MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING
HELD IN PISA, ITALY, ON THURSDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2006

Present:
Professor Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek – President
Dr Esther Middelkoop – Past President
Professor Mark WJ Ferguson – Secretary
Dr Mike Flour – Treasurer
Professor Sabine Werner – Board Member
Dr Raj Mani – Board Member
Dr Marco Romanelli – Board Member
Dr Bernard Coulomb – Board Member
Professor David Leaper – Board Member
Professor David Thomas – Board Member
Professor Sabine Eming – Board Member
Professor Hilde Beele – Board Member

In Attendance:
Dr George Cherry – ETRS Business Office
Mrs Christine Cherry – ETRS Business Office
Professor Adrian Barbul } from the Wound Healing Society – by invitation for items 5 and 6.
Professor Jeff Davidson }
Professor Gary Sibald – President, World Union of Wound Healing Societies – by invitation for item 6.

1. The minutes of the Board meeting held in Pisa on Saturday 21st January 2006 were accepted.

2. There were no matters arising not otherwise itemised on the agenda.

3. The President welcomed new Board members, who each gave a brief outline of their clinical and research interests,

4. The report of the President, Professor Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek.

The President summarised the outcome of the Stuttgart ETRS meeting, which had been both a scientific/clinical and a financial success. A sum of money had been transferred to the ETRS and is reported in the Treasurer’s report. The President also summarised the desire to strengthen the bonds between the Wound Healing Society in the USA and the ETRS and to this end members of the Wound Healing Society had been invited to briefly join the Board for items 5 and 6.

The President also discussed future meetings of the ETRS. The timetable is as follows:

2007 – 26th – 28th September – Southampton, England, at Botley Park Country Club, organised by Dr Raj Mani.
2008 – Vacant
2009 – France, Limoges – jointly with the Wound Healing Society, organised by Professor Alexis Desmouliere
2010 – Belgium – organised by Professor Hilde Beele

The President emphasised that an important and urgent task was to decide the venue for the 2008 meeting. A number of suggestions were made, particularly countries that the ETRS had not visited: Greece, Turkey (Istanbul), Spain etc.
The President requested Board members to send her suggestions before the end of October 2006 so that this matter could be resolved in 2006 and a venue and organiser selected. There was considerable enthusiasm for finding a venue in a country ETRS had not previously visited and assisting the local organiser, particularly with the scientific programme.

In a similar vein, the President encouraged Board members and indeed all members of the ETRS to organise a focussed meeting on any topic. There were no focussed meeting topics currently planned for 2007. For 2008, Luc Teot had indicated that he intended to repeat his successful scar meeting in Montpelier.

Some discussion took place concerning guidelines for diabetic foot ulcers and Mieke Flour agreed to send details of an existing document to the President.

5. Professor Adrian Barbul and Professor Jeff Davidson joined the Board meeting representing the Wound Healing Society. They emphasised the desire of the Wound Healing Society to strengthen ties with the ETRS. The confirmed that they wished to move forward with our three year cycle of joint meetings. The Wound Healing Society agreed to a joint meeting in France – Limoges in 2009 organised by Professor Alexis Desmoulierre. They then requested that the next joint meeting be held in USA. The ETRS agreed to this proposal. It was confirmed that the arrangements previously agreed between the WHS and the ETRS would hold. Namely that the hosting society would run the joint meeting in that
particular year, but the visiting society would not cancel their annual meeting, but hold this as usual. Given that the timings of the meetings were typically in April for the Wound Healing Society and September for the ETRS, this was thought not to pose any problems. The Wound Healing Society outlined their new arrangements with SAWC(Symposium for Advanced Wound Care) /HMP (Health Management Publications) and indicated that their meetings would be in April and that the initial contract ran until April 2008, so this posed no problem for the proposed joint meeting in France in 2009.

It was clarified that the subscription to Wound Repair and Regeneration was optional, because many members of the ETRS were also members of the Wound Healing Society and got their journal via that route. It was also confirmed that the great majority of ETRS members buy the journal.

6. Professor Gary Sibald then joined the Board meeting and outlined the plans for the 2008 World Union of Wound Healing Societies meeting to be held from Wednesday 4th – Saturday 8th June 2008 in Toronto. He indicated that the primary purpose of this meeting was to collect and synthesise the evidence base, particularly for clinicians, to look at and revise guidelines and to agree collaborations. Professor Sibald outlined the difference between a hosting society, which would cancel its annual meeting that year and a supporting society, which would not cancel its meeting. He was clear that the ETRS could be a supporting society and indicated that he had sent a draft contract to the President.

Some Board discussion took place with the Wound Healing Society members present. The Wound Healing Society indicated that they would make a decision as to whether or not to support the World Union Meeting later that year, but they thought it unlikely that the Wound Healing Society would be supportive. The Wound Healing Society representatives expressed concern about the statutes and constitution of the World Union of Wound Healing Societies indicating that it was, in their view, an organisation with omission, run by individuals not members. They further expressed concern about the diversion of sponsorship money to the World Union meeting away from the other society meetings and finally they expressed concern about the quality and authenticity of any guidelines that may come out of the World Union meeting and their potential authority.

