REPORT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING of the FEO
at 2:30 pm on 10 th September 2005
at the 6 th International Orthodontic Congress in Paris, France.

Representatives present:

Name From Position

Prof. Roberto Martina - Italy- President of FEO

Mr. Allan Thom England Past-President of FEO
President and International Representative of BOS

Prof. Jose Dahan Belgium Administrator of FEO

Dr. Oliver Mauchamp France Vice-President of FEO
Representative of SFODF
and Chairman of World Conference 2005

Prof. Mirjana Sasic Serbia Secretary-General of FEO
and President, Serbia and Montenegro Orthodontic Society

Dr. Odile Steil-Hutereau - Luxembourg - Treasurer of FEO

Dr Danny Op Heij- Belgium - President, SOBOR-BEVOR

Prof. Valentine Moutaftchiev - Bulgaria - President, Bulgarian Orthodontic Society

Dr Petros Kokkinos - Cyprus President, Cyprus Orthodontic Society

Prof. Andre Horn - France- President, SFODF

Dr Paul Karvelas - Greek - President, GOS

Dr Georges Kratzenberg - Luxembourg - President, SLODF

Prof. Afonso Pinhao Ferreira - Portugal - President, SPODF

Prof. Dragos Stanciu - Romania President, Asociatia Nationala Romana de OrtodontieProf. Giuseppe Siciliany Italy President, SIDO

Dr Robert Janev - Macedonia - President, Macedonian Orthodontic Society

Dr Nir Shpack - Israel - Past President, Israel Orthodontic Society

Dr Andreeva Laoura - Bulgaria - Representative of Bulgarian Orthodontic Society

Dr Chris Laspos - Cyprus - Representative of Cyprus Orthodontic Society

Mr. Chris Kettler - England - Representative of BOS

Dr Effie Basdra - Greek - Representative of Greek Orthodontic Society

Prof. Carlos Silva - Portugal - Representative of SPODF

Dr Angi Pigro - Italy - Representative of SIDO

Dr Mauro Cozzani - Italy - Representative of SIDO

Dr Ivan Carlos Repez Vapeia - Spain - Representative of SEDO

Dr Jose M. Llamas - Spain- Representative of SEDO

Dr Zoran Sasic - Representative of Serbia and Montenegro Orthodontic Society

Invited Observers

Prof. Lee W. Graber USA Past-President WFO and Representative of WFO

Prof. Hans Peter Bantleon Austria President EOS and Representative of EOS

Dr Wolfgang Schmiedel Germany Representative of German Orthodontic Society

and Representative of EFOSA

Prof. Francesca Ada Miotti Italy Representative of WFO

Prof. Abbas Zaher Egypt Representative of WFO

Prof. James Gjerset USA Representative of WFO

Prof. Roberto Justus Mexico Representative of WFO

Prof. Samir Bishara USA Representative of WFO

Prof. Birte Melsen Denmark Representative of Danisch Orthodontic Society

Prof. Gabriela Alexandrova Slovakia President, Slovakian Orthodontic Society

Prim Metoda Rejc-Novak Slovenia President, Slovenian Orthodontic Society

Guest:

Mrs. Monica Carano Italy

Representative of the Organizational Committee of 7 IOC, Australia

GOS = Greek Orthodontic Society

SFODF = Société Française d’Orthopédie Dento‑faciale

SEDO = Sociedad Española de Ortodoncia

SIDO = Società Italiana di Ortodonzia

SPODF = Sociedade Portugeuesa de Ortopedia Dento-Facial

SLODF = Lasociété Luxembourgeoise d’Orthodontie

The Agenda as published prior to the meeting was:

b) Accounts to 10 th September 2005.

The meeting was opened at 2.10 p.m. by Prof. Roberto Martina, President FEO.

After applause from all participants, and many tears, the Assembly was continued with the following item of the Agenda.

As the COCCIO President, he thanked all orthodontic societies, emphasizing that it was a pleasure for him to work with Presidents, not only of active, but also of affiliated members, as well as that European orthodontic societies are a group of very dynamic societies that have shown that they are very interested in working together with their colleagues from the rest of Europe, and expressed his great pleasure and certainty that this is very important for the future of FEO.

Prof. Dr. Todor Bojadziev (President of the Orthodontic Society of Macedonia)

Dr. Steil-Hutereau commented of Prof Bojadziev’s death.

The President Roberto Martina indicated he did not wish to comment on Dr Carano’s death as the issue was too emotional for him.

