MINUTES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN FORUM OF PHYSICAL & REHABILITATION MEDICINE

Assembly started at 13.45.

Present: Jorge Lains (Portugal), Nicolas Christodoulou (Cyprus), Amparo Martinez Assucena (Spain), Aydan Oral, Ilker Yagci, Gulseren Akyuz (Turkey), Xanthi Michail (Greece), Vincenzo Saraceni, Franco Cirillo, Raffaele Gimigliano, Francesca Gimigliano (Italy),  Iuly Treger (Israel), Elena Ilieva (Bulgaria), Crt Marincek, Helena Burger, Klemen Grabljevec (Slovenia), Milica Lazovic (Serbia), Zeljana Skaric-Karanikic (Montenegro), Mihai Berteanu (Romania), Hassan El Shahali, Tarek Shafshak (Egypt), Stephen Zammit (Malta), Nives Stiglic Rogoznica, Danijela Soso (Croatia), Houria Kaced (Algeria), Zoltan Denes (Hungary).

1. Nomination of the Council Members: The present members of each country decided between them for their country’s Council member. They were announced the following:

1. Greece: Xanthi Michail
2. Italy: Francesca Gimigliano
3. Israel: Iuly Treger
4. Serbia: Milica Lazovic
5. Slovenia: Klemen Grablieviech
6. Turkey: Gulseren Akyuz
7. Spain: Amparo Assucena
8. Bulgaria: Elena Ilieva
9. Croatia: Nives Stiglic Rogoznica
10. Cyprus: Nicolas Christodoulou
11. Portugal: Jorge Lains
12. Egypt: Hassan El Shahali
13. Malta: Stephen Zammit
14. Montenegro: Zeljana Skaric-Karanikic
15. Romania: Mihai Berteanu
16. Algeria: Houria Kaced
17. Hungary: Zoltan Denes

2. Approval of the Minutes of the 9th Mediterranean Congress General Assembly in Sorrento: The minutes were accepted unanimously.

3. 10th Mediterranean Congress in Budva: Prof. Milica Lazovic, president of the Serbian Society of PMR and congress organizer, gave information about the 10th Mediterranean Congress of PRM. According to this, the number of participants of the Congress was 401 from 24 countries (20 countries having MFPRM members). 291 paid registration fees and for 72 their registration fees have been waved. 187 were coming from Serbia. There were a lot of oral presentations, and posters. Jorge Lains, on behalf of the MFPRM, congratulated the Serbian Society and especially Milica Lazovic and the organizing committee for their efforts to present an excellent congress in less than one year.

4. MFPRM Action Plan & Website: The several Committees for the Action Plan were presented and the president asked the participants to be involved more actively to the several committees. A tool for our action plan is the function of our website. Till now a sponsor from Turkey was covering the annual expenses for the website operation. Due to the international financial crisis the sponsor cannot continue covering the expenses and it is difficult to find others. The Board yesterday decided to suggest to the GA to adopt a motion for the cover of the annual expenses of the website from the Mediterranean Congresses budget and add to the article 8 of the Statute, a new paragraph under number 7, the following amendment:

“The Congress Organiser provides a grant of one thousand euro (€1000.-) for the function of the MFPRM website covering the cost of two subsequent years. The grant contribution is paid upon a relevant invoice, during the Congress and just after the presentation of the website function to the General Assembly of the Society”.

The motion was voted and accepted unanimously.

5. Haim Ring Euro–Mediterranean PRM School in Syracuse 21-24.10.2013: A new video of the School was presented and several details for 2013 Course were given. Also, the president informed that Dr. Franco Cirillo informed yesterday the Board about the difficulties in finding funds for the School operation due to the international financial crisis. Therefore, the Board accepted to suggest to the GA the request of the School to be partially funded by the budgets of the Mediterranean Congresses. The Board suggested a motion, to be added to the article 8 of the Statute a new paragraph, with the following sentences:

“The Congress Organizer provides a grant of four thousand euro (€4000.-) for the works of the Euro-Mediterranean PRM School Haim Ring, covering a part of the School expenses for the free of charge hosted trainees from the several Mediterranean countries. The grant contribution is paid to the School representative, during the Congress and just after the presentation of the School activities to the General Assembly of the Society, upon an official receipt from the School. The grant contribution will start from the Congress, which will be selected following this amendment, which is the 2017 congress”.

