News

General Assembly of the Nordic Fertility Society
Minutes of the meeting held in in Oslo Norway, January 5th, 2008

1. The General Assembly elected K-G Nygren to chair the meeting, Karin Hallman as secretary and Thorir Hardarsson and Kersti Lundin as auditors of the minutes. In addition, Karin Erb was chosen as auditor of the NFS accounts.


2. The minutes of the previous meeting and the agenda for the present meeting were accepted.


3. Johan Hazekamp gave the annual report to the NFS board. The NFS board has had seven meetings, one of them physical and the other six by phone. Hazekamp confirmed, after the meeting, a current membership of 682.
   
   The NFS Board finds that the Board is too small to manage all the necessary tasks in a democratic way. There are often Board members who cannot attend the Board meeting, which substantially reduces the number of voting members present at each meeting. It was also impossible to elect a counsellor to the Board at the last Election Committee meeting, when there was a strong wish to do so, because there is no category for counsellors as a sixth profession. The Board has only five professional categories. Understandably neither Nurse/midwife nor secretary was willing to give their place in the Board to a Counsellor. There are not enough counsellors to mitigate a sixth professional category. A bigger board may also organize an educational committee.
   
   The President presented a suggestion for a new Board constitution, attached, where there are two members from each country and each category to ensure a good attendance at Board meetings. In addition there are 2 suggested extra board members to provide some flexibility for the election committee, for example for election of a Counsellor and a Geneticist, when desired.
   
   Because the suggestion was not publicized at least 14 days before this General Assembly, the suggestion could not be voted on at this meeting and will have to wait until the next General Assembly.
   
   The Society has arranged two educational meetings. A two-day course for Midwives/nurses was held in Copenhagen with 46 participants and a three-day course for technicians was held in Stockholm, with 30 participants. Both meetings were regarded successful with good distribution between countries among the participants.
   
   The NFS web site now has a search function. Suggestions for changes to the web site are welcome. The amendments to the §4 of the By-Laws, approved at last meeting were now presented and approved for the second time. The amendments will now be added to the By-Laws of the Society.


4. Julius Hreinsson, the treasurer, presented the revised annual report for 2006 and the unrevised report for 2007. The financial situation of the Society is good and the treasurer's proposal to keep the member fee at the same level as before, 200 DKK/year, was approved.
   
   The treasurer's report was approved and the assembly released his responsibility.
   
   The president added that the Society now had to be registered in Norway around the time of the actual conference, as the exhibitors are liable to pay VAT. This registration may be finished when the transactions are closed.


5. The departing board was presented.
   
   The new board, as proposed by the election committee is:
   

   Physician	Karsten Pedersen	Denmark
   Biologist	Siren Skrede	Norway
   Biotechnician	Thuridur Palsdottir	Iceland
   Nurse/Midwife	Christina Forberg	Finland
   Secretary	Yvonne Kaselli	Sweden

   
   There were no other suggestions from the assembly and the new board was ratified.
   
   The election committee has proposed Søren Ziebe, Denmark, as new president. There were no other suggestions from the assembly. Søren Ziebe was elected to be president of the Nordic Fertility Society. The term of office for the Board members and the President is three years.


6. It was suggested that proposals in the future could be put on the website a minimum of 14 days before the general assembly.


7. The next conference will be held at Nyborg Strand, at the coast of Fyn, 5-8 August 2009. This will be a summer conference, as presented by the new president, Søren Ziebe.