Central Office

The number of members in our Association is increasing year by year. Even if the Council decided in January, in keeping with the Constitution, to expel some members who have neglected to pay their annual subscription for several consecutive years, we are now an organization of around 800 professionals. This number increases by around 100 new members each year. Thus, soon we will exceed 1000. Handling of all the day-to-day business for an association of this size is quite a task. So far, all the secretarial work has been undertaken voluntarily during weekends by the Secretary-General and the Treasurer. The availability of a part-time secretary working in Switzerland, Julia Schmitz-Leuffen, has proved invaluable. She has been taking care of most of the transfer of monies relating to the annual subscriptions. Her services, however, are available for no more than one or two years. For this reason, Council decided to create a central office, to be based somewhere in Europe. This office will take care of everyday affairs relating to membership, such as updating our data base, mailing newsletters and other material, and taking care of, and developing, the web page. Council has also determined to take to heart recent lessons learned from past events. Thus, in future our Annual meetings will be coordinated by the local team, who will take advantage of the expertise of local professional congress organizers. We hope that more precise information will be available concerning the potential to create the central office by the time we gather for our Business Meeting in Warsaw.

New Council Members

As we intimated our Newsletter for December, it is necessary to replace one Council member, as well as our Scientific Secretary, during the Business Meeting in Warsaw. Council considers tight cooperation with our cardiac surgeons to be vital for the future of the Association. With this in mind, the proposal of Council is to elect Bohdan Maruszewski from Warsaw, Poland, as our new councillor.

All members, of course, were invited to make their own proposals for the replacement of Councillors, but no additional nominations were received. We did, however, receive two nominations for the office of Scientific Secretary, the successful candidate to serve from 2007 until 2012. Jo deGiovanni, from Birmingham, United Kingdom, has been proposed by 13 individual members from 11 countries, and Jean-Pierre Pfammatter, from Bern, Switzerland, has been proposed by 6 members from 2 countries.

Jo is a paediatric cardiologist working in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His main interests are in therapeutic catheterisation, and pacing and electrophysiology in children and adults with congenital cardiac disease. He has lectured and published widely on these subjects. He has been an active member of our Working Group for Intervention for many years. He has demonstrated his organizational skills by co-organizing academic meetings in the United Kingdom and abroad, and for the last 5 years has been Chairman and organizer of the annual meeting of the Congenital Heart Intervention Group in the United Kingdom. He is a Council member of the British Congenital Cardiac Association, as well as its Treasurer, and is a member of the Specialist Advisory Committee for paediatric cardiology at the Royal College of Physicians, the body which oversees specialist training in the United Kingdom.

Jean-Pierre is Chief of Paediatric Cardiology at the Children's University Hospital in Bern, Switzerland. He has published numerous papers in very high profiled journals, attesting his excellent scientific background in paediatric cardiology. He was the Scientific Secretary of the Swiss Paediatric Cardiology Society for several years. He was in contact with several societies and agencies for this purpose. From 2008, he will assume the presidency of the Swiss Paediatric Cardiology Society. He was the local scientific secretary of our last Annual congress, which was held in Basel. He and his team did a splendid job, the scientific content and organization both being first class.

As there will be at least two candidates, we will proceed to a secret ballot. The Secretary-General will send the ballot form to all members in April. Members wishing to vote should return the ballot paper to the Secretary-General in an envelope marked “Ballot”. The deadline for receipt of the ballot papers by the Secretary-General is May 2, 2007.

Basic Teaching Courses for Junior Members

Over the year 2006, our Junior Members, working in close collaboration with the Working Groups, have commenced our programme of Basis Teaching Courses, intended for those in training for paediatric cardiology throughout the European Community. The aims are to organize profound courses, where experienced teachers pass on the knowledge of their specific fields to those in training. These courses are designed to be small and affordable, in terms of fees as well as for accommodation and travelling expenses. It is our intention that any person in training for paediatric cardiology in Europe should have the opportunity to attend.

In April, 2006, the first course took place in Budapest, Hungary, devoted to catheterization, and this was followed by the echocardiography course in Leuven, Belgium. Both courses were a great success, being well attended, and the evaluations revealing high levels of satisfaction among the participants. The citizenship of the attendants of both courses showed a wide diversity of countries across Europe, fulfilling the aim to equally attract people from throughout our continent. In addition, as the fee set was only 150 euros for Junior Members of the Association, these 2 courses were responsible for an increase in our Junior Membership. So, they represent a very good start to our overall programme. By the time you read this Newsletter, we will have completed our first course devoted to morphology, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in January. A course on arrhythmias is to be held in Leipzig, Germany, in April. Further information about the exact dates, programme, faculty, registration, and accommodation are all listed on the website of the Association within the section devoted to Junior Members at: http://www.aepc.org/.

New Members

This year, thus far, we will welcome 78 new members to the Association, including 18 Junior members. They are listed below.

Annual Meeting in Warsaw

As already emphasised, the Annual Meeting for 2007 will be held in Warsaw from 16th through 19th May. The Scientific Secretary, Shakeel Qureshi, and the Local Chairman, Wanda Kawalec, have worked hard, and expect to provide a rewarding scientific and social program. Please join in great numbers and register now. A Teaching course on Grown-Up Congenital Heart Disease will be held on 18th May. While the course will be free of charge for Juniors in training, ordinary members and other participants will be required to make a contribution of 80 euros. More information regarding the Annual Meeting is available at the web page at http://www.aepc2007.pl/.

We look forward to meeting you all in great numbers at the Annual Meeting in Warsaw.

New Members 2007