MINUTES OF EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF ORTHODONTICS (FEO) GENERAL ASSEMBLY
ATHENS HILTON HOTEL ATHENS,
GREECE
FEBRUARY 19, 2000
CALL
TO ORDER
The
meeting was called to order by Professor J. Philippe, President
of FEO at 1.25 p.m., Saturday, February 19, 2000, in the Galaxy
conference room of the Athens Hilton Hotel in Athens, Greece.
1.
Absences.
Those
present were:
Members
of the General Assembly
Prof.
Jose Dahan,
Administrator of FEO
Mr. Chris Kettler, Honorary Secretary,
British Orthodontic Society & Vice President FEO
Mr. Allan R. Thom, European Representative,
British Orthodontic Society
Prof. Valentin Moutaftchiev,
President, Bulgarian Orthodontic Society
Dr. Alexis Xenopoulos, Vice President,
Cyprus Orthodontic Society
Prof. Athanasios E. Athanasiou,
President, Greek Orthodontic Society & Secretary General
FEO
Assistant Professor Nick B. Haralabakis,
Trustee, Greek Orthodontic Society
Dr. Michael Kalavritinos, Member
of the International Relations Committee, Greek Orthodontic
Society
Dr. Massimo Ronchin, President,
Societa Italiana di Ortodonzia
Dr. Aldo Carano, Vice President,
Societa Italiana di Ortodonzia
Prof. Roberto Giorgetti, Treasurer
FEO
Dr. Giorgio Fiorelli, Past Secretary
General, Societa Italiana di Ortodonzia
Dr. Thierry De Coster, President,
Societe Belge d’ Orthodontie
Prof. Julien Philippe, President,
Societe Francaise d’ Orthopedie Dento-Faciale & President
FEO
Dr. Andre Horn, Secretary General,
Board Member, Societe Francaise d’ Orthopedie Dento-Faciale
Dr. Odile Steil Hutereau, President,
Societe Luxembourgeoise D’Orthodontie
Dr. Michel Steil, Assistant Secretary
General, Societe Luxembourgeoise D’Orthodontie
Prof. Mirjana Sasic, President,
Yugoslav Orthodontic Society
Observers
Dr. Paul Karvelas,
Treasurer, European Federation of Orthodontic Specialists Associations
Prof. Jim Moss, Honorary
Secretary, European Orthodontic Society
Prof. Nejat Erverdi, Representative,
Turkish Orthodontic Society
Prof. Dieter Drescher, Representative,
German Orthodontic Society
Apologies
were received from Prof. Valentina Dorobat, President of the
National Romanian Association of Orthodontics who was unable
to attend due to the examination period at her university.
2.
Approval of the agenda.
By
consensus, the agenda for the meeting was approved as presented,
with the President authorized to alter the agenda as needed
to expedite the business of the General Assembly. The agenda
as published prior to the meeting was:
1. Absences
2. Approval of the agenda
3. Report of activities of FEO since last general assembly
4. Promotion of National Journals/Reviews and National Meetings
5. FEO website
6. Proposal by SIDO for partial revision of the Internal
Rules of FEO
7. Treasury and fees
8. Elections of the new Board of Directors
9. Miscellaneous
10. Adjournment
3.
Report of activities of FEO since last General Assembly.
Prof. A.E.
Athanasiou thanked Prof. J. Moss, Honorary Secretary of EOS
and Dr. P. Karvelas, Treasurer of EFOSA for accepting the invitation
to attend as observers. He also welcomed Prof. N. Erverdi as
the representative of the Turkish Orthodontic Society and Prof.
D. Dreshner as the representative of German Orthodontic Society. He regrets that the German
Orthodontic Society, which was one of the signatories of the
“Letter of Venice” in October 1997 has not joined the FEO yet.
He hopes that Germany and Turkey will decide to join the FEO
in the near future.
Since
the last meeting in June, the Russian Association of Orthodontists
has joined the FEO.
4.
Promotion of National Journals/Reviews and National Meetings.
Prof.
J. Philippe congratulated Mr. C. Kettler on the production of
the 2000-2001 Reports of FEO Meetings and Journals. Mr. Kettler
regretted that the Reports had come out so late and that some
of the meetings had already taken place before the Reports were
published. Although he had sent out the requests for information
in September replies from some members had not been received
until January and then only after a reminder was sent in December. He urged members to be more
prompt in future.
Prof.
J. Philippe said these Reports were central to the purpose of
FEO. He asked how members distributed the information to the
members of their societies. He would like to see this information
published in every national journal. It is important to include
the message that the meetings of FEO societies are open to all
members at the same rate of registration fee as a home member.
