MINUTES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN FORUM OF PHYSICAL AND REHABILITATION MEDICINE
October 01, 2010, 12.30-14.15
“Room Evagoras”, Grand Resort Hotel, Limassol - Cyprus
Present: Nicolas Christodoulou, Polydoros Papadopoulos (Cyprus), Jorge Lains (Portugal), Amparo Martinez Assucena, Enrique Varela Donoso (Spain), Gulseren Akyuz, Dilsad Sindel, Aydan Oral, Ayse Kucukdeveci (Turkey), Xanthi Michail, Alexandros Papadeas, Nikos Barotsis (Greece), Alessandro Giustini, Franco Cirillo, Raffaele Gimigliano, Marco Franceschini, Calogero Foti, Francesca Gimigliano, Tommaso Sciara, Mauro Zampolini (Italy), Nachum Soroker, Yaron Sacher (Israel), Alain Delarque (France), Elena Ilieva (Bulgaria), Crt Marincek, Klemen Grabljevec (Slovenia), Adriana Nica (Romania), Milica Lazovic (Serbia), Nieves Rogoznica (Croatia), Faeyiz Orabi (Syria), Abdel Fatah Al Worikat, Khalil Hamed Al Abbadi (Jordan), Tarek Shafshak (Egypt), Stephen Zammit (Malta), Tatiana Randouvil (Bosnia).
1. COUNCIL nominations: Firstly representatives of every Mediterranean Country which participate to MFPRM were determined. According to this: Nicolas Christodoulou from Cyprus, Jorge Lains from Portugal, Xanthi Michail from Greece, Amparo Martinez Assucena from Spain, Gulseren Akyuz from Turkey, Francesca Gimigliano from Italy, Nieves Rogoznica from Croatia, Tatiana Randulic from Bosnia, Yaron Sacher from Israel, Alain Delarque from France, Klemen Grabljevec from Slovenia, Elena Ilieva from Bulgaria, Adriana Sarah Nica from Romania, Milica Lazovic from Serbia, Tarek Shafshak from Egypt, Khalil Hamed Al Abbadi from Jordan and Dr. Stephen Zammit from Malta became council members.
2. General Issues: The President gave a warm welcome to everybody and expressed his gratitude for the participation of all these people to the congress in Limassol. He then referred to all the efforts done for the promotion of the Forum. Now the Forum has 550 individual members coming from 25 different countries. Despite the fact that no membership fees are paid by the members, the benefits for each member are significant. A lot of thousands of money are spent for the operation of the Euro-Mediterranean PRM School, for the operation of the Forum Board, for the participation to our congresses of members coming from poor Mediterranean countries etc. Then he gave some figures of the current congress. He stated that there were more than 500 participants from 47 countries and this is considered a success since the congress was organized in the middle of the international financial crisis. The Keynote lectures were 86, the oral presentations were 120 in 4 parallel sessions. Daily poster presentation number was 40 and total poster number of the 3 days was 116. Six workshops were organized concerning topics of current interest. There were 60 invited lecturers. During the congress two international events were hosted: the ISPRM Interim meetings of the Board of Governors, as well as meetings of its several committees and the General Assembly of the European Society of PRM.
3. MFPRM Action Plan: Dr. Nicolas Christodoulou informed the General Assembly members about the MFPRM Action Plan which was sent by him to all the members. The Action Plan is reflecting the planned activities of the Board. In relation to this Plan the president and the members of the Board have defined the several activities and working groups in the following committees:
1) Communication & Information Committee:
a. Web-site, b. Journals, c. News-Letters
2) Scientific Events Committee
3) Research Projects Committee
4) Committee for Conducts with Disabled People Associations
5) International Activities Co-operation Committee
6) Mediterranean Clinical Guidelines Committee
7) Educational Activities Committee:
a. Euro-Mediterranean PRM School in Syracuse of Sicily (every November / October).
b. European School of Marseille for PRM in Marseille (every July).
c. Participation to the WAPIE (World Action Plan for the Initial Education in PRM).
d. Any other Mediterranean PRM School (? Every April / March)
4. Proposals for statute changes: The proposed by the Board changes in the statute of MFPRM, which were sent to all members with the G.A. invitation were discussed and agreed unanimously. They were the following:
a. In order to give the possibility to every country to organize the Mediterranean Congress the GA decides to add in the statute at the paragraph 8.2, just before the last sentence, the following sentence: “The applications from members of countries not having yet organized a Mediterranean Congress are preferred”.
b. The GA decided to add in the statute at the paragraph 8.6, a sentence stating: In every Mediterranean PRM Congress an award is given to the best oral presentation of young PRM doctor, under the title “Haim Ring Mediterranean PRM Award”. The Congress Scientific committee will act as a jury for this award.
c. The GA decided to have a minimum number of votes during the elections for Board members. It was added in the statute at the paragraph 5.c a sentence stating: “The Council members vote at least three candidates for the Board”.
