General Assembly minutes 19th September 2007 Grado, Italy

The meeting started at 15.30 with the President welcoming everyone (approximately 60 members including the council). An agenda had been available for members to pick up at the information point during the first days of the conference.

AGENDA

1. Meeting Secretary report
2. General Secretary report
3. Accounts 2003/2004
4. Publications Officer report
5. Treasurer report
6. Vice President: New web site
7. President: Discussion at DTU
8. Statutes report

Meeting Secretary report:

The Meeting Secretary (MS) Steve Feist reported on the running conference. Thirty-two countries were represented at the conference. Two hundred and twenty-four posters and 130 oral presentations were presented and given at the conference. Fifty students were present, hereby had 12 of them been given a student award by the EAFP. In all, 375 delegates attended the conference – one of the reasons for the lower number of delegates at this conference compared to the conference in Copenhagen 2005 might be because of the parasitology meeting also in Italy at the end of September. The MS commented that a refinement of the process of submission is needed, and suggestions of the use of an abstract format on the web were raised. In that way typical faults and problems can be avoided.

The MS ended with thanking for all the help that he had got from many different people during the preparations of and at this conference. He announced that the 14^th conference on diseases of fish and shellfish organised by EAFP will be in Prague ultimo September 2009. (NB. Dates will be 14^th-19^th September).

General Secretary report:

The General Secretary (GS) Paul Midtlyng reported on the membership balances in the latest years:

2005   +106   -141    1115

2006   +33     -107    1070

2007   +50     -118    1011

Different estimations were presented, as well as membership by branch.

Sale of the books published by the EAFP (“What should I do”) is not a profitable for the EAFP, as we regularly have no sales in a single each year.

 New branch officers have been elected for Chile, Canada, Croatia, Germany and Slovenia.

The caretaking of the EAFP membership database has been moved to the new EAFP secretariat, situated at DTU, Veterinary Institute in Århus, Denmark, with Lis Knudsen as the contact.

The GS ended up with saying that he thought there were room for improvement concerning council dealing with contracts in connection with conferences as well as when it comes to transparency of council work, wherefore he saw the necessity of a reform of the Statutes.

Finally the GS welcomed the new GS Lone Madsen.

Accounts 2003/2004:

Discrepancies in both the 2003 and the 2004 reports are the cause for these accounts not having been finalized. The GS suggested that this is due to errors in transforming between currencies. The point was further dealt with in the Treasurer report.

Publications Officer report:

The publications Officer (PO) Ellen Ariel reported of her 4 years as editor of the EAFP Bulletin. The Bulletin is now cited in Scopus.

A questionnaire sent out to 20 people (a representative sample of the EAFP members) shortly after the conference in Copenhagen in 2005 pointed to the suggestions that the Bulletin should strive for a high profile, have a fast publication time and that manuscripts should be refereed. An Editorial Board was formed, and the limitation of each paper to 6 pages was used as a guideline. The PO had put together several graphs concerning the Bulletin in the period 2003-2007. Total submissions were 275, of which 124 manuscripts were submitted from Europe. In all 188 manuscripts were accepted, of which 105 were from Europe and 88 outside Europe. Looking at topics of the articles, bacteriology, virology and parasitology were at the same level in 2004, whereas the parasites had taken over in 2006 (articles on bacteriology and virology had dropped).

The PO ended with thanking subject editors, referees and Lis Knudsen at the secretariat and welcomed Roy Palmer as the new Publications Officer.

Treasurer report:

The Treasurer (T) Sven Bergman presented a figure on Income 2006, consisting of membership fees, as well as fees from sustaining members and students. The balance results in assets of more than 1 mio. NKr (116,000 €). Audits are missing for 2004 and 2005 due to discrepancies, very likely due to currency exchanges. The T suggested that a subcommittee was formed consisting of Brit Hjeltnes, Paul Midtlyng, Sven Bergmann and Lone Madsen who will try to solve the problem. The account for 2006 has not yet been audited but will be sent to the auditor very soon. A professional audit was suggested by Barry Hill.

Vice President:

The Vice President (VP) David Bruno discussed the changes made to the EAFP website, as the old site has been replaced by a new one. This new site has a search facility and it is possible to email directly to the council as well as branch officers. Functions of making PDF files and print pages as well as an online library of the EAFP Bulletin are new features. Items on the website are date stamped and there is a message board facility and discussion forums but members need to register first. It is now possible to have online elections and the VP told about the possibility of implementing electronic manuscript submissions and updating individual membership details. Any suggestions by members are very welcome.