After an extensive discussion the motion was voted and accepted with 16 votes in favour and one abstention.      

6. 11th Mediterranean Congress in Egypt, 2015: Prof. Hassan El Shahali, President of the Egyptian PRM Society (EGYRAR), presented the organizing plans and arrangements for the 11th Congress of MFPRM in Alexandria. It will be organized from 1 to 4 October 2015 at the Alexandria Four Seasons Hotel, which has two rooms of 400 seats and other 12 smaller rooms for parallel sessions.  Prof. El Shahali was asked for the unstable political situation in Egypt and how this could affect the participation to the congress, if the situation will continue and colleagues from abroad will feel unsafe to go to Egypt. Prof. El Shahali explained that during the next months Egypt is going to have a new President a new Constitution and Parliament, which will give a new stable government.  He stated that already in Egypt is safe and especially the area of Alexandria, which will host the congress in 2015 is quite safe. The present members in the GA wished to the Egyptian colleagues a successful congress and the Board members will do their best in helping the organization of the Alexandria congress.

7. Voting for the 12th Congress of 2017: The president Dr. Jorge Lains informed that the Board received three applications for organizing the 2017 Mediterranean PRM Congress till 31.08.2013. The three candidates were Dr Stephen Zammit for Valetta-Malta, Prof Xanthi Michail for Kreta-Greece and Prof. Iuly Treger for Israel. According to the article 8 of our Statute, the candidates who are coming from countries applying for first time, are preferred. The Mediterranean Congress has already been organized in Israel (1996) and in Athens (2000). Therefore, the Board asked yesterday Dr. Stephen Zammit to confirm that in the candidacy of Malta, there is not any plan the congress to be co-organized with members from other country. Dr. Zammit confirmed that his candidacy is completely Maltese, he has the support of the Maltese PRM Association, Ministery of Health and Ministery of Tourism of Malta. Following the statements of Dr. Zammit, the Board considered that his candidacy is preferred. He was asked to present his candidacy to the General Assembly. Following his presentation a secret voting has taken place. The Maltese candidacy was accepted with 15 votes in favour and 2 against. Dr. Zammit was asked to send to the Board the official letter of support from the Maltese PRM Association. A relevant contract will then be signed from both sides. Since the majority of the votes were in favour of the Malta candidacy, it was not necessary the other two candidacies to be presented to the GA.

8. Election of the Forum President: There was only one candidate, which was from Prof. Jorge Lains, who was interested to be elected for a second and final term. He was elected unanimously for his second term as president of the MFPRM.

9. Election for the members of the new Forum Board – secret voting: The members of the Council were asked to express their desire to be elected for the 5 posts of the Board, besides the posts of president, vice-president (who is automatically the organizer of the next congress) and the two honorary Board members. The following 7 members expressed their interest and received by secret voting the number of votes, as it is written below:

1. Greece: Xanthi Michail                         8
2. Italy: Francesca Gimigliano                  12
3. Israel: Iuly Treger                                  7
4. Serbia:  Milica Lazovic                         11
5. Slovenia: Klemen Grablijevec               10
6. Turkey: Gulseren Akyuz                         8
7. Spain: Amparo Assucena                        8

The three members were elected from the first voting and were Francesca Gimigliano, Milica Lazovic and Klemen Grablijevec.

A second round of secret voting was done, among the three candidates who received 8 votes each. They were elected for Board members Gulseren Akyuz with 11 votes and Amparo Assucena with 11 votes. Xanthi Michail received 9 votes.

The General Assembly ended at 15.15.

Jorge Lains                                                                               
President

Gulseren Akyuz
Secretary