-
Summary of the NFTO/EFTA
activities from
October 2004 till January
2005
This Newsletter summarizes the results of the activities
of the EFTA-NFTO Chamber since the meeting on 30th September
2004 during the V EFTA Congress in Berlin, where it
elected a new Board for the next three years.
The new elected NFTO Board constitued itself on the 1st October
2004. Its members met for several sessions during the
EFTA General Board meeting, between 14th-16th January
2005 in Geneva.
NFTO Chamber 30th September
2004
32 representatives of 17 countries (Poland and Israel were
absent) met at the Internationales Congress Centrum
Berlin during the V European Congress of EFTA. The
representatives of Iceland that is presently in the
process of registering participated as observers. The
representatives of Belgium left the meeting after realizing
that their country was not entitled to participate
in the election procedure because their registration
in the Chamber had not been completed, even though
they had paid the corresponding annual fees. This situation
provoked a conflict since Belgium had traditionally
played an important role in the process of restructuring
EFTA. In the next months several talks followed between
the Belgian representatives and members of the EFTA
Boards. Finally the Belgian associations decided to
properly register for the course of the year 2005.
The NFTO Board thanks the members of the General Assemblies
of both Belgian associations for their spirits of co-operation
that enabled them and the NFTOs to find an acceptable
solution.
Elections
Under the chairing of Barbara Kohnstamm the
members of the "old" Board
took leave from their positions with short speeches.
All of them played decisive roles during the period
of structuring and consolidating the NFTO Chamber.
They were: Arlene Vetere, Eric Louis, Ineke Muinen,
Roberto Pereira, Jaakko Seikkula, Charis Katakis, Kurt
Ludewig and Barbara Kohnstamm (co-opted member). The
NFTO Chamber acknowledged their enormous contribution
and thanked them all heartily.
In
the second step the seven candidates who, in accordance
with the statutes, had been timely nominated by their
national associations introduced themselves to the
Chamber members. They were: Janne Graff (DK), Annette
Kreuz (E), Mina Polemi-Todoulou (GR), Arlene Vetere
(GB), Eric Louis (CH), Kurt Ludewig (D) and David Skorunka
(CZ).
Since the Board has only seven positions if was decided to proceed with a block
voting. The seven candidates were then unanimously
elected in toto by the Chamber (51 votes from 17 countries).
NFTO Board Meeting 1st October 2004
The constituting meeting of the new elected Board took place at ICC Berlin.
The NFTO Board agreed upon proposing Arlene Vetere
as a candidate for the Presidency of EFTA.
The General Board of EFTA elected thereafter unanimously Arlene
Vetere as the new President of EFTA for the period
2004-2007. Since Arlene had thus to leave her position
at the NFTO Board the number of its members was reduced
to six. Taking into consideration that the new Board
consists of only two "old" and four "new" members it
was decided not to co-opt new members to the Board
for the time being.
Closely collaborating with Arlene will be Annette Kreuz who was re-elected
as the General Secretary to the General Board and Eric
Louis as General Treasurer.
Kurt together with Eric will represent the NFTO chamber in the Coordinating
Body of the General Board.
Members of the new NFTO Board:
Chair: Kurt Ludewig; Secretary: Janne Graff (interim secretary
until the next meeting); Treasurer: Eric Louis
(who was later on confirmed as the General Treasurer
of EFTA); Members: Annette Kreuz (Chair,
Registration Committee of EFTA and also General
Secretary of EFTA); Mina Polemi-Todoulou, and David
Skorunka.
NFTO Board Meetings 14th-16th January 2005 in Geneva
Following an already established
tradition, EFTA will continue to call for General Board
meetings twice a year. The first of these meetings
in 2005 took place in Geneva. It was kindly organised
by Eric Louis with very effective help of his wife
Erica as well as of his association (ASTHEFIS). The
NFTO Board thanks both Eric and Erica Louis and the
members of the Swiss Associations very warmly for very
friendly reception and organisation of the meeting.
The members of the board met in good
spirit and with a strong orientation towards defining
the tasks and setting priorities. We were sorry not
to have with us Janne Graff who could not attend the
meeting in Geneva.
Secretary of the
Board and Administrative Secretariat
Since Janne's term as interim secretary
ended in Geneva and she did not wish to continue, the
board proposed and voted unanimously Mina Polemi-Todoulou to take the role of the Secretary of the Board. Mina accepted.
The Board members decided to appoint
a person who could help the board with administrative
tasks and allocate an amount of money to support this
administrative role.
Mina proposed Maria Tsamis who accepted to help on a part time basis.
The NFTO Board 2004-2007
The Board has since Geneva the following
lasting composition:
Chair: Kurt Ludewig, Ph.D., Dipl.-Psych.,
Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Trainer and
Supervisor at different institutes in Germany. He lives
in Muenster, Germany, and he represents both professional
associations of family and systemic therapists in Germany,
the Systemic Society SG and the German Association
for Systemic and Family Therapy DGSF.
