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Report of the EFI Executive Committee Meeting

The EFI Executive Committee (EC) met on September 18 in Vienna, and was hosted by Gottfried Fischer. Several important items were discussed. The EC considers these of general interest to its members and reports on them below.

EFI bursaries

The EFI treasurer, Mogens Thomsen, reported that this year no applications were received for education bursaries in Europe. Last year five such applications were granted. Young members from laboratories in Eastern and Central Europe are encouraged to apply for these bursaries. As usual, travel bursaries for the forthcoming EFI conference in Granada will be available. Application requirements for EFI bursaries can be found on the EFI website.

EFI administrative office

Frans Claas reported that the administrative office in Leiden is performing a lot of work for the accreditation office. This work is presently done by Aad van Leeuwen and Sonja Mesander. Paul Reekers, from Nijmegen has offered to support Aad where needed and this help has been gratefully accepted.

Accreditation

The EC approved updates of the application package C and of the inspection checklist. Both documents needed adjustments after the revisions on the EFI standards and have been improved following the experience gained by the programme over the last year. Accreditation categories will change from technique dependant to clinically relevant categories. For example in the future a laboratory can apply for accreditation for bone marrow donor registry typing, for which low resolution typing is required, irrespective of the technique used. The updated inspection checklist includes the relevant section of the standards. The committee is now working on an update of the Inspection Procedure Manual.

Proficiency testing

The External Proficiency Testing Committee received useful comments and suggestions to their proposal for new rules (as published in Newsletter No. 30). The Committee prepared revisions for approval and comment from the EC. The revisions will soon be published in the Newsletter.

Certification of typing kits

A request for certification of typing kits was received from one of the companies. The EC decided that companies can produce their kits according to the requirements stated in the EFI standards, but that EFI cannot provide certificates for such products.

Nominations for EC member candidates

Several EC members have served their term. Ieke Schreuder has served her first term as Secretary, but is willing to stand for re-election. Jean-Denis Bignon has resigned as deputy treasurer, thus creating a vacancy. Moreover the EC will need nominations for President-elect and for two Councillors, since Gottfried Fischer and Federico Garrido have served their terms. A form for nomination of candidates for the various functions is included in this Newsletter.

EFI Newsletter

Several national representatives submitted contributions for the Newsletter to Frans Claas. It is hoped that this positive trend will continue.

EFI website

Steven Marsh reported that the site has been continuously maintained since February 2000. Updates have been performed on the committee member lists, EFI contact addresses and meetings. A direct link for the Granada conference is available. EFI bursaries are now advertised on the front-page and with a pop-up window.

A `members only' section will be soon added. This section will include the laboratory directory, working documents and selected articles from the Newsletter. The username and password for access to this section is printed in this Newsletter. Other possible options include the creation of sub-directories, which can be used by Committees etc.

House Journal

Negotiations are underway about the possibility for EFI of having a house journal.

European business

Marie-Marthe Tongio is continuing her activities concerning European normalisation and official recognition of EFI Standards and Accreditation. An inquiry has been made among the national societies in how far these activities would interfere with national requirements. So far no problems have been reported in this respect.

EFI has been asked to participate in the European Confederation of Laboratory Medicine, which is an umbrella organisation initiated under the auspices of WHO. A representative of the EC will attend the first meeting to see how far this organisation can be of use to EFI.

Future EFI Conferences

Granada. March 27-30, 2001 Federico Garrido presented the preliminary programme, which looks very promising. Call for abstract and registration forms will be sent to EFI members.
Strasbourg, March (week of 19-23) 2002 Marie-Marthe Tongio expressed her concern related to the fact that the 13th International Histocompatibility Workshop and Conference has been postponed for a year and will now be held in May 2002, shortly after the Strasbourg conference. The EC expressed the opinion that the EFI Conferences are of great educational value, and participation will be only slightly affected, since the majorityof participants will not be able to attend the IHW Conference.
Bamberg, April 8-11, 2003 Ralph Wassmuth reported that the organisation is in progress.
2004 The EC expressed its concern that no offers have yet been received for organisation of the 2004 EFI conference. The EFI president will bring this item to the attention of the National Societies. It should be stated that local organisers are assisted by the scientific and the educational committees to prepare their conference programmes.

Ieke Schreuder, EFI Secretary