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven
László Egervári The Communications Museum Foundation report for 2006 2006 proved to be a lively and dynamic business year in the life of the Communications Museum Foundation. The dynamism continued right up to year-end. The physical and legal personnel change at the helm of the foundation took effect on the very first working day of the year, on January 2, 2006. Nevertheless, it took quite some time before the changes made their way through the labyrinth of administrative bureaucracy, taking almost up to year-end to complete. It proved to be a prolonged process because of the Court of Registration and differing legal interpretations of notary public certification of signatures. Statements and provisions of the founding document and how they should be interpreted offered sufficient scope for the founders’ attorneys and persons exercising legal authority to express their professional opinions. Fortunately, these unnecessary delays did not prevent the foundation and museum from doing their work, though it did make it a tad more difficult. The new board had a founding document accepted by the Court of Registration by the time its Fourth Quarter meeting took place. Though it did contain a few printing errors and typos, the name of the foundation was finally correct, as was the list of board members, the number of votes needed to adopt various decisions, etc. As the new director, I discovered the truth to the saying that an inheritance tied up in lawsuits is a fraught with hardship, in the second month of my tenure. This was when the court hearing at the Budapest Municipal Court’s Andrássy Boulevard building began - on February 2, 2006. The court composition was a bit lopsided, for the foundation was represented by our legal counsellor dr. Vilmos Mészáros and by myself as legal representative, while the three defendants of the time (local government of Terézváros, A3 Ltd., and OTP Bank) had four lawyers on the scene. The second hearing, on July 11, 2006, ended with a partial and intermediary decision that was not very favourable for us. Obviously, we appealed, but there was no hearing on our appeal that year. Thus, we concluded 2006 in a state of legal limbo even though we are certain that we are in the right, and have been ready to make sacrifices to prove it. The country’s economic situation has left its imprint on museum operations. Opportunities to bid for funds and available grants have been reduced or eliminated, leaving us with a declining amount of external resources. While we achieved our goals, this required very tight budgeting and we had to take a slight loss, too. While the causes are obvious, it was no mean task to avert and sidestep the effects. As becomes clear from the following details, we achieved all of our goals except the one to complete a supervisory inventory. We commemorated a number of outstanding events over the course of the year. We celebrated the 125th anniversary of the invention and establishment of the first telephone switchboard in Hungary on May 1. Remembering that Tivadar Puskás was behind the idea for the telephone switchboard, we unveiled a bust of Puskás, the exceptional designer and constructor, in the park facing phone company Magyar Telekom headquarters. Then, on October 9, we unveiled a statue of Péter Opris, the man who ordered the construction of the main post office in Pécs, SW Hungary, and its first manager, which now adorns the square in Pécs that bears his name. Both statues 208
