EACTA NL October 2013

Dear EACTA members, Dear colleagues and friends,

At the Annual Meeting of EACTA in Barcelona, the Representative Council (RC) of EACTA discussed changes to the EACTA Bylaws and took decisions to modernise the running of EACTA. The aim that underlies these changes is to develop EACTA into an increasingly active and attractive association for all cardiac, thoracic and vascular anaesthesiologists and intensivists. The major decisions taken by the RC were outlined in an earlier newsletter. Today, we wish to provide you with additional information on the process of the changes that EACTA is going through and inform you about upcoming changes to the membership renewal process.

Bylaws changes
I hope that the information on ongoing changes to EACTA rules, structures and committees may have spurred you to read the EACTA Bylaws in detail. If you have not do so yet then you can access them at http://www.eacta.org/page-01-07.shtml. The bylaws have been updated in recent years, and we expect that ongoing modernisation and advancement of EACTA will soon require further changes of the bylaws.

Changes to SubCom structure
As outlined in a previous newsletter, the structure of the subspecialty committees (SubComs) has been fundamentally changed. Previously, membership of the SubComs was restricted by a maximum number of members and by the number of members per country. Now, the SubComs are open to all EACTA members. Using social media such as LinkedIn, even non-members can participate in EACTA’s and SubComs discussions but we also hope that these activities will motivate colleagues to become members of EACTA.
The new open structure requires that SubComs are lead by a SubCom Board with a chairperson and three board members. All SubCom members who are EACTA members have active and passive voting rights for the Subcom Board positions. Chairpersons. SubCom board members will have a three-year term of office that is renewable for one additional, consecutive term. Along with running the SubCom, the SubCom board members will delegate one member to each of the three permanent EACTA committees which are the Scientific, Programme and Educational Committees. The missions of these committees will be described later in this newsletter. Having a member in each of these three committees, the SubComs can provide the benefit of their subspecialty expertise into these important EACTA committees and thus, influence EACTA policy.
We aim to implement these changes in the SubCom structure by the end of 2013. The SubCom chairs will initiate elections for the SubCom board positions soon, which will allow constitution the Educational and the Programme Committees by the end of the year and to gradually renew the Scientific Committee. 

Scientific Committee
The mission of the Scientific Committee is to assess the scientific abstracts submitted to the EACTA Annual Meeting and to evaluate the grant applications. In addition, it evaluates requests for EACTA endorsements of scientific studies to prvide recommendations to the DB. The Scientific Committee is chaired by the Scientific Secretary.

Programme Committee
The mission of the Programme Committee is to develop the scientific programme of the Annual Meetings. This work is done together with the local organising committee, SubComs and EACTA officers, and in combination with the scientific abstracts selected by the Scientific Committee. The Programme Committee is co-chaired by the chair of the local organising committee and the Scientific Secretary.

Educational Committee
The mission of the Educational Committee is to develop and facilitate programmes for continuous medical education (CME) including e-learning. In addition, it will evaluate applications to EACTA for accreditation of fellowship programmes and endorsements of educational programmes and meetings to provide recommendations to the Directorate Board (DB). The task of developing programmes for CME is an especially important new challenge for EACTA that has the promise of creating highly useful educational tools for all of us. To achieve this goal, we need dedicated work from members who are inspiring teachers and have a flair for new media.If you are interested in working on the Educational Committee, you may contact the Honorary Secretary Pete Alston, who is the chair ().
Please help to make this initiative a success! Communicate your willingness and interest in working in the Educational, Scientific or Programme Committees, to the chairs of the SubCom in which you are already participate or wish to become active in.

Membership renewal
The DB has decided to change the rolling membership systen to an annual renewal of membership starting on January 1 for all members. To institute annual renewal of membership and unless your membership started on January 1 the next time you are invited to renew your membership, it will be for more than a year. For example, during the transition period which will last till end of 2014 - you will be invited to renew for 14 months if your membership is up for renewal in November 2013 or for 21 months if you renew in April 2014. The membership fee will be adjusted to the total duration of renewal but will not exceed the previous membership fee per month. Please contact our Membership Secretary Joachim Erb ,() or our new association manager Barbara Ferus more of whom later, should you have any question about your membership.

Vereint
To be successful taking our association onto a more active level, we need collaboration from many EACTA members as well as support from a dedicated, professional association management company (AMC). You may have had personal experience that such crucial support was frequently unavailable in past years. For this reason the DB has decided to terminate EACTA’s ties with the previous AMC. Following competitive tendering and extensive evaluation, the Vienna based company VEREINT, was chosen as our new AMC. Vereint has already started working for EACTA as its new AMC. Starting with our 2015 meeting, Vereint will also become our professional congress organiser.

Barbara Ferus, MSc, Association Manager

Our new association manager is Barbara Ferus. With Barbara, our association now has a friendly and dedicated contact person whenever you need information or support from EACTA administration. The first challenging task for Barbara and the Vereint team has been to establish a complete list of all EACTA members bringing together several incomplete lists provided by the previous AMC. As the previous lists all contained wrong, conflicting or incomplete information, the new membership list may still need further corrections before we have a reliable and comprehensive membership list. Your patience and help, should problems occur with your data, is highly appreciated. Please support Vereint in their efforts to obtain your correct, complete, and most current data! Barbara Ferus is grateful for any corrections, and she will be happy to support you with any membership requests. Do not hesitate to contact her by mail () or phone (+43-1-533 35 42)!

EACTA representative to the SCA
Finally, we want to announce a second time that we are seeking applications or nominations for the EACTA representative in the SCA Scientific Program Committee. This position is for a two-year term that can be renewed once. The reason is that the previous announcement indicated a wrong deadline for applications (in 2014 only). Please apply or send nominations to by November 9, 2013, for the EACTA representative in the SCA Scientific Program Committee. The EACTA representative is in charge of proposing the EACTA session at the SCA meeting and works on the general meeting program.  This position is open now and EACTA members with experience in creating scientific programs for meetings or symposia are invited to apply.

EACTA supports the representative in the SCA Scientific Program Committee according to EACTA rules, that is with a maximum of €850 for travel and a maximum of €600 for accommodation. It must be noted that this support usually does not fully cover all expenses that may be incurred, as meetings of the Scientific Program Committee always take place on Friday evening before opening of the annual SCA meeting and on Wednesday, the last day of the meeting. On the other hand, the EACTA representative is the only member of the SCA Scientific Program Committee who receives any financial support, as SCA considers committee work a privilege and honour for anaesthesiologists.

EACTA is "on the move". Many new ideas are being evaluated, many of them are being translated into new initiatives, and more members than ever are working for advancing the goals of EACTA. To encourage specialisation in cardiac, thoracic and vascular anaesthesia and critical care and to promote continuing medical education and research in these fields, with the ultimate goal of increasing patient safety. We cordially invite you to participate in this re-creation of EACTA by contributing your ideas and expertise as well as your work. Let us know how you wish to participate!
Yours kindly,

Manfred Seeberger, President	Peter Rosseel, President-elect

On behalf of the Directory Board of EACTA