EFAS - General Assembly 2000 Minutes
Venue Conference Centre, The Hague, The Netherlands

August 26th, 2000, 14.11 - 16.40

Participants:
Austria Kurt Stephan NV
Belgium Paul Govaetrs VR
Finland Martti Sorri VR, General Secretarý
Kerttu Huttunen NV
France Jean-Marie Aran VR
Jean-Louis Collette NV
Italy Ferdinando Grandori NV
Ettore Cassandro NV
Netherlands Hans Verschuure VR
Bert van Zanten NV
Theo Kapteyn NV
Jan de Laat NV
Norway Einar Laukli VR President
Poland Sylwia Kowalska transfer of voting rights
Russia George Tavartkiladze VR
Spain José Barajas VR, Treasurer
Sweden Anders Ringdahl VR
Stig Arlinger NV
Torborg Arvidson NV
Switzerland Thomas Spillman VR
UK Valerie Newton NV

1 Opening
The President of EFAS, Einar Laukli welcomed the participants and opened the General Assembly at 14.11.

2 Apologies for absence
The General Secretary, Martti Sorri, stated the following apologies for abscence: Dauman (France), Grisanti (Italy), Kronlund (Finland), Pascu (Rumania), Profant (Slovak Republic), Pruszewicz (Poland), Sulkowski (Poland), Szmeja (Poland), Vatovec (Slovenia).

3 Minutes of the General Assembly (1999, Oulu)
The minutes had been presented on the web site of EFAS and were briefed by Einar Laukli. The minutes were approved with no amendments.

4 Activitis of the working parties
Martti Sorri presented the current situation of the European Audiology Training (EAT). This training had been discussed and planned in a workshop which took place in Schloss Rauischholzhausen, Germany, October 11th - 13th, 1999. As a the result of the workshop a profile of a new professional, the General Audiologist (GA), had been outlined. The draft produced by the workshop had been edited by Jürgen Kiessling and Martti Sorri according to the comments received from the participants of the workshop.

The issue lead to a vivid discussion. The main comments of this discussion may summarized as follows.

The time table of the work had been delayed by several months. The Swedish delegates presented their disappointment because their national comments had not been sufficiently taken into account.

According to comments of Hans Verschuure the idea of the GA is not clear in the present draft. Also, the aim of the report shall be clearly stated as well as how the report was produced and how it should be read.

Paul Govaerts proposed editorial comments to be added. Theo Kapteyn pointed out the importance of commercial aspects in audiological work.

As the result of the discussion it was decided that:
· The Swedish participants will give their comments and their revised definition
  to Martti during the ICA in The Hague
· Jürgen Kiessling and Martti Sorri will edit a new version to be sent to the
  group convenors of the Rauischholzhausen workshop and national bodies in autumn 2000.
· National comments should be received in the beginning of the year 2001
· All received comments shall be discussed by the Council in its next meeting during
  the spring 2001
· The final draft shall be discussed in General Assembly 2001 in Bordeaux.

5 Bids for the European Conference on Audiology in 2005
Einar Laukli invited the members of EFAS to present bids for the European conference in 2005 to be presented at the next General Assembly in Bordeaux, September 2001

6 Reports of Natasha and Cardamia
Natasha. The project worked out nicely. Altogether 22 European countries participated in the project, five of them directly. The project could be presented on a web site hosted by EFAS.

Cardamia. An application had been submitted in 1999 with no response and a revised application had been re-submitted in May 2000. According to the preliminary discussions, too many countries might be involved in the new proposal. Also the role of industry might be too limited in the present proposal. Anyhow, no definite responses to the renewed proposal have been received, yet.

7 Report of AHEAD
A proposal for a continuation of the AHEAD project has been submitted with partners from all EU countries and some non-EU countries. The project will focus in
· New automated scoring of OAE responses
· Clinical application of OAEs
· Assistance and help of interpreting programmes

The response to the application will be received by the end of the year 2000.

8 Report of the next European Conference on Audiology (Bordeaux 2001)
In the absence of René Dauman Jean-Marie Aran presented the current situation. The conference venue will be the University of Bordeaux, and the days of the conference will be September 16th - 20th. The main topics and the main features of the social programme were presented.

During the conference, the plenary sessions will be translated into French. According to Einar Laukli, this might be an economical risk. On the other hand, Jean-Marie Aran stated that this translation is a prerequisite for national economical support.

