Activities - 2007 - Minutes from the Council Meeting

Background

The Council meeting was held on March 14th in Brussels. This text is an abbreviated account, the full minutes were made available to the federated societies.

Participants:

• Pieter Rookmaaker, Chair
• Dave O’Neill, Secretary
• Dirk Delaruelle, Treasurer and delegate for Belgium Ergonomics Society
• Dietmar Gude, Webmaster
• Kamiel Vanwonterghem, EUTF Ambassador
• Reg Sell, Ergonomics Society
• Johan Molenbroek, Netherland Ergonomics Society
• Martin Schuette, German Ergonomics Society
• Maria Monotolini, Spain Ergonomics Society
• Christophe Maes, EUTF
• Kristiina Juvas, Finnish Society
• Budimir Mijovic, Croatian Society
• Alexander Burov, Ukraine Society
• Carlos Fujao, Portuguese Society
• Wieslaus Horst, Polish Society
• Grzegorz Dahlke, Polish Society

Apologies:

• Lina Bonapace, Italian Society
• Leonard O’Sullivan, Irish Society

1. Introduction and meeting agenda

Council was welcomed by FEES president Pieter Rookmaaker and the agenda was accepted.

2. Minutes from the 4th Council meeting in Maastricht 2006

The minutes were accepted without changes. There were no matters arising that are not included on today’s agenda.

3. (a) Election to FEES membership

Alexander Burov made a presentation giving key details of the All Ukraine Ergonomics Association. He noted that there 8 members of Council, the website is presented in 3 languages (local, Russian and English) and that there are now 6 Universities offering courses in ergonomics.
After brief discussion the AUEA was unanimously elected to FEES membership.
The President took this opportunity to remind everyone present that all Federated Societies should submit a page of information about themselves for posting on the FEES website.

3. (b) Acceptance of Sustaining Membership

The Rookmaaker family was accepted unanimously.
Two representatives (R Sell and J Molenbroek) expressed some concern over the criteria for membership. It was agreed that this would be discussed under item 5a.

4. Updating of activities from the last Council meeting

The Progress Report for 2006-07 was tabled and the various activities briefly discussed. J Molenbroek suggested that there should be web pages made available for reporting and possibly discussing Committee activities. It was suggested that Council members could join Skype™ to facilitate communications (suggested to be better than e-mails).

The Progress Report was accepted.

The composition of the Executive was discussed. No changes to the present situation were feasible despite the wish of the President for more Working Groups to become activated.

5. FEES finances

The Treasurer, Dirk Delaruelle, in his opening remarks urged all members to pay their dues for 2007 promptly. DD made a powerpoint ™ presentation describing the financial situation covering the balance sheet for 2006 and the budget for 2007. Discussion of the financial report included the following key points:

• A request was made to see the key documents, such as finance, in advance
• When FEES pays subsistence expenses, a fixed per diem should be use: after some discussion, this suggestion was not favoured.
• Is it appropriate for EUTF activities to dominate the budget? KV commented that EUTF already operates on a minimum budget and it does not seem possible to get funding from elsewhere (especially EC). JM suggested the Leonardo da Vinci fund for travels and subsistence expenses but KV said that FEES was not currently eligible.
• A Burov asked about the possibility of accessing funds designated for development in Eastern Europe. He will pursue this with the Treasurer after the meeting.
• B Mijovic said he had paid the subscriptions for Croatia for the last three years.

The Financial Report was accepted by council.

The report from the Auditors stated that the accounting has done made properly. The auditors’ comments were received and accepted by Council.
The auditors (Ernst Koningsveld and Martin Shuette) have accepted to continue their work for the coming year.

The item and discussion on sustaining membership was deferred until later in the meeting.

6. Website and Impact Factor

The Webmaster, D Gude, gave the meeting a tour of the website via an interactive link. The major comments arising during discussion of the website are given below.

• The increasing number of “hits” on the website is encouraging, the calendar page(s) being the most popular.
• There have been several good contributions for the calendar section but more would be welcomed (including short-notice local activities) as these still help people to plan.
• The number of contributions to the Societies’ web pages has been disappointing.
• There are plans to set up working platforms for (the FEES) EU Project Working Groups.
• Setting up some more general discussion groups was also suggested.

The European Impact Factor facility within the website is still being developed before going live. Some data has to be collected using a questionnaire that can be completed on-line. Each Society should nominate two people to complete the questionnaire according to their own experiences.
Martin Schütte and Dietmar Gude are continuing to lead this development process. When the necessary basic work has been done, the Impact Factor facility can be opened to visitors to the website and the assessment will be developed further.

