Activities - 2005 - Minutes from the Council Meeting

Background

The Council meeting was held on April 3rd in Hatfield. This text is an abbreviated account, the full minutes were made available to the federated societies.

Present

Executive Committee

• Pieter Rookmaaker (Chair)
• Clas-Håkan Nygård (Secretary)
• Dirk Delaruelle (Treasurer, also delegate for the Belgian Ergonomics Society)
• Dietmar Gude (Chair of Website Committee)
• David O'Neill (Chair of Meeting Committee)

Delegates

• Knut-Inge Fostervold (Nordic Ergonomics Society)
• Kristiina Juvas (Finnish Ergonomics Society)
• Lina Bonapace (Italian Ergonomics Society)
• Reg Sell (British Ergonomics Society)
• Martin Schütte (German Ergonomics Society)
• Ernst Koningsveld (Dutch Ergonomics Society)
• Leonard O'Sullivan (Irish Ergonomics Society)

Invited Observer

• Roland Örtengren (CREE Chair)

Updating of Activities from the last Council Meeting

Chairman Pieter Rookmaaker welcomed the delegates from the national societies to FEES 3rd Council meeting. He stated the position of FEES and emphasised especially the aim to work with European matters inside the EU. Following, the Secretary Clas-Håkan Nygård presented a progress report of FEES activities after the last Council meeting in Paris.

It was asked whether FEES should formalise the contacts with CREE. Pieter Rookmaaker and CREE chair Roland Örtengren answered that for now the established contacts between the chairpersons and the exchange of minutes from meetings and other documents seem to be sufficient, but it will be easy to add other elements if necessary.

A discussion about current and possible new membership included that (a) at present there are no initiatives towards a membership by other societies and (b) two societies in the Nordic Ergonomics Society (Denmark and Iceland) are no longer in FEES, in the case of Denmark this is mainly because this society is a part of the Engineering society and therefore currently not allowed to be a member of a third society like FEES.

It was considered in the discussion that FEES is going on very well, but it has a big selling job to do to keep the member societies involved. Pieter Rookmaaker pointed out that it is also a matter of how motivated the societies are to work in FEES, e.g., by helping to find contributors to the different working committees and their activities.

Personal Talks

Pieter Rookmaaker gave an introduction to the results of the personal talks with members from the national societies. In all, eight societies have been involved in the talks, which in the opinion of the Executive Committee could be seen as representative for the FEES societies. Regarding the other societies, talks did not yet take place due to different kinds of problems in the tight schedule.

Based on the talks, the Executive Committee proposed a set of initiatives and follow-up actions to be done in a very short run. The following immediate actions were proposed:

• Identify a special position in the Executive Committee for promotion and communication (see Item 'New Position in the Executive Committee' below).
• In order to go on and speed up the strategically important task about EU matters the Executive Committee recommends to nominate an 'Ambassador' for FEES for EU matters mainly related to Brussels (see Item 'European Task Force' below).
• To install a FEES Standards Committee (see Item 'Standards Committee' below).
• To speed up the collaboration with CREE, e.g., in planning a workshop about the proposed guidelines to Masters courses in ergonomics proposed by IEA (see Item 'Meeting Committee' below).
• To publish an article on the website about the cost-benefits balances of a FEES membership.

The personal talks initiative was appreciated very much by the Council, it accepted to start with the actions proposed by the Executive Committee.

FEES Committees

The Executive Committee asked the societies to nominate at least two persons from each society working with different FEES-related tasks.

Meeting Committee (MC)

The Meeting Committee, chaired by David O´Neill (UK), currently has three members and will be extended with more people later on. MC has its starting meeting on April 4th, 2005, in Hatfield. The first task of the MC is to prepare a workshop, in close collaboration with CREE and IEA, about Masters courses in ergonomics, to be held during the annual Nordic ergonomics conference (NES 2005) in Oslo, Norway. The second very important task is to prepare sessions for IEA 2006 in Maastricht.

Standards Committee (StC)

Regarding this committee, for the moment three persons have been interested to join, and it will start as soon as a chair has been appointed.

European Task Force (EUTF)

The EUTF is planned to have three dimensions: an European division including people with EU experiences and knowledge from the member societies, a Brussels division including people from the Brussels region, and an 'Ambassador' who will be acting as a part-time lobbyist in Brussels. Kamiel Vanwonterghem has accepted to work as an Ambassador (this information came after the Council meeting) and Pieter Rookmaaker will discuss further with him about the tasks related to this position.

