Monique Boulet (1938 – 2024)
In memory of
Monique BOULET
30 March 1938 – 26 March 2024
The family thanks you for the support you have given them through your words and your expressions of affection.
Remembering Monique Boulet
When I was Director of Publishing at Parthenon, I started to work on books by menopause specialists and then the Proceedings of the Congresses of the International Menopause Society (IMS). Thus I came to know many of the leading members of the Society and to realise that Monique, the Executive Director, was a legendary figure of the IMS. I recall that I first actually met and talked to her at the Congress in Berlin, where she was constantly answering members’ queries, chatting to everyone, organising meetings, just being the stalwart backbone of the Society. I liaised with David Sturdee and Alastair McLennan as they became the first Editors of the Society’s journal, Climacteric, and began to work more closely with Monique. In 2003 she wished to retire, and I was appointed to take over from her as the next Executive Director of the IMS, a formidable task. She kindly invited me to her apartment in Belgium so she could show me all that was involved in running the Society. I was amazed by the complexity of the operation, the great number of paper files, one for each member – past and present, the careful accounts, the records of every congress and meeting, the Minutes of every Board meeting, the files of correspondence between her and the Presidents and Boards, and the periodic Newsletters. All these records were in paper form, being before the time when such records were kept as computer files. Monique spent much time with me, answering all my many questions, and eventually shipped all the documents to me in the UK.
Later, reading the many documents, I began to realise how the Society was Monique’s life. She had worked with Pieter van Keep from the beginning, knew the members personally, organised the early congresses and workshops, and corresponded daily with the successive Presidents and Officers, Boards, national societies, individual members, and, of course, the Editors of the Society’s journal, first Maturitas and then Climacteric.
I met her several times later at congresses and heard how she was enjoying her retirement. She took up golf for the first time, played lots of tennis and had many friends.
Monique was one of the pioneers and outstanding personalities of the IMS and without her the Society would not be as it is today.
Jean Wright, former IMS Executive Director