7. Activities in the Committees

Communications & Promotion

Since L Bonapace stood down, the position of Chair of this Committee has not been filled and there are no active members of the Committee. LB had sent a presentation concerned with, mainly, progressing the European Month of Ergonomics (EME) which was given in her absence. However, it was felt that for EME to be feasible in October, a Committee of 5 or 6 people would be needed. A number of points emerged in the discussion:-

• We need to have an “Ergonomics of / for Something”
• Ergonomics relating to children / school / education seemed to be the most popular ideas
• Do we have anyone who knows about marketing / should we employ a “marketer”?
• Team up with activities at the Bilbao Agency?
• But don’t restrict scope of ergonomics to MSDs etc
• Don’t be too explicit – just demonstrate the benefits of ergonomics

K Juvas offered to form a Committee and prepare a plan for EME. She will then circulate this round Council for comment / action. KJ was reminded that LB may still be able to offer some limited help.

EUTF

After a presentation describing the activities of the EU Task Force, which focused on the activities relating to the previous two days’ FP7 Workshop, the following significant points were discussed:-

• The president had had successful interactions with the Dutch National Contact Point (NCP)
• R Sell commented similarly, although at the FP7 launch in London, nobody had any interest in ergonomics. Nevertheless, RS stressed the importance of working with NCPs as well as any Brussels linkages that may have been made. This was supported by other members present.
• There should be scope for ergonomics in the European Institute of Technology (EIT). FEES should adopt this as an aim and pursue it.
• Despite the current (and appropriate) focus on FP7, other EC initiatives and organisations should not be overlooked. It may be relevant to contact the European Social Fund.
• One or two members found the information about the FP7 Workshop inadequate or the timing difficult
• The point was made that it is often difficult to contact Societies when the e-mails are reported as “unknown” or keep bouncing back. The President suggested we might try telephoning as an alternative (see item 4 above).

Standards

M Schuette made a powerpoint™ presentation. The key points from the presentation and in subsequent discussion were:

• There will be a new Machinery Directive in December 2009; this will have ergonomics implications
• The President urged that a Standards Committee should now be properly formed. MS agreed to do this but asked where the expertise would come from.
• Similarly, the question was raised about how representative (of Europe) such a committee would be with some major EU States (e.g. France) being absent.
• The Committee needs to be selective in what it tackles. Primary attention should be given to the more fundamental ergonomics Standards.
• MS could foresee that most of the Committee work would be done via e-mail and the website (especially using discussion groups).
• Christina Jonsson (Sweden) was suggested as a Committee member and it may be possible to identify more at the EUTF meeting the following day.

8. Sustaining Members (from item 5)

The President led the discussion. He stated that FEES would be following the IEA guidelines (for sustaining members) and outlined the benefits. The following concerns were raised:-

• Appropriateness / strictness / consistency of criteria and approval process(es)
• Use and protection of our logo with regard to commercial activities / advantage
• Benefits to sustaining members in the different categories

The Executive will deal with all these concerns, after which all the information relating to Sustaining Members will be made available on the website.

9. Reports from Member Societies (agenda item 8)

The following contributions were made from round the table.

Finnish Society (ERY – KJ)

About 175 members; held the Nordic Conference last year. Held Spring and Autumn scientific meetings on a) ergonomics in legislation and standards and b) patient (manual) handling in healthcare. Awarding prizes enables greater opportunities for important issues to be publicised. This year the challenge is to consolidate some of the good progress recently made.

Ergonomics Society (ES – RS)

The ES now has a new Chief Executive who is asking some very perceptive questions about the future of both the Society and the subject. Preparations for petitioning for a Royal Charter are continuing (and may involve a change of name to accommodate the term “human factors”). Preparations are also starting for staging events to mark the Society’s 60th Anniversary in 2009. Requests for funding relating to this are not being very productive.

Croatian Society (BM)

There about 60 members of whom 20 or so are active in the Society. Most members are industry-based, being engineers and occupational health specialists. A recent initiative has been collaboration with the furniture industry to make better school furniture (particularly with respect to anthropometry).

10. Report from IEA (agenda item 9)

It was noted by Council that the IEA are revising their Code of Conduct and are trying to establish, in broad terms, criteria for MSc training courses (in ergonomics).

11. Report from CREE (agenda item 10)

Nothing to report at this meeting.

12. Next council meeting (agenda item 11)

Two venue possibilities were briefly discussed: Munich and Poznan. A date sometime in April seemed to be favoured.
No firm decisions were made. The Executive should decide and look for a suitable event to join with.

13. Any Other Business (agenda item 12)

Following news of the closure of the Swedish NIWL (National Institute for Working Life), the President wrote to Roland Kadefors to ask if support from FEES would be helpful and, if so, what kind of support would be appropriate. The President, however, received no reply.

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Page created 2008 by David O'Neill - last revision 22.10.2008 by Dietmar Gude