Minutes of AGM Brighton: 26 June, 2000

The President welcomes the 28 members present.

He thanks Stefano Cappa and Laszlo Lenard for their service to the society by serving on the committee for the past three years.  He reiterates that the AGM in Rome in September, 1999 was an overwhelming success and thanks Martine Ammassari for her contribution as Local Organiser of this meeting.  He thanks Otto Karnath and David Milner for their efforts in organising the Workshop to be held in Como in September, 2001, with the support of the European Research Conference Programme.

He reports on the FENS meeting which he attended as the EBBS representative, where Pierre Magistretti was elected President and Monica diLucca Secretary General.  The next FENS meeting will be in Paris in July 2002 with Porto and Geneva being considered for future meetings.

The Secretary, Susan Sara, reports that 32 new memberships have been processed this year, but as many members were lost, so the total remains the same. She once again urges members to help with recruiting new members.

-The Secretary will rely increasingly on electronic communication with the members, so all members should make sure that they have sent their address to her.  We will continue to produce at least one newsletter in hard copy per year.

-EBBS maintains good relations and regularly excercises its voting rights within IBRO; this organisation continues to support a speaker at our AGM.

-Close relations are maintained with the Society for Neuroscience as well; nearly 75 sponsored abstracts were delivered to EBBS members this year, enabling them to submit a poster to the Annual meeting and register for the members fee. We have been invited to submit an article relating the history of EBBS for publication in the SFN newsletter.

-The Web site is in the process of being revamped; members should consult it regularly to keep up to date about EBBS activities.

-Ballots for the forthcoming elections will be mailed in September. Members are urged to vote.

-EBBS is proud to have William Newsome as the EBBS review lecturer at the FENS 2000 meeting and EBBS members are urged to attend and encourage their collegues to attend this lecture on Monday at 18h30.

    The treasurer, Albert Gramsbergen, reports a loss for the third consecutive year and explains that the problem comes from the fact that many members do not pay their fees.  Membership dues will be raised next year to 40 Euros and efforts will continue to collect back dues and recruit new members.

    Marianne Amalric gives a brief report on progress in organisation of the joint EBBS-EBPS meeting to be held in Marseille in September 2001.The scientific programme is in place and hotel rooms have been reserved for the anticipated 500 delegates to this conference. She distributes the preliminary announcements, which are being mailed very soon to all members.

   Barry Everitt turns over the presidency to Wolfram Schultz, who thanks Barry on behalf of the EBBS committee and members for his tireless efforts for the society during the past years as president and as committee member. Albert Gramsbergen reiterates this appreciation and presents the out-going president with a gift from the Society.         

Susan J. Sara  (Newsletter 2001)