President:

The President (P) David Alderman reported of the formation of a formal agreement of the Aarhus department of the Veterinary Institute, Technical University of Denmark regarding the use of Lis Knudsen taking part in an EAFP office (secretariat). Lis Knudsen will continue to help with the Bulletin as well as the membership database and payment (after proper signature of the treasurer).

A question by H. J. Schlotfeldt regarding the interest on the current EAFP account in Norway was put forward. The answer 3.75 % was given but the council will look into interest rates etc. if/when the EAFP account is going to be moved to Germany/Denmark.

Questions regarding voting by computer were also raised. The voting by post was put forward, but both VP and GS suggested that electronic voting is more secure than normal mail.

Other points were raised by the audience. Members thought it would be better with a cheaper price for attendance that would result in more delegates at a conference. It was questioned if the surplus of a conference returned to the EAFP or to the conference organizing company? The answer was that conference costs are based on a break-even point (during the current conference it was 400 delegates), which means that if the number of delegates are higher than the break-even point then a surplus will go back to the EAFP.

Paul Midtlyng wanted there to be a competition between conference organizing companies and that the council should be responsible for this and not the local organizing committee.

Olga Haenen commented on the popularity of the freshwater “What should I do?” in The Netherlands and she wanted to know if it would be possible to have an updated version of the book. The P answered that it took considerable time for the council to make the book and a significant amount of money as well which was funded by the EU. Only a few samples are sold each year, so this means that funding money is needed for such a task. It was suggested that one approached a publisher to look into possibilities. The P suggested that the book could be put on the website or a CD could be made. Volunteers for updating the book were very welcome.

Patricia Noguera asked if the council would look at registrations costs and to lower them so people from far away can attend the conference.

Paul Midtlyng had a proposal for auditing the accounts, the formation of an ad-hoc committee as well as Kristin Thorud as auditor for 2004 and 2005. Auditor for the next years was suggested to be Inger Dalsgaard who accepted this task.

Statutes report:

Barry Hill did a 30 minute presentation of the statutes report written by an ad hoc group, appointed at the GA in Copenhagen in 2005. The current EAFP statutes are 25 years old and written when the EAFP was formed and consisted of 100 members and an ypdated version maybe required. The ad-hoc group had met once (3 of the 5 group members) and discussed ideas based on a working paper written prior to their meeting. This meeting had resulted in comments and a series of amendments before the paper was sent to the two other group members which could not attend the meeting. Barry Hill stressed that what he presented at this GA was not a final product but a first attempt and possible ideas.  The final decision will be for members to decide by voting on statute to statute. Before that formal comments from the council were needed and thereafter suggestions and comments from other members. According to Barry Hill this would all end up with a new report from the ad-hoc committee, which could then be voted on. This would all result in a more democratic and more transparent manner of forming new statutes. According to Barry Hill the statutes committee was very open-minded to changes.

It was commented by a member that in other organisations the president-elect position in a council works very well.

Thereafter the P presented slides with council comments to the statutes report, among these comments on the formation of committees. One of the suggested committees is already working as there is an Editorial board for the EAFP bulletin. In the statutes report, web publishing was suggested but this was in fact rejected at the Copenhagen GA, and there is now a possibility that urgent communications among members are put on the new EAFP website. The P ended with thanking the review group for their work. The council will produce their view on the proposals by the end of the year.

Patrick Smith urged the members at the GA to contact colleagues and fellow EAFP members and tell about the statutes revisions as well as their possibility of making their own suggestions through the web.

HJ Schlotfeldt wanted a clear road map for a statutes revision if this was considered necessary by members. The P answered that any changes will be in place by the next conference in Prague.

Paul Midtlyng advocated that publication of the draft revision as a starting point for discussions and further input from members should take place during the next months, and the ballot vote to be taken well before the Prague conference. He supported the idea of enforcing a more rapid turn-over of council members. He also argued that the GA should be re-installed as the superior decision body on strategic issues, and there was general agreement that the GA should approve of changes in membership fees and in adopting annual budgets, wherefore a statute is needed on this matter.

Satu Vilhjalmaa-Dirks commented that branch officers should be taken up in the statutes – this may be of help to the council.

Dolors Furones commented that a quick turn-over concerning publishing in the EAFP bulletin might not be good for publications; she thought it was better to go for good publications. And she did not approve of the idea that everyone could be an EAFP member as suggested by the statutes group, as she thought that EAFP was a professional association.

In conclusion, the council will make their provisional reply and then the statutes committee will liaise with the Publications Officer to organise the dissemination of both reports through the web and to outline the further process of their work. 

The P ended the GA at 17.50 by thanking the present members for attending the GA as well as the retiring council members for their hard work in the council and said that he looked forward to seeing everyone in Prague in two years time.