MINUTES OF EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF ORTHODONTICS (FEO) GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Sofia, Bulgaria. Sunday 29th September 2002.

GOS = Greek Orthodontic Society

SFODF = Societe Francaise d’Orthopedie Dento-Facial

SEDO = Sociedad Espanola de Ortodoncia

SIDO = Sicieta Italiana di Ortodonzia

SPODF = Sociedade Portugeuesa de Ortopedia Dento-Facial

SLODF = Societe Luxembourgeoise d’Orthodontie

The Agenda as published prior to the meeting was:

AGENDA FEO GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Sofia, Bulgaria. Sunday 29^th September 2002  09.30  - 14.30

1. Call to order

2. Welcome by President of the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society, Professor Valentin Moutaftchiev.

3. Welcome to observers.

4. Apologies for absence.                                       

5. Approval of the agenda.

6. Approval of minutes of meeting on 29^th September 2002 

7. Matters arising from minutes not in agenda.

8. Secretary General’s report.

9. FEO Award

10. FEO List of speakers

11. Amendment to FEO constitution

12. Treasurer’s report [previously circulated to members], including subscription rates.

13. Vice-President’s report.

14. Webmaster’s report and On-Line presentation.

15. Agenda item. Bulgarian Orthodontic Society. “The right of executing orthodontic treatment and its scope for dentists without specialization”.  For discussion.

16. 2005 World Conference

17. EFOSA relationship

18. EOS relationship

19. FEO Membership of WFO

20. General Assembly - 2003

     a). Obligations of Host Society

     b). Applications to host next General Assembly

     c). Place, date and time of General Assembly 2003

21 Any other business.

22. Election of new Board.

23. Close of meeting.

There will be a buffet lunch kindly hosted by the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society.

Allan R Thom

Secretary General

FEO\Agenda\Final2002

The meeting opened at 09.30 by Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou, President FEO.

Agenda item 1:                                Call to order

The President welcomed delegates to the General Assembly.

Agenda item 2:.       Welcome by President of the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society, Professor Valentin Moutaftchiev.

Professor Moutafchiev addressed the General Assembly. He welcomed all the delegates to Sofia and Bulgaria. He indicated how the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society [BOS], wished to support the FEO and how much the BOS valued and recognised the benefits of membership of the FEO.

Agenda item 3:.                       Welcome to observers

The President welcomed the representative from EFOSA, Dr Lars Medlin and Dr Olivier Mauchamp, Chairman of COCIO [the 2005 World Orthodontic Congress Organising Committee]. The FEO recognised the gigantic effort involved in organising such an event to bring together so many groups. The FEO was dedicated to ensure the success of the conference.

Agenda item 4:.                       Apologies for absence

The Cyprus Orthodontic Society had indicated, by letter, that they wished The President of the Greek Orthodontic Society to act as proxy and cast their vote as deemed appropriate.

The President read out the returns of membership as supplied to the General Secretary and the votes that each society were entitled to as follows:-

Agenda item 5:.                      Approval of the agenda

It was agreed to alter the order of the agenda and as such move items 13 and 14 forward on the agenda.

Agenda item 6:. Approval of minutes of meeting on 29^th September 2002 

The minutes were approved without alteration and signed by the President.

Agenda item 7:.      Matters arising from minutes not in agenda.

There were no matters arising not already on the agenda.

Agenda item 8:.                    Secretary General’s report

GENERAL ASSEMBLY F.E.O. Sofia, Bulgaria. September 29^th 2002

Secretary-General Report.

Period October 2001  – September 2002

The FEO has completed another successful year under the outstanding guidance of the President Professor Athanasiou.

The Board have kept in close contact by e-mail and fax and met informally at the AAO meeting in Philadelphia and the EOS meeting in Sorrento.