It was concluded that the preparations for the conference appear to be progressing smoothly.

9 Report of the 6th European Conference on Audiology (Crete 2003)
In the absence of George Gavalas Einar Laukli presented the current situation. In June 2000, the Council had paid an on-site visit to the congress venue. The congress venue (Hotel Creta Maris) appeared to be great and the congress bureau efficient. The exact time of the conference is still open; most probably the congress will take place in March 2003 in conjunction the Greek ORL-meeting.

The marketing of the conference will be launched during the next conference in Bordeaux.

10 Elections of the officers of EFAS
The following offices will decided in the General Assembly in 2001: Vice President, General Secretary, Treasurer, Auditors. The nomination committee (Paul Govaerts, Stig Arlinger, Ingrida Uloziene) will invite for candidates in September 2000. According to the By-laws the candidates will be presented in July 2001.

11 EFAS economy
The balance of EFAS (see enclosure) was presented by Martti Sorri. On June 30th, 2000 the balance was FIM 42 095, 54 (EUR 7080,00). The main problems of the economy are high secretarial costs, on the one hand, and poorly paid annual fees (only 12 countries had paid their annual fees), on the other. Furthermore, the Council had decided to change the economical year from the academic to the calendar year, and not to invoice any annual fees earlier than in autumn 2000 for the year 2000. Hence, the autumn 1999 will not be invoiced. The income from the conference in Oulu is 20% of the net income of the Oulu congress, as agreed earlier. Martti Sorri expected this to be approx. FIM 15 000 (EUR 2 500).

The report of the auditors was presented. The balance was accepted.

For the future, the following actions were decided to be taken:
· A chaser will be sent to the member countries which have not paid their last annual fees
· In future the annual fees shall be invoiced in euros; the next fee will be EUR 250 which
  is very close to the earlier GBP 150. The next invoicing for the year 2001 will performed
  by the Treasurer in the beginning of the year 2001. The payment of the annual fees shall be   chased by the Treasurer.
· The secretarial costs shall be cut down
· In future, 20% of the net incomes of the European conferences on audiology
  shall be refunded to EFAS
· The Council was obliged to create and present plans for actions and budgeting.

12 Activities of other bodies in audiology
The following report had been received from René Dauman. Within UEMS exists a section for otorhinolaryngology. It will hardly be possible to have a section - or subsection - for (medical) audiology. However, within the section of otorhinolaryngology, audiology is rather well represented by the following members: René Dauman, Iain Mair, Ulf Rosenhall.

Audiology has been included in the European logbook for trainees in otorhinolaryngology

13 European audiological journals
Einar Laukli presented the current situation. Recently, a meeting between the representants from British Society of Audiology (BSA) / British Journal of Audiology (BJA), International Society of Audiology (ISA) / Audiology and Nordic Society of Audiology (NAS) / Scandinavian Audiology (SA) had taken place in Copenhagen. In this meeting possibilities of merging the above journals had been surveyed. According to the first negotiations, the most probable merging will take place between BJA and SA. The Editors-in-Chief of these journals will formulate a proposal for merging by the end of this year.

EFAS will observe the progress of this possible merging.

As a representative of Audiology Jean-Marie Aran welcomed this news and mentioned that despite the ever-growing number of new scientific journals there also is a simultaneous trend of merging of the old ones.

14 General Assembly in 2001
The next general Assembly will take place in Bordeaux on September 16th, 2001 at 13.00 - 16.00 before the opening ceremony of the 5th European Congress on Audiology.

15 Any other business

15.1 European Academy of Audiology
Obviously there is not much progress in this field which was taken as a good news. According to Ettore Cassandro, nothing has happened in this matter. This statement was confirmed by José Barjas.

15.2 Web site of EFAS
Jonathan Hazell has taken care of the web site up till now. Unfortunately he was not present but according to the information received he is willing to carry on. The web site was considered as an important action of EFAS. The Council shall negotiate with Jonathan Hazell on this matter. New links, among them also national, could be added to the web site.

16. Other meetings
Ferdinando Grandori invited participants to the NHS 2000 congress in Milan, October 2000.

17 Closing
The President of EFAS, Einar Laukli, thanked the representatives for their active participation and closed the General Assembly at 16.40.