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Minutes for 2010 General Assembly,
Cernobbio, Villa Erba, Room Carmen
Thursday, 10th June at 11.00a.m.

AGENDA

1. Welcome from Chair (Luxon)

2. Attendance:
Voting representatives (14 present): Dauman (France), Dillier (Switzerland),
Golubok (Ukraine), Holgers (Sweden), Luxon (U.K.), Martini (Italy), Pace Balzan
(Malta), Pascu (Romania), Pitt (Ireland), Stephan (Austria), Sulkowski (Poland),
Tavartkiladze (Russia), Vatovec (Slovenia), Wajn (Denmark).
Representatives voting by proxy (3 present): Dillier (Germany), Hannula
(Finland), Tvete (Norway).
Non-voting representatives (4 present): Botti (Italy), Grandori (Italy), Sliwa
(Poland), Sirimanna (U.K.).
Observers/Invited (2 present): Strik (Netherlands), Vlaming (Netherlands)
Apologies: Attias (Israel), Georgescu (Romania), Kiessling (Germany), Kiss
(Hungary), Laukli (Norway), Mykkänen (Finland), Prihodova (Czeck Republic), Raglan
(U.K.), Skarzynski (Poland), Uloziene (Lithuania), Vik (Norway), Wouters (Belgium).

3. Minutes of GA in Tenerife, June 2009.
There were no corrections/comments and the minutes were accepted by the
General Assembly.

4. Chairman’s Report
Luxon started by welcoming Stephan as the vice-chairman of EFAS. She thanked him for his important work in this new role within the Council.
She then talked about the activities of EFAS concerning Education in Audiology, and announced that Holgers would be formulating and sending questionaires about this to the membership. The information thus obtained would be used to guide the Council to decide on the future goals of Federation in this regard.
Luxon also spoke of pursuing the proposal about the setting up of exchange programmes sponsored by EFAS made one year ago at the meeting in Tenerife. She also mentioned that EFAS planned to continue sponsoring students/young scientists by offering five scholarships for every EFAS Congress.
She continued by talking about the organization of EFAS congresses and the ‘roadmap’ outlining the desired time frame of events in preparation for the Congresses that had been written by Holgers. This was going the be complimented by a set of regulations/ recommendations about the organization/desired content of such Congresses which would be prepared by Stephan.

5. Secretary’s report
Pace Balzan welcomed Stephan who had joined the EFAS Council in December 2009 as vice-chair. She then mentioned other changes that had occurred within the Committee of representatives of EFAS since the last General Assembly. Tanya Golubok had replaced Tatiana Kulakova as the voting representative of Ukraine soon after the GA in Tenerife. In April, Sari Mykkänen had become the new voting representative from Finland, (replacing Erna Kentala) and EFAS was waiting for the election of a new voting representative from the Czech Republic (who would be taking up the position vacated by Jarka Prihodova). There had been a request by the Italian Association of Audiometric Technicians (AITA) to join EFAS as the second member Society for Italy, and Christian Botti was present at this GA the representative member of AITA (and a non-voting representative for Italy). EFAS was still represented in 34 European Countries but the representatives from Iceland (Einar Sindrason) and Latvia (Ligija Kise) were not active and could not be contacted.
With regards to the website, there was a link to the 10th EFAS CONGRESS which is going to be held in Warsaw in 2011, and an update of the EFAS Congress Scholarship section (which still featured information about scholarships for the Tenerife Congress), will be needed to announce EFAS Congress scholarships for the upcoming EFAS Congress. Since the last Congress a useful, updated calendar of events, as well as links to congress calendars of other Audiological Societies had been included on the EFAS website. Pace Balzan then invited the membership to forward any proposals that they might have regarding additions/ improvements which could be made to this Calendar of Audiological Events or indeed other sections of the website.
As a member of the European Academy of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, EFAS had been asked to contribute to the recently set up European Board exam in Otolaryngology in three ways: (i) by nominating representatives to sit on the board of experts to validate questions used for the exams, (ii) by nominating examiners and (iii) by supplying a number of questions to be used in the coming session of the European Board Exam. Luxon had been nominated for the Board of Experts, while Holgers, Martini, Kentala, Skarzynski, and Dauman had been nominated for the Panel of Examiners. A number of country representatives had contributed to the questions forwarded to the coordinators of the European Board Exam; however, there was a need to keep supplying questions for future sessions of the exam. Pace Balzan encouraged members to keep contributing by sending more questions which could be used for the written and oral parts of the European Board Exam in Otolaryngology HNS. Finally, Pace Balzan urged members who had any proposals to make regarding contributions to the Congress of the Confederation of European Otorhinolaryngologists, Head and Neck Surgeons which will be held in Barcelona in July 2011 to do so, by contacting Holgers, by the end of this month (deadline 1st of July 2010).

