Activities - 2007 - Report July 2006 to March 2007

The routine activities in this short (8 months) year have been dealt with mainly by the elected officers: President Pieter Rookmaaker (the Netherlands), Secretary-General Dave O'Neill (UK) and Treasurer Dirk Delaruelle (Belgium).

The increase in activity which was observed in the previous year (reported at the 5th Council meeting, Maastricht) has not been maintained because of the reduction in Committee activity. The one exception, however, is the EUTF which has been increasingly active trying to exploit the opportunities arising from the launch of Framework Program 7 (FP7). To make this EUTF initiative as successful as possible, the relatively meagre resources of FEES (both funds and personnel) have been nearly all allocated to this activity.

This was the case for the Meetings Committee, which, as well as not having any funds available, lost its Chair who became the Secretary-General. The role and responsibilities of the Meetings Committee were, therefore, absorbed into the Executive Committee. Since then there have been no Meetings activities except the efforts made by and on behalf of the EUTF in arranging the Workshop on 12-13 March.

The activities of the EUTF are reported in some detail in the EUTF report.

The website has been well maintained and consistently improved thanks to the imaginative and conscientious management of the webmaster, Dietmar Gude. There is a report for the website too.

The Communication and Promotion Committee had been gaining momentum under the successful leadership of Lina Bonapace but after the IEA Council meeting in Maastricht, Lina was invited to join an IEA committee and had to relinquish her FEES responsibilities. We now have a replacement for Lina and an energetic Committee has been formed to address the communication and promotion functions. The greatest challenge lying ahead is the Month of Ergonomics; more information on this is reported separately.

The Treasurer, Dirk Delaruelle has perhaps the toughest task of all – reconciling income and expenditure. The increase in FEES activities in general over the last two years has meant that our outgoings have exceeded our income and our small reserve is now just about exhausted. As agreed at the Maastricht Council meeting, we have created a structure for sustaining members (details now on website) to supplement income from annual subscriptions, and most of the Executive Committee have been devoting time to attracting sustaining and also encouraging Federated Societies to do the same. These efforts may now be beginning to bear fruit. More detail on this is presented in the Treasurer's Report.

The situation of the Standards Committee is almost the same as reported at Maastricht – i.e. planned to start after next Council when it has a Chair. A Chair has now volunteered and will formally set up the Committee after this meeting. In the meantime, we have become a member of CEN/TC 122 with observer status.

The Executive Committee has met twice since the last Council meeting (9 November, Hoofddorp and 13 March, Brussels) and the EUTF has met once (17-18 October, Oviedo). Future meetings are scheduled for 15 Mar 2007 (EUTF, Brussels) and 21 Sept 2007 (Executive Committee, Hoofddorp).

FEES had a presence at the IEA Congress in Maastricht, providing 'FEES corners' where people could sit and network or relax, or use them as identifiable locations to arrange meetings. The new flyers were available at these corners. FEES, through the Meetings Committee, organized a Technical Session at the Maastricht Congress highlighting the projects that members of Federated Societies had undertaken with funding from the EC Framework Programmes. FEES also organised a lunch meeting to meet the Presidents of Federated Societies (or those Societies which could become federated). We are also hoping for a higher profile within the IEA as FEES probably represents the greatest geographical concentration of ergonomists in the world. We have suggested our name should appear on the IEA President's monthly newsletter.

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Page created 2007 by David O'Neill - last revision 11.10.2007 by Dietmar Gude