The Secretary-General has update members addresses. She has circulated all the members on the subject of the FEO list of Speakers. However, regardless of this, the list is still not updated. It was emphasized that the importance of forming the list of speakers is indeed great, and that in the future full attention must be devoted to this issue.

The Secretary General reported that the FEO Award this year has been made to a paper in the Progress in Orthodontics. In addition to this information, the Secretary General presented her personal observation that a certain number of FEO member Societies have not voted for the FEO Award for several times already. Dr. Olivier Mauchamp also had a comment to the effect that during the process of evaluation of papers for the Award, more attention should be paid to papers, both clinical and scientific, and not only clinical, justifying this also by an item of the FEO by-laws where this is stated.

In her report, Mirjana Sasic especially emphasized that the FEO web site is functioning excellently, as well as the communication with Allan Thom and the webmaster in England, which is excellent and efficient. Thus, the Sekretary General was very surprised by the information that SPODF had problems accessing the FEO site, and asked Prof. Afonso to present their comments pertaining to the finctioning of the site.

In the report of Secretary General, special attention was devoted to an information on the activities of FEO President, Prof. Roberto Martina on establishing good EFOSA-EOS-FEO relations, as well as to the fact that after the meeting in London these relations have suffered a mild setback. A detailed report on this issue will be presented by Roberto Martina. Secretary General underlined that the importance of this issue requires a more detailed discussion, and the passing of some sort of decision.

In conclusion of her report, Secretary General emphasized that FEO members present at this Assembly should devote special attention to discussions and the passing of decisions on very important issues, such as:

1. The suggestion that all important issues regarding activities for the following year need to be resolved at the General Assembly, and that the decision of the General Assembly must be respected;

2. The suggestion to form a so-called think-thank. This body would comprise of the Vice president, Secretary General, Treasures and Administrator.The motive for this is to enable easire and faster mutual communication;

3. The suggestion that all FEO member Societies are to reserve one page in their national journals for FEO News section. This would considerable improve the level of information among members of our Societies in connection with activities and steps undertaken by FEO;

4. Since EOS has decided in Amsterdam to discontinue, from this year on, the Forum of National Societies, it was suggested that FEO should take over the organization of this meeting;

5. For the first time, no Society expressed its wish to host the 2006 General Assembly. Therefore, suggestion has been made to form a schedule for hosting the FEO General Assembly. Such a schedule will rule out the possibility that certain countries could act as a host several times during a short period, while other countries have never been hosts.

Mirjana Sasic mentioned that the practice that all Socieities are not taking part in the selection of the best paper is continuing, and that this year almost 50% of FEO members abstained, and that therefore the FEO Assembly has to resolve this issue and to react accordingly, and that The FEO Award must continue to be a motivation to all FEO members.

After a brief discussion, it was concluded that an attempt should be made to solve this problem by sending nominated papers by e-mail, as well as by implementing the entire voting procedure by e-mail, since this would significantly simplify the process of nomination and selection of the best paper.

The Secretary General was asked to develop a design for this process and to circulate it to all Societies. Also, all nominations and votes should be sent to the Secretary General, who will then forward them to the President and to other Board members.

2006 Award deadline for papers will be the 31st March 2006.

Pertaining to this issue, Prof. Dahan suggested that every Society could nominate their best speaker for the previous year (based on an assessment of quality of lectures or courses during the relevant year). After that, the FEO Board would select the best speaker and invite him to lecture at the meeting of the FEO Board and the General Assembly, and this would be the best way to offer recognition to this individual. The best speaker could naturally add this to his/her CV as an international recognition.

Prof. Dahan left it to the members of the General Assembly to investigate until their next meeting if this would be possibile.

President Martina welcomed this suggestion, and invited all Societies to submit their candidates for FEO speakers by 31 March 2006.

Allan Thom said that this was the real suggestion, and that so far the aproach was wrong, because candidates applied themselves, while in this case a third party, such as the President or the Board of the relevant Society would nominate a candidate, and the FEO Board would only pass the definite decision.

Prof. Dahan explained that each Society should moninate one speaker from there list, the one who is good at his job, and whose lecture was well received by the auditorium. He added that FEO has the award for the best paper published in a national journal and that this is good, but that FEO also needs speakers, who would transfer novelties and knowledge that would be interesting for all.

President Martina added that his idea pertaining to this issue was to take this opportunity to support young individuals who are still not sufficiently reknowned, and that these should be speakers from each national Society who would represent the FEO Society.

