Dear colleagues, friends, and members of the Association,

The Annual business meeting of the Association will take place during the annual meeting, which is, of course, itself taking place in Innsbruck over the period 26 May through 29. The business meeting will be held on Thursday 27 May, and at that time, we will invite all our members to discuss the actual business of the Association, such as updating our web page. At that time, we will also be electing a new Secretary-General-Elect, along with one new councillor, and we will be welcoming all our new members.

Web page

The web pages of the Association were created during the last century. They have worked quite well so far but the world around us has changed and so have the needs of our members and working groups. The new functions that the new technology provides us are enormous. Therefore, the Council has decided that the web pages of the Association need an update. The content of the pages should be easily manageable so as to enable prompt updating of the data. The working groups should have their own web pages. We should also have a protected discussion forum for the members only. The forum could be used to discuss business of the Association or to get a second opinion from the members on difficult clinical cases. E-learning will be a future perspective that cannot be accomplished with the technology we are using right now.

The Council asks members for new ideas for the web pages. Please send them to the Secretary-General and come to tell your ideas during the Business Meeting in Innsbruck!

New council members

As we intimated in our Newsletter for December, it is necessary to replace one council member, as well as to elect General-Secretary-Elect, during the Business Meeting in Innsbruck. The Council considers tight co-operation with our cardiac surgeons to be vital for the future of the Association. With this in mind, the proposal of the Council is to elect Juan Comas from Madrid, Spain, as our new councillor.

The council also proposes Katarina Hanséus from Lund, Sweden, as the new Secretary-General-Elect. It is vital for the Office of the Secretary-General that the new officer has experience in the work of the council. Katarina Hanséus has been a council member since 2008.

All members, of course, were invited to make their own proposals for the replacement of the councillor and to nominate the Secretary-General-Elect, but no additional nominations were received by the date this Newsletter was written.

Ingrid Oberhänsli-Weiss will be nominated as an honorary member

The council has decided to nominate Ingrid Oberhänsli-Weiss as an honorary member during the Annual Meeting in Innsbruck. The council and the members really appreciate the skillful and hard work she has done for the Association during so many years.

Ingrid Oberhänsli-Weiss, with the help of her beloved husband, Peter, in data processing, has been running the Fetal Working Group for more than 9 years and the businesses of the Secretary-General through the years 2001–2006. She has always daringly stood up for the best of our discipline and for the best of our Association.

Basic teaching courses for junior members

Since 2006, our junior members, working in close collaboration with the working groups, have commenced our programme of Basic Teaching Courses, intended for those in training for paediatric cardiology throughout the European Community. The aims are to organise profound courses, in which 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 and 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. The courses have been a great success, being well attended, and the evaluations have revealed high levels of satisfaction among the participants.

The next basic teaching course on Interventional Cardiology and Catheterization will take place in Lisbon in April, 2010. The meeting will be hosted by professor Rui Anjos. A total of 36 delegates have registered so far. For further information please visit www.aepc.org or professor Rui Anjos directly via ranjos@chlo.min-saude.pt.

In the future, the Association will also organise teaching courses together with the congenital domain of the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. The aim of these courses is to strengthen the co-operation between young cardiologists, surgeons, and anaesthesiologists as they will also be working together as a team in the hospitals. These joint-venture courses organised by the cardiologists and the surgeons also create the possibility for multi-disciplinary problem solving when discussing difficult cases.

New members

This year, thus far, we will welcome 115 new members to the Association, including 27 Junior members. They are listed below.

Annual meeting in Innsbruck

As already emphasised, the Annual Meeting for 2010 will be held in Innsbruck from 26 through 29 May. The Scientific Secretary, Jo de Giovanni, and the Local Chairman, Joerg-Ingolf Stein, have worked hard, and expect to provide a rewarding scientific and social programme. Please join in great numbers and register now.

Update-on course during the annual meeting

An update-on course on paediatric electrophysiology will be held on the 26th May. While the course will be free of charge for Juniors in training, ordinary members will be required to make a contribution of 90 euros and other participants (non-members) 110 euros.

The programme of the update-on course in paediatric electrophysiology is outstanding. Top experts in the field will discuss the following:

• – Clinical aspects on different arrhythmias in children. These include incessant supraventricular tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy, the management of Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome and an update on hereditary arrhythmia syndromes.

• – In addition, management of problems with atrioventricular block and pacing will be updated.

• – Different aspects on arrhythmias in congenital cardiac diseases such as junctional postoperative rhythm, sudden cardiac death, intra cardiac defibrillator therapy and surgical therapy on arrhythmias in Fontan patients will be discussed during the course.

The update-on course gives us all a great and efficient opportunity to update our knowledge in paediatric arrhythmias.

More information regarding the annual meeting is available on the web page at http://www.aepc2010.at

Looking forward to seeing you all in great numbers in Innsbruck!