Secretary: Mina Polemi-Todoulou, Ph.D., C.G.P., Psychologist, Family and Group Psychotherapist,
Trainer, Supervisor and Consultant to Prevention Programs.
Senior Associate of The Athenian Institute of Anthropos.
She chairs and represents the Hellenic Association
for Systemic Therapy.
Treasurer: Eric Louis, Theologist, Marriage Counsellor,
Family Therapist. He lives in Bernex, nearby Geneva.
He represents the Swiss Association ASTHEFIS.
Members:
Annette Kreuz Smolinski, Dipl.-Psych., Clinical Psychologist, Trainer in Family Therapy. Chair
of the Registration Committee of the NFTO Chamber, General
Secretary of EFTA. She lives in Valencia, Spain, and
she represents the Spanish Federation of Family Therapy
Associations FEATF.
Janne Graff, cand. psych., Psychologist. She lives in Hilleroed, Denmark, and she represents the Danish
Association STOK and the Nordic Associations.
David Skorunka, M.D., Psychiatrist, family therapist. He works at the Department
of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Charles University
in Hradec Kràlov³, the Czech Republic.
He represents the Czech Society of Family Therapy (SOFT).
Presentation of the NFTO Chamber
Letterhead
The Board accepted to give the letterhead
of the NFTO Chamber a new appearance.
Newsletter and Webpage
The Board acknowledges the importance
of keeping a fluid exchange of informations between
the NFTOs and the Chamber Board. For this purpose Kurt
Ludewig and David Skorunka have been appointed to editing
the Newsletter more frequently, at least no longer
than four weeks after each meeting. The Newsletter
will be sent to every registered representative of
the member associations as well as to the main office
of the association itself. This is to make sure that
the information reaches their addressees without getting
lost on their way. One very important condition in
order to implement this decision is to have updated
Basic Data of the represented associations.
David and Kurt have been also appointed
to look after the presentation of the NFTO Chamber
at the EFTA Website.
The Board regards the Newsletter
and its presentation at the EFTA Website as having
priority over new versions of the printed EFTA Directory.
The limited funds of the Chamber should thus be re-directed
towards improving the website presentation, which reaches
a far greater amount of colleagues around the world
than printed material.
NFTO Basic Information
Data
Given the fact that roles, positions
and persons at the national and regional organisations
tend to change quite constantly the Secretariat of
the NFTO Chamber has been usually unable to keep an
updated data of the Basic Information. This makes the
communication quite complicated and unreliable. Therefore,
Mina Polemi-Todoulou has offered herself to find a
way of keeping the Basic Data updated and she invites
your steady cooperation towards this goal. In
addition to the more formal data regarding addresses
and roles Mina is interested in gathering also contextual
and other more meaningful information about the represented
associations. In this respect she will be contacting
you in the near future.
Registration
Registration Committee
The Registration Committee (earlier:
Admission Committee) was composed of Roberto Pereira
and Ineke Muinen. They have done a great job in registering
already 23 associations of 19 countries. The NFTO Board
thanks you both very warmly. From now on Annette Kreuz
(Chair) and Mina Polemi-Todoulou are responsibble for
the task of registering new members.
Transition period
Important Reminder!!! According to the Statutes of EFTA/NFTO the transition period in which one country may be represented by different associations comes to
an end in 2005.
From January 2006 onwards each country should be represented by only one national organisation. This may be either a national association or a federation
of associations.
Countries that are now represented
by more than one association will need to re-register as one organisation that comprises the whole of the country in the course of 2005. Annette
Kreuz will be sending you the necessary documents upon
request.
Political Activities
On Arlene Vetere's request the NFTO
Board has offered personal and financial support in
the pursuit of activities at the European political
level, e.g. in Brussels. The Board of the NFTO Chamber
together with the other Boards will give priority to
supporting this request since its fulfilment embeds
one of the core interests (raison d'ètre) of EFTA.
Sponsoring Fund
It was decided to create a Sponsoring
Fund dedicated to help out financially the representatives
and associations of economically disadvantaged countries.
This will apply especially in terms of subsidising
travel and lodging costs entailed in participating
at the meetings of the NFTO Chamber.
The application for a grant should
be done by writing either to the Chair of the NFTO
Board or to the Contact Person for the respective country.
Sponsoring: All national and regional
associations of the economically more priviledged countries,
especially the ones with large numbers of members,
are kindly requested to contribute to this Sponsoring Fund. All you
need to do is to transfer the amount in Euros to the
bank account named above in the letterhead, stating
clearly that it is a donation for the Sponsoring Fund.
Our Treasurer, Eric Louis, will be sending you a receipt
of the donation. In addition, the General Accounts
of the NFTO Chamber will enclose a clear listing of
how these funds have been granted.
As a first step the Organising Committee
of the Berlin Congress is transferring 950 Euros to
the Sponsoring Fund. This amount is the remainder of
a fund that was collected in Germany to subsidise congress
participants from financially disadvantaged countries.