After further discussion on its own, the ETRS Board decided the following:

i. The President would circulate the draft contract from the World Union of Wound Healing Societies to Board members.
ii. All Board members would consider that contract and the discussion at the Board and email their comments to the President/Secretary, copying in other Board members.
iii. Following such email interchange, a decision would be made as to whether or not the ETRS Board would support the World Union Meeting in 2008 or not.

ACTIONS:

i. Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek to finalise, following consultation, the venue for the 2008 ETRS meeting.
ii. All Board members to submit their views on the World Union meeting and a Board decision to be taken by 30th October 2006.

7. The Secretary, Professor Mark Ferguson, presented his report, which was circulated to all Board members and will be published in the ETRS Bulletin.

8. The Treasurer circulated her report, which will be published in the ETRS Bulletin.

9. The Business Office circulated its report, which will be published in the ETRS Bulletin. A full discussion took place on these various reports.

The key topics emerging were:

i. A number of vacancies would arise on the Board this year as a result of the completion of the term of office of Dr Esther Middelkoop (Past President), Dr Mieke Flour (Treasurer) and Professor Sabine Werner (Board Member). It was confirmed that there would be two vacancies on the Board (Esther Middelkoop was a Board member as a result of her Past Presidency and this does not constitute a Board vacancy). The Secretary and the Business Office were asked to organise elections of new Board members in the normal way. The President and Board unanimously thanked Dr Esther Middelkoop, Dr Mieke Flour and Professor Sabine Werner for their help, support and service to the ETRS Board over many years. They would be invited to a Board meeting to be held at the end of 2006/beginning of 2007 to review the arrangements for the Southampton meeting. This would allow for overlap between the old and new Board members and would also provide a suitable occasion to officially say thank you to Ester, Mieke and Sabine.

ii. The ETRS finances were in a healthy state. However, it was noted that obtaining sponsorship for ETRS meetings was becoming increasingly difficult. It was, therefore, imperative that the ETRS held back a capital fund in case in any year it’s annual meeting either did not break even or was subject to considerable debt, e.g., in the event of a global crisis and mass cancellation. It was, however, agreed that at a future Board meetings we might consider how to spend some additional funds. Several suggestions were made.

a) Increasing the number of bursaries so that young people might attend and present at the ETRS Annual meeting. There was a lot of support for this suggestion.

b) Providing a contribution, e.g., reduced registration fees or contribution to travel for individuals from third world countries to attend and present at the ETRS Annual meeting. Again there was considerable enthusiasm for this suggestion.

It was agreed that the matter should be discussed and refined at a future Board meeting and then official rules/guidelines drawn up, so that the additional bursaries could be advertised in good time for the forthcoming annual meeting and that all awards could be considered competitively. Finally, the high standard of the Young Investigator Award presentations was noted. It was suggested that in future years the Young Investigator session should be a stand alone plenary session, with no parallel ongoing sessions, so as to afford the Young Investigators a good audience.

ACTIONS:

i. MWJF and the Business Office to organise Board elections
ii. All Board members to consider additional bursaries and bursaries for overseas colleagues to attend and present at the Annual ETRS meeting.
iii. Local meeting organisers to organise the plenary your investigator session.

10. Congress President, Dr Marco Romanelli, outlined the arrangements for the Pisa meeting. The Board unanimously thanked Marco for an excellent job. The programme was outstanding and the venue and social arrangements were very good. Professor Romanelli’s official report of the meeting will be appended to the minutes and published in the ETRS Bulletin, however, he was particularly proud of the number of speakers, papers and posters and the large number of countries represented. He drew particular attention to the difficulties of obtaining sponsorship from industry. It was felt that this was largely due to competing demands for a limited budget from a number of wound healing companies and to the fact that the ETRS is the premier scientific wound healing meeting, which does not attract the large volumes of nurses and other prescribers that different wound healing meetings attract. Nonetheless, the Board wished to stick with the mission of the ETRS and it was noted that a number of companies wanted to sponsor/be associated with the meeting due to the innovations presented and the high scientific/ clinical quality. Nonetheless it would be prudent for the ETRS to recognise that the level of sponsorship for its stand alone meetings may be somewhat reduced. The Board noted this position and offered to assist future conference organisers in raising appropriate sponsorship. The Board also noted that with its planned programmes of joint meetings, e.g., with the Wound Healing Society of USA, and as it had done in the past with the European Wound Management Association, etc, there would be an opportunity for enhanced sponsorship and revenue generation.

11. Dr Raj Mani outlined the arrangements for the ETRS meeting to be held from 26th – 28th September 2007 at Botley Park Country Club, Southampton. Dr Mani indicated that he would further elaborate on these arrangements at the ETRS Annual General Meeting, where the conference organiser would present many of the details.

ACTION:
Dr Mani to circulate potential dates for an ETRS Board meeting/visit to Southampton late in 2006 or early in 2007 as is our normal practice.

There being no further business, the meeting closed.

Report from the ETRS Business Office