6. Treasurer’s report
Dillier presented the Treasurer’s report and showed the sources of income and expenditure of EFAS. This year there had been a net increase of about 1,800 Euros in the Account. Some membership fees had not been paid, and revenue from the Conference in Tenerife was still pending.
Dillier then asked for statements from the auditors. Pascu was satisfied with the report. Sulkowski said that he too had no reservations and congratulated Dillier for his good work.

7. Reconstituting a nominations committe/ call for nomination of new officers
Luxon asked the delegates whether they were in favour of keeping the current temporary nominations committee made up of past chairmen of EFAS for another year and electing a new nominations committee next year. She called for a vote on this matter and 15 members voted in favour of keeping the nominations committee as it was for another year.

8. Vote on continuing EFAS contribution to the HearCom project.
Marcel Vlaming, the Executive Project Manager of HearCom presented new developments in the HearCom Internet Portal and showed user statistics. He also gave an overview of the activities that the HearCom Internet Portal Association (HIPA) was involved in, including maintenance of the website and user feedback. There are 16 HIPA partners and EFAS is one of them. Last year each partner contributed 1,000 Euros towards keeping this project going, but this year there was a proposal to reduce the contribution from each partner to 500 Euros.
Luxon then asked the Country representatives to vote on whether EFAS should continue to support HearCom by contributing 500 Euros for another year. There were 15 votes in favour of continued partnership within HIPA.

9. Report onWarsaw Congress 2011
Sulkowski informed the GA about the different organizations involved in organizing the 10th EFAS Congress in Warsaw (June, 2011), especially the Audiology Section of the Polish Society of Otolaryngologists and Head and Neck Surgeons, and the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing. Sliwa then gave an overview of the important dates for the Congress, the topics of the scientific programme, and the special sessions. He also specified the cost of the registration fees and the number of scholarships (total 150) offerred for the Congress. He then spoke of the Congress venue and the social programme. Sliwa invited those present to visit the Congress website www.efas2011.org and to come forward with any suggestions they might have regarding topics for the scientific programme.

10. Report on Budapest Congress 2013
Kiss had been unable to attend the GA but he had sent a presentation about the 11th EFAS Congress to be held in Hungary in 2013 which was presented by Dillier. There was a local organizing committee, the venue of the Conference was going to be the Hilton Hotel in Budapest, and the Congress website would be put up shortly (and linked to the EFAS website).

11. Interpretation of bylaws, multiorganizational representation
Luxon welcomed AITA as the second organization representing Italy within EFAS. She informed the EFAS membership that the issue of multiorganizational representation from a single country had been discussed in the Council meeting and that the decision was to leave it up to the historically established national representative organization in EFAS to decide whether other organizations from the same country could join in. EFAS would not interfere with the choice of the voting/non-voting representative. However, any new country representatives would need to present evidence showing that they indeed represent the interests of Audiology within their country.

12. Vote on proposed changes in EFAS bylaws (EFAS GA minutes 6/09, section 12)
The amendements in the EFAS bylaws as they had been proposed at the GA in June 2009 in Tenerife were projected on the screen. Luxon asked the voting members to vote in favour or against these amendements. In total there were 18 votes in favour of these amendements (including 3 that had been received by e-mail).

13. Close of meeting
Luxon thanked all of those present and the meeting was formally closed.