AWARD:

Following approval at the last General Assembly the mechanism for inviting submissions, assessing and awarding the FEO Award were established.  For the current award six papers were submitted from National Orthodontic Journals published in 2001. The panel were impressed by the high standard of academic content. This year’s award was made to Dr Grippaudo et al, for their paper on the architecture of unilateral cleft lip and palate published in the Italian Orthodontic Journal.

The award was made at this meeting. The winner receives a plaque, airfare and accommodation costs in order for them to present their paper at the hosts national meeting.

Submissions for next years award must be with the Board by 31^st March 2003 and be papers published in a National Journal during 2002. It is hoped this award will be keenly sought and as such illustrate the FEO’s commitment in encouraging and supporting academic and clinical research.

COURSES:

The FEO has now compiled a list of postgraduate orthodontic courses within Europe. Details are available on our website. Whist this list is not exhaustive it is the most up to date available and should prove a valuable source of reference to our potential trainees. In this way the FEO is encouraging and supporting post-graduate education and training.

The list will only be as comprehensive as the material supplied and I encourage all members to view the section and advise of any additions or amendments.

SPEAKERS.

At the last General Assembly it was agreed that the Secretary-General would attempt to compile a list of potential European speakers for National Conferences. This has proved difficult as the requests for information were unfortunately misinterpreted. Long CV’s were received from various sources few of which fulfilled the criteria set down.

As a result a new request has been made to all societies with an appropriate form to complete. To date three societies have submitted names [Greece, U.K., and Italy]. This information will now be collated and distributed in an appropriate format via the website.

The President, Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary represented FEO at the EFOSA General Assembly and the Forum of National Orthodontic Societies held in Sorrento.

Good and cordial communications have been established with EFOSA and joint projects are planned.

Our Webmaster continues to update the web site and we thank Dr Fiorelli for the excellent work he is doing for FEO. Some Societies need to update the information provided. The website is our shop window and it is important that all relevant information is provided to the Webmaster.

The treasurer Dr Carano is unfortunately unable to be with us today. We send him our best wishes for a healthy and speedy recovery. Our thanks are due for the excellent manner in which he has cared for the Federation’s finances and his significant contributions to the affairs and discussions within the Board.

The Secretary-General has circulated all relevant information to member societies together with notification and agenda of this meeting to the President of every European Orthodontic Society.

The FEO continues to explore ways of assisting in educational programmes within Europe and in particular helping our colleagues in less privileged countries. We must all work together to find common training and educational pathways for our younger colleagues and a truly European orthodontic fraternity.

We express or thanks to Professor Moutafchiev and the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society for kindly and so professionally hosting this General Assembly.

The reputation of the FEO grows and there are already expressions of interest to host the 2003 General Assembly.

The FEO sent a note of condolences and remembrance to our American colleagues on the anniversary of September 11^th.

This report is a summary of the past years activities. The present Board have completed their 2-year term of office and a new Board must be elected at this General Assembly.

I would like to express my thanks to all Board colleagues for their help and support and to colleagues of member societies who have been of assistance and responded to requests.

I have enjoyed my term of office as Secretary-General. I firmly believe the FEO is a strong and important player in European Orthodontics and it has been an honour to serve in an executive capacity.

Allan R Thom

Secretary-General

September 2002

feo\secgenreport2002

Agenda item 13:                      Vice-President’s report

The Vice-President Dr Thierry De Coster thanked the membership for their support during his term of office. He indicated his role was originally to gather and collate information from member societies and pass them to the Webmaster. Due to improved methods of communication this was now unnecessary as material was posted directly.

He commented that although the FEO was a relatively young society it had a great future, as it was a round table forum for all European Societies were none existed before.

Agenda item 14:    Webmaster’s report and On-Line presentation

The President introduced this item pointing out that the website demonstrated coordinated co-operation between member societies. The EOS was a group of members not National Societies and the EOS National Forum was an informal gathering.

EFOSA was a professional organisation within the European Union with syndicate type objectives.

