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Council meeting - Eger, Hungary, April 2001

Council Reports Contents

Annex 5
Reports of Supporting Committees

EURACT Council meeting
April 4-7, 2001
Eger, Hungary

Report of Member Service Committee

Participants: Dolores Fores, Ivar Ostergard, Bernard Gay, Andreas Rothenbuhler, Igor Svab, Margus Lember, Mladenka Vrcic-Keglevic, Egle Zebiene (chair).

Main discussion run during the meeting was about practical steps to be taken for support of EURACT members.

E.Z. presented summary and proposals from last Committee meeting.
Decision was made to provide sponsorship for 2 teaching the teachers courses that are run under the patronage of EURACT: course in Bled and course run in Riom.
5 places in each course to be sponsored for EURACT members (see business plan).

Selection criteria for applications were discussed to be presented to Council.
Business plan approved by Committee members.

Dolores raised the issue about additional support to be provided for national representatives to increase interest of teachers to become the members of EURACT. It was decided to include this problem to the agenda for future meetings so it could be discussed more.

Business plan

1. Recommendation of activity
   5 sponsored places for Bled teaching the teachers course 2001,
   5 sponsored places for Riom course 2001.
2. Aim of the organisation to which it relates
   a. “promoting teaching, learning and research in general practice,”
   b. “providing support and information for Academy members.”
   
3. Priority level: urgent, top priority
4. Responsible
   Egle Zebiene, (Member services committee), Igor Svab, Bernard Gay.
5. Outputs
   5 members of EURACT will be able to attend the course in Bled, and 5 the one in Paris.
   Reports will be produced by each participant at the end of the course.
6. Resources
   finances
   5 x 450 EURO for Bled course
   5 x 150 EURO for Riom course
   The costs are meant for the support for registration (150 EURO per applicant) for both courses and for hotel costs (300 EURO per applicant) in Bled.
7. Action plan
   country representatives can inform EURACT members in their report of the council meeting about the possibility to apply for sponsored places to mentioned courses, information at the website coming soon.
   - Application form to be prepared until the 15^th of April. (Igor)
   - Application to be consulted with Justin Allen
   - Application form put on the website –1^st of May. (Yonah)
   - Applications for Bled course to be collected by May 31, applicants informed about the decision –after 1^st of July (E.Z.).
   - Applications for Riom course to be collected until August 31 (E.Z.), participants informed after 1^st of October
   - Course organisers are informed about the decision of Member services committee. Decision to be approved by executive Board or one of the members, to communicate with participant concerning further arrangements.
   - Finances to be claimed from EURACT by course organizers during the next council meeting following the teaching course.

Egle Zebiene

Report of Communication Committee

Members – Bengt Mattsson, Okay Basak, Margus Lember, Yonah Yaphe, Llukan Rrumbullaku, Sakis Simeonidis, Dag Søvik, Justin Allen (chairman)

New members to the committee were welcomed had a brief outline of given to the main activities of the committee. These were they maintenance and upkeep of the web site, and the communications section of the European Journal, with any other publicity activity s is felt to be important by council.

Web site

After much pressure from the treasurer the web master, Yonah Yaphe, has finally agreed to be recompensed for the work that he undertakes on our behalf. This is to be at the rate of €400 per year, starting from the beginning of last year.

Yonah presented information on recent updates to the site, and ask for feedback and suggestions. One of the new projects was to include information on the Hippokrates project added that stops and it was felt that we required information as to whether this was getting hits and helping the project organisers.
Action: Yonah to make inquiries

Overall a site is proving relatively simple to run, even though the web master is in Israel and the host company is in Greece. It was reported that there are between 700 and 900 hits per month.

New suggestions include a members only section, protected by password, in which members addresses and contact details can be listed. This would not be technically difficult, but would require members to give their consent. This would need to be incorporated in the next members letter, and require hard copy or email consent.
Action: Sakis/Yonah to negotiate set up
Justin to arrange mailing via Agnes

Another suggestion was to include “biopics” with photos of Council members. Yonah is to develop an information form to be sent to Council members.
Action: Yonah

Journal section

It is hoped to continue with the varied and interesting individual contributions, as produced recently by Egle and Yonah. Bengt agreed to provide a piece for the next issue (copy date 1^st May), and Okay for the following one. Justin will also develop something from the country reports of new member countries (Albania and Bosnia).
Action: Justin, Bengt, Okay

Other publicity

The need for a publicity stall with posters, leaflets and application forms is need for Tampere. (This is in hand via Agnes) It was also suggested that we should have a website demonstration on the stall.
Action: Yonah to liaise with Paula re appropriate hardware/software

There is a need to update our publicity leaflets – this is something we need to develop for the future.

Justin Allen

Report of Academisation Task Force

Members present: Adam Windak, Gertraud Rothe, Eva Jurgova, Mladenka Vrcic-Keglevic, Jan Heyrman, Marten Kvist, Francesco Carelli, Fergus O'Kelly

1. Michael Kochen published the article on the different patterns for academic careers in Europe in European Journal of General Practice. This article would be of interest for wide audience. The issue to put it on our web-site was discussed. Michael is going to be approached and asked to get permission for it from EJGP.
2. State of the art. A review of academic situation in different countries in Europe was discussed. Still we are missing several second opinions. Even first opinion is missing from such important countries as Germany, France and Portugal. Since the issue is extremely important for EURACT it was decided to continue the efforts to collect as many answers as possible. The aim is to publish the article on it, if data were not complete at least some part of it would be presented on our web-site.
3. Mladenka described development of academic general practice in Croatia. It was done due to some particular circumstances. Probably similar stories could happen in other countries as well. We should try to collect this kind of information. Mladenka will be responsible for it.