In addition, the national associations of Great Britain
and Germany have already announced contributions to
the Sponsoring Fund.
EFTA Working Parties and Committees
At the EFTA Meeting last June in
Athens the NFTO Chamber decided to install four Working
Parties to continue their work. They were: 1) European
Journal/Magazine, 2) Raising the Profile of Systemic
and Family Therapy, 3) Training and Practice Standards,
and 4) Research and Scientific Exchange.
In the course of the Geneva meeting
it became clear that these are not only themes for
the NFTOs but for the whole of EFTA. With the aim of
actively participating the members of the NFTO Board
have volunteered to join in the following EFTA Committees
(permanent institutions):
- Profile of Systemic and Family Therapy (Chair: Arlene Vetere): Annette
Kreuz and Kurt Ludewig
- Training and Practice Standards: Annette Kreuz and Eric Louis
- Research and Scientific Exchange:(Chair Peter Stratton) Mina Polemi-Todoulou
- Ethics: David Skorunka
- Website (Chair: Rodolfo de Bernart): Kurt Ludewig and David Skorunka
- European Journal (Chair: Mony Elkaϊm): David Skorunka, eventually
Mina Polemi- Todoulou
Networking
The Board considers the
networking among the NFTOs and their members as having
a great importance. In order to facilitate this in
a more personal way the NFTO Board members undertook
the role of Contact Person for those European countries
to which they have had some kind of prior contact in
the last years. You may feel free to contact any of
the Board members, nevertheless the following list
may serve as a general orientation:
Kurt Ludewig: Austria,
Baltic Region, Germany, Netherlands, Ukrania.
Mina Polemi-Todoulou:
Bulgaria, Serbia, Cyprus, Greece, FYROM, Malta, Rumania,
Turkey.
Eric Louis: Belgium, France,
Italy, Switzerland.
Annette Kreuz-Smolinski:
Israel, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom
Janne Graff: Scandinavian
and Nordic countries.
David Skorunka: Czech
Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia.
Finances
The Treasurer of the NFTO Board,
Eric Louis, presented the accounts for the years 2003
and 2004. The total income in the years 2003 and 2004
was 11.068,21 and 14.928,79 Euros respectively. (The
amount of 2004 includes transferences from Belgium
that belong to the next years.) The expenditures amount
respectively to 16.507,75 and 13.851,86. Taking into
account the surpluses of the preceding years the balance
for 2004 closed with an surplus of 8.977,07 Euros.
Important request (!!!). In the last years our bank has regularly
charged our account with the costs of some of the transferences
of the annual fees. In order to keep a clear accounting
we wish to ask all associations to proceed as follows:
1) Please send only one payment
per country, that is, organise the payment of
the annual fees within your country before transferring
the money;
2) please ask you bank to charge
the costs of transference to your account so that the amount
that reaches the NFTO account is free of charges.
VI European Congress of EFTA
In the meeting of the General Board
of EFTA (all three Chamber Boards) the proposal of
a Glasgow group to organise the next VI European Congress
of EFTA in 2007 in Scottland was seriously considered.
Further talks will take place between the interested
group and members of the EFTA Boards. The NFTO Board
has appointed Kurt Ludewig to participate in the EFTA
Organising Committee and Mina Polemi-Todoulou to take
part in the Scientific Committee.
Michel Maestre presented the proposal
of his association to organise the VII Congress 2010
in Paris.
EFTA will elaborate a set of criteria
in order to help deciding where and how to organise
the European Congresses in the future.
Amended Statutes
The new EFTA Statutes that were accepted
by the General Assembly of EFTA in Athens and Berlin
needed some amendments according to the Belgian Ministry
of Justice. These amendments did not change the statutes
in any considerable manner so that they were accepted
unanimously by the NFTO Board and later on by the EFTA
General Board.
Calendar
1) Friday-Sunday
3rd & 5th June 2005 in London:
- General Assembly of
the NFTO Chamber. All representatives of the National Organisations
are invited to participate and encouraged to bring
along one more person from their association as it
was done in Athens. It proved then very useful in terms
of bringing forth richer ideas and a more close cooperation
among us.
- EFTA General Board meetings and separate meetings of the three Chamber Boards.
- Possibly, if so decided, EFTA
General Assembly 2005, open to all members of
EFTA (members of all three Chambers). In this case
a separate invitation will follow.
Arlene Vetere has arranged for accommodations
during the meeting. Details are available at the secretariat
of the NFTO Chamber.
Notice (!!): It is important to make quick reservations since London will be widely visited
in June.
2) EFTA General Board (for the three Boards: NFTO, TIC, CIM)
13-15 January 2006, probably in Valencia, Spain.
3) VI EFTA Congress
September & October
2007, probably in Glasgow, Scotland
Kurt Ludewig Ph.D.
Chairperson
NFTO-Chamber of EFTA
David Skorunka M.D.
EFTA Board Member
Newsletter Co-Editor
February 2005
