Dear Colleagues

It is my privilege to serve as your President this year. However, as with many societies, the ETRS is dependent on the input of its members for the development and realization of its goals. Two years ago, Keith Harding initiated a thorough evaluation of the ETRS organization by formulating the mission, aims and objectives, and by re-defining the role of the ETRS Board and Officers (see ETRS Bulletin 9.4, 2002). Last year, during his term as President of this Society, Mark Ferguson began to implement the arrangements that emerged from this strategic review. This year, I hope to continue this task.

As stated above, communication with members is essential for any Society. Both the ETRS Bulletin and our website serve as our natural ways of communication with our members, nevertheless, once in a while it is good to explicitly ask our membership for their opinion on subjects that we, as a Board, consider important. In view of this, all members have been mailed with a copy of a questionnaire and, if you have not already done so, I hope you will find a few minutes to give us your opinion on ETRS activities and arrangements. The questionnaire is also accessible on the ETRS website. Information from this questionnaire will be collated and distributed to our members.

The major event of this year will undoubtedly be the 2nd World Union of Wound Healing Societies Meeting in Paris, France, from 8–13 July 2004. It will be an unprecedented wound healing meeting, in fantastic surroundings, and it will be the annual meeting for 2004 of the ETRS. The programme is now available on: www.wuwhs.org or www.etrs.org and it is highly unlikely that there is any subject in wound healing and tissue regeneration which is not covered in this programme. Luc Téot and his team have done a magnificent job in putting together this meeting, and they deserve to be rewarded by the attendance of the full membership of our Society. So please reserve these dates in your schedule for this summer.

I wish you a successful and creative year, and hope to see all of you in Paris.

Kind regards,

Esther Middelkoop
President