The proposition to have an Ambassador started a discussion about the budget for this position. Most of the financial benefits will be related to 'out of pockets' costs. It was suggested to start with, e.g., a two-year period, and the tasks should be closely related to the wishes of the societies. The Council members asked also how they could help the Ambassador in his work. The Executive Committee will send a description of the proposed tasks for the Ambassador in due time.

Website Committee (WC)

FEES website manager Dietmar Gude has an appointed committee to back-up his work, but a face-to-face meeting seems to be necessary to speed up the activities. Some initiatives resulted in low response rates, Dietmar will send corresponding reminders.

The website seems to be quite successful, the visits have increased in one year from 500 to 1800 per month and the page views from 760 to 2960 per month. The most popular page is 'What is ergonomics?'. This is one reason why this page will be enlarged soon, after sending the new version to the societies for comments.

There have also been questions whether the website can be used to search for partners for, e.g, EU-projects. It was decided that FEES can forward partner search requests 'as they are', without checking the quality of proposals in depth. The Council was asked to give Dietmar one email address for forwarding requests to the national societies, from which it may be forwarded to their members. This item was seen as a good example of how FEES can serve their members.

To sum up the discussion, the Council highly appreciated the work of Dietmar Gude, looking forward to help him and the working committee to further develop the website.

Finances

Treasurer Dirk Delaruelle presented the balance for 2004. The incoming (activa) and outgoing (passiva) money is pointed out. The only activa are the fees of the affiliated countries. One country didn't pay the 2004 contribution, three countries didn't mention the number of paying members of their society. The Cash Control Committee insisted on the importance of these data because they are needed to calculate the fee. Regarding the passiva, money is reserved for three major events to come: IEA 2006, EUTF start-up, and committee meetings. The Cash Control committee (Martin Schütte and Ernst Koningsveld) controlled the financial activa for 2004. Both cash controllers and the Council approved the 2004 balance.

The 2005 budget was discussed, the major costs are related to the EUTF and the Ambassador's work. The Council approved that the 2005 fee for the member countries will be calculated on the same bases as in 2004 and 2003 and approved the resulting 2005 budget. A provision of the 2006 budget was also presented, at the end of this year a financial equilibrium is foreseen. Looking for other sources of incoming money was suggested by the Council in order to diminish the annual contribution of the member societies.

New Position in the Executive Committee

Based on the results from the personal talks, the Executive Committee proposed a new position 'Communication and Promotion'. The Council accepted the proposal and Lina Bonapace (Italy) was appointed for that position.

Rule Changes and Changes in Procedures

The following statements or changes in FEES procedures (Item 1 and 2) and in rules (Item 3) were proposed:

Item 1: Endorsements of Conferences

FEES may endorse a conference on ergonomics, organised by a FEES-member, an IEA- but no FEES-member, or a professional association, when it is considered to be appropriate by the FEES Executive Committee.

The proposal was accepted by the Council.

Item 2: Policy towards Involvements by FEES in Commercial Activities

FEES can take part and work together with organisers of different commercial activities like trade fairs etc. The aims of the trade or other commercial activity should be in line with the aims of FEES and should in general promote ergonomics and be in line with national society's activities. Direct promotion of products should not occur. In general it is recommended that in the commercial activity more than one partner should be involved, if possible. In practice FEES has to ask the national societies opinion about the activity such as trade fairs and act according to that.

The proposal was accepted by the Council.

Item 3: Cash Control Committee

The Executive Committee proposed to introduce a Cash Control Committee which is voted for in the Council according to the following rule:

Each year the Council appoints two FEES auditors, not necessarily members of the Council. The auditors audit and reports on the accounts of the past year submitted by the treasurer.

The proposal was accepted by the Council.

Martin Schütte and Ernst Koningsveld accepted to be FEES auditors for the year 2005 accounts.

Matters of Societies

A great part of the wishes towards FEES have been discussed in the personal talks, but still more is needed to get a continued dialogue between the societies and FEES. In particular, a dialogue with the Croatian Society needs to be established. It was also discussed how to involve more people from the societies to work in FEES committees. The Council also discussed again the relations with CREE, but it was found to be very well now and the collaboration seems to be on a good way.

Next Council Meeting

The next Council meeting will take place in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in the context of the IEA 2006 congress. The exact date and time of the next FEES Council meeting is not yet clear because it has to been discussed with the IEA 2006 organisers.

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Page created 2005 by Clas-Håkan Nygård - last revision 11.10.2007 by Dietmar Gude