Dr.
A. Carano said that the Internet is the best medium for this
information and SIDO publishes the FEO Reports on its own website.
SIDO has also produced a new English language journal “Progress
in Orthodontics” which is published once a year. It is an Italian
journal aimed at an international readership.
Prof.
V. Moutaftchiev said that every national society has to decide
for itself the best way to publish information to its members.
He has sent copies of the Bulgarian “Orthodontic Review” to
all FEO members.
Prof.
J. Moss said the EJO would publish this information if
it were sent to the Editor, Dr. Fraser McDonald. Prof. A.E. Athanasiou
said it has been agreed that the FEO will not publish its own
journal.
5. FEO website.
The
Web Committee of Prof. J. Dahan, Dr. G. Fiorelli and Mr. C.
Kettler, appointed by the General Assembly in October had appointed
Giorgio Fiorelli as the Webmaster. Giorgio Fiorelli has set up the FEO Website. [www.sido.it/feo].
He showed this to the General Assembly by projection from his
lap top computer. Although he is using the same server as SIDO,
it will soon be entirely independent of the SIDO Website. This
server has given excellent service to SIDO, which is why he
chose them. It is simpler for the Webmaster to be geographically
close to the server.
So
far he has included everything on the website that was agreed:
the Letter of Venice, the Bylaws, Members of the Board, Minutes
of Meetings, Member Societies and details of their Journals
and Meetings. He
has still to include a “Links” page with links to members’ websites.
The members who already have websites are the BOS, GOS, SFODF
and SIDO. Jim Moss said the EOS has pages on the Oxford University
Press Website for the EJO.
Giorgio Fiorelli
will provide links to all existing members’ sites. All members
are encouraged to develop their own sites. To assist members
without their own sites he can provide pages for individual
member societies until they have their own sites. Members must
write their own pages. He does not want to be webmaster to thirteen
societies. Andre Horn advised every member to appoint his or
her own officer with responsibility for the Internet.
Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou
gave thanks to Giorgio Fiorelli for his splendid work in writing
the website. Members
of the General Assembly gave applause. Giorgio Fiorelli acknowledged
the help he had received from Jose Dahan and Chris Kettler.
He does require help. The General Assembly should formally constitute
the Web Committee today, define its functions and agree the
membership. It was agreed to defer this decision until the new
Board is appointed.
Jose
Dahan said he has proposed a lot more that could be put on the
Website but execution would be more difficult. Giorgio Fiorelli
thinks the content of the site should not be expanded much more
for the time being. This was agreed.
6. Proposal by SIDO for partial
revision of the Internal Rules of FEO.
SIDO
tabled a modification of the document previously tabled at the
Strasbourg meeting but with changes to the proposals for alteration
of Article 3. The
new document proposed the same fairly modest increase in votes
for the largest societies and a change to the subscription with
a fixed payment of 150 Euro whatever the size of the society
plus 1 Euro per member up to 1000 members and 0.85 Euro for
all additional members. Currently the subscription is simply
1 Euro per member. The document states: “Even if we appreciate
the intent to give a large weight to orthodontic societies with
a small member number, we feel that such a difference in the
vote “price” is exaggerated. We therefore propose modifications
of article 1 and 3 of the internal rules.”
Dr.
Giorgio Fiorelli said he is asking the General Assembly to help
SIDO with a potential problem at home. It may be that members of
SIDO will want to know why they pay so much more than other
members do for such a relatively small number of votes. At present SIDO pays 36% of
the total subscriptions and has only 21% of the votes. He wants
to be able to tell SIDO members that they have been able to
improve the relative proportions.
Dr.
Thierry De Coster said it is impossible to achieve a balance,
which satisfies every member. Three big societies voting together
can outvote all the small societies together. Valentin Moutaftchiev
said the present rules are well meaning. Small societies do
not have large funds. He is only able to come to meetings by
financing himself.
Chris
Kettler said that SIDO were trying to deal with the perceived
imbalance by altering both Articles 1 and 3. The main objection
by other members relates to Article 3 and the smaller societies
simply cannot afford the proposed increase in subscriptions.
He proposed an amendment to drop the proposal to change Article
3. After some further debate,
SIDO agreed to withdraw the proposal to amend Article 3.
It
was agreed to vote on the amended proposal by a show of hands.
Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou established the membership
of each society and their vote entitlement as follows:
Britain 1,615 22
Belgium 200 12
Bulgaria 52 10
Cyprus 22 10
France 1,500 22
Greece 322 13
Italy 3,015 26
Luxembourg 12 10
Yugoslavia 241 12
In
favour of the amended proposal were Britain, Cyprus, and Italy. Against were Belgium, Bulgaria,
France, Luxembourg and Yugoslavia. Greece abstained. The votes in favour were 58
and against were 66. The
amended proposal was therefore lost and no changes were made
to the Internal Rules.
7.
Treasury and fees.
The
Treasurer, Prof. Roberto Giorgetti reported that he had had
problems arranging a transfer of funds from the bank in Belgium
to the account he has set up in Italy.
Jose
Dahan said that as Administrator his responsibility was for
the law. The bank in Belgium had requested a copy of the Bylaws
and the membership of the Board. He discovered that when the
FEO was set up the lawyer had failed to publish the Bylaws in
the official “Monitor Belge”. The Federation was not therefore
officially established. The lawyer submitted details for publication
in December 1999. Until the relevant document is published,
the bank will not transfer funds. The current deposit is 371,500.90
Belgian Francs.
Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou
said that subscriptions for 1999 have been received from five
societies. Several
societies have not been able to pay, as they need a bank account
number or an invoice to be able to transfer funds. He has been
also informed that a 1,500 Euro have been recently transferred
by the French Society to the Treasurer.
8. Election for a new Board
of Directors.
Prof.
Julien Philippe said the Board must be elected every two years
and officers may be re-elected three times except the President
cannot be re-elected and there is no limit on how many times
the Administrator may be re-elected. The General Assembly in London
on 18th October 1998 agreed that the Board should
be re-elected in February 2000.
The
following nominations were made and approved.
President Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou Greece
Vice
President Dr. Thierry De Coster Belgium
Secretary
General Mr. Allan Thom Britain
Treasurer Dr. Aldo Carano Italy
Administrator Prof. Jose Dahan Belgium
Assistant
Secretary Dr.
Odile Steil-Hutereau Luxembourg
Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou
gave thanks to Prof. Julien Philippe for his service as the
last President of FEO. His kind personality and great capabilities had done
much to contribute to the growth of FEO.
Following
appointment of the new Board, the General Assembly agreed to
formally constitute the Web Committee. Giorgio Fiorelli will
be the Webmaster. Thierry
De Coster, Jose Dahan and Chris Kettler will assist him.
9.
Miscellaneous.
Dr.
Andre Horn said that Dr. Olivier Mauchamp has written a report
on the Paris 2005 meeting in Paris in November. The next meeting
will be in Chicago. There will be a further meeting in Paris
in November 2000.
Athanasios
Athanasiou said that FEO has established good relations with
EFSOA and EOS. FEO officers have been invited to EFSOA General
Assembly meetings including the next EFOSA meeting in Crete.
He thanked Jim Moss for attending today’s meeting. The FEO wishes
to work closely with EOS in future. The FEO had been invited
to attend the Forum of National Societies in Strasbourg. Jim Moss said the FEO will
be invited to attend the Forum in Crete.
The
date of the next meeting of the General Assembly was discussed. The BOS invited the FEO to
attend the BOC at Harrogate 29th September to 3rd October 2001. It was agreed that this was too far away in time
and that a meeting should be held at the end of this year. The
alternatives discussed were the SIDO meeting in Florence on
4th November 2000 or at the meeting in Paris 11th-13th November 2000. It was agreed to hold the next General Assembly
in conjunction with the SIDO meeting in Florence at 1 p.m.
on Saturday 4th November 2000 and also to accept
the invitation to hold the following General Assembly at the
BOS in Harrogate in 2001. The BOS representatives were
asked to identify the most suitable day.
Dr.
Andre Horn said that he and Oliver Mauchamp will attend the
meeting in Florence, which is one week prior to the Paris 2005
meeting in Paris. Members of the General Assembly who are not
attending the meeting in Paris will have a chance to make their
views known.
Athanasios
Athanasiou defined the obligations of the host society towards
a General Assembly meeting. The minimum requirements are to arrange and pay for a
meeting room and to make hotel reservations for all the delegates
but not to pay the hotel bill. Any other concessions are up
to the host society. Members noted with thanks that the GOS
had provided free registration to the GOS 6th International
Symposium and had invited delegates to dinner on the day prior
to the General Assembly meeting.
10.
Adjournment.
There
being no further business, the General Assembly adjourned at
5.45 p.m. The next General Assembly will be in Florence, Italy
on Saturday, 4th November 2000 at 1.00 p.m.
Mr.
Allan R. Thom
FEO
Secretary General
5
March, 2000
|