The FEO was low cost and transparent. Over the past 4 years the website had been constantly developed and enormous thanks were due to the Webmaster Dr Giorgio Fiorelli. Dr Fiorelli did not represent any society and held an independent position within FEO as the Webmaster.

Dr Fiorelli demonstrated, on line, the new developments of the website. He urged those societies, which had not appointed a Webmaster to do so as soon as possible. Particularly in the light of the new developments.

The new website domain is www. Feo-online.org. and www. Feo-online.info.There will be three levels of access.

Level 1. Visitor. Anyone can access the site and read the contents. There is no protected area.

Level 2. Registered member. This will be the most common area of access. The “visitor” will register with their e-mail address and can access all areas of the site. However, having “registered” the visitor will be noted y e-mail of any updates in whatever area on the site.

Level 3. Administrator. This will be reserved for webmasters as approved and registered with the FEO Webmaster. These “administrators” will be able to make any alterations, additions and deletions to their section of the website.

In this way each society Webmaster will be responsible for their section of the website. The EO Webmaster will no longer have to carry out the alterations.

ACTION: It is necessary for every society to appoint a Webmaster as soon as possible. In addition each society should advise their members of the changes to the FEO website.

Dr Fiorelli will post instructions on the website with advice as to how to navigate.

Following an initial “learning curve” for administrators it may be necessary to arrange a meeting of webmasters in the Spring of 2003.

The present cost of managing the service is free. However, it may be necessary to increase the storage capacity to 15 – 20 mb which may cost Euros 200. It was agreed that any additional costs would be the responsibility of FEO and not societies.

Agenda item 9:                                 FEO Award

The President outlined the protocol for the FEO Award and reported that the 2002 Award was made yesterday at the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society meeting to Professor C Grippaudo et al. [Ort0gnatodonzia Italiana 2001; 10: 77-89] The FEO Award was seen as a way of returning something to the membership.

There was discussion on the most appropriate way of disseminating the article. As there would be copyright issues it was felt that the society in whose National Orthodontic Journal the paper was published could, if they wished, post the paper in their section within the FEO website.

Agenda item 10:                        FEO List of speakers

The Secretary-General outlined the system of establishing a list of potential speakers for European Societies. It was explained that the proposal was to establish a database as an aid to societies. Only airfare and accommodation would be reimbursed. It was recognised that some societies have limited budgets yet wish to avail themselves of national speakers.

Dr de Coster registered his opposition to the concept feeling it would downgrade speakers and compromise some of the societies.

Prof Dahan and Dr Thom did not agree with this analysis and both felt that a database would be a significant asset to many societies.

The President pointed out science has no borders and the plan to collate a list of potential speakers and topics was merely to provide information. How individual societies dealt with the matter was a decision for them.

It was agreed to continue to collate the list.

Agenda item 11:              Amendment to FEO constitution

This item arose as a result of two societies outside Europe expressing an interest to join FEO. The constitution does not provide for such a request. The Board decided that an amendment to the constitution should be considered in order to offer an opportunity for non European Societies to take an interest in FEO affairs.

The amendment reads:-

II Affiliated Members.

New Article

Article 11

The Board, at its discretion, may establish a category of “Corresponding Societies/Associations to the FEO”.

Corresponding members will be recognised orthodontic societies from countries not fulfilling the criteria as being a European National Association set out in Article 6.

Corresponding Societies/Associations will:-

• At the discretion of the Board be invited as observers to the FEO General Assembly.

• Have no voting or veto rights

• Only be accepted by a two-thirds majority vote of the members of the General Assembly. This decision is without appeal.

• Have details of their meetings posted on the FEO website under “Corresponding Societies/Associations” section.

• At the discretion of the Board have their website linked to and from the FEO Website

The FEO may by a two third majority vote at a General Assembly choose to withdraw “Corresponding Rights” to any Society or Association. There will be no appeal against such a decision.

FEO\Constitution/Modificationapril2002.3

This amendment was put to the vote and was carried unanimously.

