Why? - It was founded in 1988 in response to local demands for information and help in obtaining almost all or any of the services or facilities required to live a normal urban life, roads, access, water, electricity, sewage treatment, telephone.
Particularly important were the contacts established to reveal and explain the Spanish legal and financial systems, to ensure people obtained proper legal deeds to property, the certification of various building obligations, how to execute a legal contract for buying and selling a property and the relationship between a contract and a deed.
By whom - The mayor (Alcalde) at the time of inauguration was Enrique Bas Espinás. (1980-1992) The original initiative for the founding of the society was through two senior Shell executives Keijs Romeijn and Colin Marcus. An Institute of Foreign Property Owners had for some time been in existence but after several years of operation it had been realised that local protocols and operations differed so much between different communities, a very rapidly expanding Jaea needed to create its own group to deal with all issues here.Thus the JICS was launched in June 1988.
The Bulletin - At that time there were primarily two rapidly expanding foreign sectors of the community, the British and Germans with the British outnumbering others by 2-1. Many Germans and other nationalities were able to speak and read in English so it was decided to produce a journal in English. This was called the Bulletin which now as then remains the societys principle instrument of communication. Intermittently we present seminars on matters of current importance.
Changing times, changing roles - The entry of Spain into the European Union precipitated a major and fundamental change in all aspects of life. Certainly many of the obligations of EU membership have taken a long time to be recognised, accepted and implemented; certainly there has been evidence of resistance, obfuscation, and (through the infamous LRAU legislation) blatant abuse of euro-membership though gradually, certainly in Javea, municipal operations have improved enormously.
The overall community mix - The demographic make up of the community may be split into three:
The Javiense- locally born residents, the second home non-permanent group, mostly out-of-town Spanish and many foreigners, the domiciled foreign Spanish residents who now make up the larger part of the overall community. Numerically the foreign residents have the capacity to determine the outcome of municipal elections. However a combination of reluctance to interfere in their affairs, and a common apathy towards politics of any kind, means our arrival on the political scene and consequent lack of consideration in local affairs, has taken a long time to develop. let's see what happens in the forthcoming elections.