After a rather confused discussion, President Martina concluded the discussion by saying that this issue needs further discussion, that all Societies should submit their suggestions to him or to the Secretary General, and that in his opinion, each Society should nominate a young speaker who would lecture in other countries.

Since during the discussion it often happened that all present spoke at once, it is impossible to report satisfactorily.

The current account balance of FEO is 18,800 euro, which is encouraging, and offers a possibility to channel these funds toward science and speakers, in keeping with the FEO goal.

Subscription rate for 2006. The subscription rate for 2006 will remain at 1 Euro per member and 0.5 euro per member for associated members societies. The bill for subscriptions will be sent to members in January 2006.

The Treasurers report was accepted.

The suggestion was accepted to open on the FEO site a page which would contain news from member Societies, and for the Societies to add links to the FEO website on their own webpages. This would considerably speed up and improve the flow of information.

In conclusion, the Board gave a possitive opinion about the website, and thanked all those who participate in the chain of information transfer on their effort.

The Italian journal “Progress in Orthodontics” is published in English once a year. The Italians thought that in Europe only they and the British published in English. They were rebuked. The Portuguese, Greek, French and Serbian Journals are all bilingual. The Italians offered ten pages in “Progress in Orthodontics” to FEO free of charge. The journal is online, so all FEO members can access it. The British Orthodontic Journal, Franch Orthodontic Journal, Bulgarian Orthodontic Journal, and Orthodontic Journal of Serbia and Montenegro said that in these national journals one page which would be devoted to informations from FEO, would be FREE OF CHARGE.

After a long and poorly controlled discussion, some of it in Italian, it was agreed to ask the societies the cost of one page in their national journal for an FEO page. It was also agreed to take up the Italian offer of ten pages in their “Progress in Orthodontics” journal.

It was suggested that all Societies should submit to the Secretary General, Mirjana Sasic, those informations which they wish to publish on this page/pages, after which the page would be designed (Mirjana and Jose), and then circulated as a unified information to all Societies that have journals, and wish to publish it free of charge. The idea was presented to form the so-called FEO buletin which would have its own editor. (FEO bylaws should be checked to investigate this possibility).

During this item the Italians announced an orthodontic meeting in Cairo in December of all countries who border the Mediterranean. The intention is to set up an orthodontic society of Mediterranean countries. It is interesting to speculate if Israel will be allowed to join and who will not join if they are.

President Roberto Martina reminded that documents state that EFOSA works in the field of profesional policy, not on scientific policy, therefore even if 80% of the people are the same, he feels that a forum of national Societies should exist because "even if the people are the same, the institutions are not".

Roberto concluded this item by saying that FEO will assess all possibilities, and that at the next General Assembly the future strategy of FEO, and the potential amendment of certain provisions of FEO bylaws shoud be discussed.

Olivier Mauchamp emphasized that to date FEO worked to bring together national Societies, as well as to improve mutual communications between FEO member Societies. If the goal is to be an European assiociation, there are many Societies from Europe that are missing. A very important issue is if there is a common point of agreement which would bring better mutual relations with others (for example COCIO). It was also mentioned that none of the Scandinavian Societies are members of FEO, probably because they feel that FEO is more inclined toward the south, which is not the case.

The membership of Holland, Denmark and Germany would greatly support the work of FEO. Birte Melsen said that Denmark had debated joining FEO and had seen no benefit. Wolfgang Schmiedel hinted that he might seek to bring Germany into the Federation.

FEO President, Prof. Martina mentioned that FEO must have a very precise goal. Maybe this goal should be linked to the clinic, and to better and faster ortodontic treatment, but many are scientists, which again is the goal of EOS. Therefore, since there are three various goals that are clearly established, there is room for deliberation about a unified organization which would consist of three parts.

Prof. Dahan mentioned that FEO has 15 full and 1 affiliated member, as well as that it is financially sound, therefore that FEO member Societies should be permited to present their own goals. Those goals would be studied, and the best chosen and financially supported. This suggestion was presented for consideration.

Andre Horn, President SFODF invited FEO to the joint SFODF and BEVOR meeting in Brussels 25 th to 28 th May 2006. Dr. Horn justified this offer by the fact that according to FEO bylaws the General Assembly is held at a national meeting of one of its members, and Austria is still not a member of FEO. This invitation was accepted gratefully.

There was no further business.

Allan Thom especially praised and thanked the Secretary General, Mirjana Sasic for a job exceptionally well done.