5. General Discussion: Pr. Nicolas Christodoulou announced that awards will be given during the Gala Dinner to 3 young doctors who have submitted the best oral presentations, according to the decision of the Jury, one golden award and two silver awards under the name “Haim Ring Mediterranean PRM Award”. He expressed his satisfaction that this initiation will continue during the next Mediterranean Congresses, since a relevant provision was added to the Statute. Also, the president informs the members of the G.A. that he has decided to resign from the Presidency of the MFPRM after 10 years of active participation to the creation of the Mediterranean Society with 14 members and now having more than 550 members. He feels that the Society is mature enough to continue with a new president and a new Board safely for the coming years. He will always offer his help for the benefit of the members of our Mediterranean family. Dr. Jorge Lains, on behalf of all expressed his thanks for the work done by Nicolas Christodoulou all these years and he announced the Board proposal to the GA to announce him as an Honorary Board member. The proposal of the Board was unanimously accepted by the G.A. Also, Dr Jorge Lains suggested including in our Statute that we have an official Anthem and he referred with positive comments to the Anthem synthesized for our MFPRM by Mr. Nicos Vichas and heart for first time at the opening ceremony of this congress. The GA accepted his suggestion unanimously.
6. 6th Euro–Mediterranean PRM School in Syracuse, 25-29.10.2010:
Dr. Franco Cirillo gave information about the program of the 5th Haim Ring Euro-Mediterranean PRM School in Syracuse. The School this year will cover the topic: Stroke from “A” to “Z”. The numbers of the attendants will be around 40 and 24 of them will come from Mediterranean countries other than Italy.
7. “9th Mediterranean PRM Congress in 2012”: The congress president Pr. Raffaele Gimigliano and Francesca Gimigliano presented the details of the congress, which is planned to take place in 2012, from 21 to 25 October, in Sorrento of Italy at the Hilton Sorrento Palace. It will be organized in connection with the 40th National Italian Congress (SIMFER) and it is expected to have a great success.
8. “10th Mediterranean PRM Congress”: The president announced that he has received only one application from Pr. Tarek Shafshak for Alexandria of Egypt and he will be the president of the organizing committee. At this point the president announced that the International Society of PRM has decided, two days ago, to organize the World congress on annual and rotating basis between 3 different regions of the world (the 3 regions are: Asia-Oceania, the Americas, Europe-Eastern Mediterranean-Africa). As a consequence no other congress will host Interim meetings of the ISPRM Board of Governors, except the annual world ones. Also, he refers that he discussed the new situation with the president of the European Society of PRM Pr. Alessandro Giustini and they both agree that it is better for our region the European and the Mediterranean congresses to take place one every year. Starting from 2013 the Mediterranean Forum can transfer its congress to the uneven years and the European Congress will remain to the even years. A decision must be taken by the current General Assembly. Pr. Tarek Shafshak was asked for the possibility to organize the congress in Alexandria one year earlier, in case the GA will decide for the change. Pr. T. Shafshak stated that it is OK for organizing the congress either in 2013 or in 2014. The GA decided unanimously for this change and after the 2012 congress in Sorrento, the Mediterranean congresses will be organized in the uneven years starting from 2013. Pr. Tarek Shafshak was asked to present his candidacy for the Alexandria congress and then the GA decided unanimously that in 2013 the 10th Mediterranean Congress of PRM will be organized in Alexandria of Egypt.
9. Elections of the new Board:
a. Following the voting of the statute changes in Portorose, the election of the new MFPRM president takes place separately. The only candidate was Dr. Jorge Lains who was elected unanimously.
b. Vice President becomes automatically Pr. Raffaele Gimigliano, the president of the 9th Mediterranean Congress in Sorrento.
c. For the election of the New Board members there were the following candidates with the votes they’ve received:
A. Nica - 2 votes
F. Gimigliano - 10 votes
X. Michail - 4 votes
T. Shafshak - 3 votes
G. Akyuz - 10 votes
K. Abbadi - 2 votes
A. Delarque - 2 votes
M. Lazovic - 6 votes
A. Assucena - 6 votes
K. Grabljevec - 7 votes
N. Rogoznica - 1 vote
T. Randuvil - 1 vote
From the candidates were elected the following: Klemen Grabljevec, Francesca Gimigliano, Gulseren Akyuz, Amparo Martinez Assucena and Milica Lazovic. These candidates were elected as members of the new Board for the period 2010 to 2012.
d. Honorary members of the Board are now Franco Cirillo and Nicolas Christodoulou.
The synthesis of the new Board is:
Jorge Lains – President
Raffaele Gimigliano – Vice President
Franco Cirillo – Honorary Board Member
Nicolas Christodoulou – Honorary Board Member
Gulseren Akyuz
Amparo Assucena
Francesca Gimigliano
Klemen Grabljevec
Milica Lazovic
Finally, Nicolas Christodoulou thanked all for their participation to the General Assembly, wishing them to enjoy their stay in Limassol. The General Assembly finished at 14.15
Pr. Nicolas Christodoulou
President
Pr. Gulseren Akyuz
Secretary