The Webmaster will be asked to add a “Corresponding Members” section to the FEO website.

Agenda item 12:                          Treasurer’s report

Unfortunately the Treasurer Dr Aldo Carano was unable to be present due to illness. The General Assembly recorded their good wishes for a rapid and speedy recovery.

The accounts for 2001 had been circulated with the papers for the General Assembly. FEO’s income is derived only from membership subscriptions and the expenses are kept to a minimum.

The accounts show:-

Opening balance 01/01.01  - 18219.53

Outgoings - 4407.46

Income - 29858.05

Closing balance 31/12/02  - 25450.59

[All figures in Euros]

Supplementary accounts were tabled for the period 01/01/02 – 08/08/02 showing a credit balance of 31950.96 Euros.

The accounts for 2001 were approved by the General Assembly.

Agenda item 15: Bulgarian Orthodontic Society.

“The right of executing orthodontic treatment and its scope for dentists without specialization”.  For discussion.

This item had been placed on the agenda at the request of the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society.

Whilst it was quite appropriate for any member society to place an agenda item it was felt that FEO was not the appropriate forum for discussion of professional aspects. Such matters fell within the remit of EFOSA.

However, it is the responsibility of the FEO to assist member societies and it was agreed the new Board would find ways of collecting information on specialists and non-specialists in member countries and provide this to the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society. The Bulgarian Orthodontic Society will then need to consider how they wish to use the information. The FEO will not offer direction or solutions over this issue.

Agenda item 16:                     2005 World Conference

The President stressed the FEO’s commitment to the success of the 2005 World Dental Conference. It was suggested that two liaison strategies could be explored.

i). The FEO website could establish a link to the WFO website.

ii). COCIO may wish, in the future, to arrange a meeting with the FEO Board

Dr Mauchamp, Chairman COCIO was invited to address the General Assembly. He explained the theme of the conference would be:-

Europe celebrates the World of Orthodontics in Paris.

COCIO has 8 active members and a number of supporting members.

The keynote speakers have now been chosen.

The 4 day conference will be as follows:-

Day 1

Opening Ceremony and six “Champion Speakers” who have been chosen by the WFO. These speakers represent the various regions of the World.

Day 2 and 3                                               

Keynote speakers

Day 4

European Village where Active members will hold their own meetings.

Dr Mauchamp stressed the need to have an outline of these sessions in the near future in order to prepare an advance brochure in time for the AAO meeting in Hawaii in May 2003.

In addition there will be a dental assistants and dental technicians programme. The next meeting of the organising committee will be 17/18 November in Paris.

Agenda item 17:                         EFOSA relationship

Good relations exist with EFOSA and the President and Secretary-General were kindly invited as observers to the EFOSA General Assembly in Sorrento.

At the General Assembly a new Board was elected:-

President: Dr Wolfgang Schmiedel .

Vice-President: Professor Francesca Miotti .

Secretary-General: Dr Lars Medlin .

Treasurer: Dr Claude Bourdillat.

A subcommittee under the Chairmanship of Dr Chris Kettler was established to look at professional guidelines on Ethics within Europe. This matter had arisen as a result of concern over orthodontists whose professional standards and ethics had been open to question in one member state then moving to another member state.

The full minutes of the EFOSA meeting will be available after the next meeting in November.

The EFOSA representative Dr Lars Medlin was invited to address the General Assembly. He thanked the FEO for the invitation and also the Bulgarian Orthodontic Society for hosting the meeting. He indicated he was pleased to be present and was enjoying the discussion and debate, which was taking place.

Agenda item 18:                           EOS relationship

The President and Secretary-General attended the Forum of National Societies at the EOS meeting.  The President reported that this forum only has informal discussions with representatives of National Societies. It is not a formal constitutional meeting within the Bye Laws of EOS.

Discussions took place over educational and training aspects within Europe. Some countries recognise orthodontic specialist and some do not.

Following a proposition from Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou it was proposed that a joint venture between EFOSA, FEO and EOS would be beneficial in looking at the educational aspects across Europe.

The Secretary-General informed the assembly of a very recent decision of the European Economic and Social Committee.

“At its plenary session of 18 September 2002 the European Economic and Social Committee adopted Unanimously its opinion on “Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on the recognition of professional qualifications””

“.. the new system opens the door for European professional associations to propose Europe-wide common platforms for recognition of professional qualifications.”

The opinion is referenced under COM(2002) 119 final – 2002/0061 (COD). It is a 17-page document and is available in all languages of the European Union.

The FEO will liase with EFOSA over the document.

Mr Kettler pointed out that there was proposal a that professionals from European member states could move freely and practice in other countries for 3 months without regulation. The General Dental Council of the United Kingdom are opposing this, as are 10 other member countries.

Agenda item 19:                     FEO Membership of WFO

Following discussions with the Executive of the WFO the FEO have received application forms for membership. The FEO Board felt that membership of the WFO would be mutually beneficial to both groups. The WFO have confirmed that membership is available to the FEO. The cost to the FEO would be US$50.

The President pointed out that the FEO is a Federation of Societies not individual members and as such the FEO would not sponsor or approve individuals for membership of the WFO.

At the General-Assembly vote there was unanimous support to proceed with the application.

Agenda item 20:                    General Assembly - 2003

The FEO General Assembly moves each year to a different location. The General Assembly is held in conjunction with the Annual Conference of a member society.

In this way FEO delegates have the opportunity of liasing with colleagues locally, seeing their problems, difficulties, advances and advantages. In addition it allows the host country to use the presence of visiting delegates to lecture and contribute to the programme.

The local society is involved fully in the organisation of the General Assembly.

The obligations of the host country are:-

1.     Provide suitable facilities for the FEO Board to meet.

2.     Provide suitable facilities for the FEO General Assembly.

3.     Advise on hotel availability and costs.

4.     Host a dinner for the FEO delegates.

5.     Offer complimentary registration of the host countries conference to FEO delegates.

Expressions of interest to host the General Assembly must be posted to the Secretary-General at least 3 months prior to the previous General Assembly.

For 2003 one formal letter of application had been received and two verbal expressions of interest. As such only the formal letter was considered from Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslavian delegation gave n excellent CD presentation on the facilities available in Belgrade and offered to host the General Assembly 5^th October 2003.

The vote to accept Yugoslavia’s offer was unanimous.

Agenda item 21:                        Any other business

1.     A request from the Bulgarian Orthodontic society for assistance in evaluating postgraduate orthodontic courses had been considered and a small committee had been set up to assist in this matter. The committee will be Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou [Greece], Professor Nigel Hunt [UK] and one other to be appointed.

2.     A request from Professor Miotti [Italy] to access the FEO website on post graduate courses had been granted.

Agenda item 22:                      Election of new Board

The following nominations were made and each voted on individually.

President - Dr Allan Thom

Vice-President - Professor Valantin Moutachiev

Secretary-General - Prof. Afonso Pinhao Ferreira

Treasurer - Dr Odile Steil-Hutereau

Assistant Secretary - Dr Vittorio Cacciafesta

All positions were approved unanimously.

Professor Dahan remains as administrator, under Belgium Law, and as such his position does not have to be voted on.

At this stage Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou handed over to Dr Allan Thom.

The new President Dr Allan Thom thanked the General Assembly for their confidence and individually thanked the previous board for their outstanding contributions to the working of the FEO. Particular thanks were given to the outgoing President Prof. Athanasios Athanasiou

Professor Dahan proposed that the Past Presidents should be available, if required, in an advisory role to the new Board. This motion was approved.

Agenda item 23:.                     Close of meeting.

The meeting closed at 12.40 p.m.

Allan R Thom

Secretary General FEO

30 September 2002