Published on: 21-12-2022
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
Dear Members,
It is hard to believe how quickly time passes and that we are at the end of 2022.
Much has happened this year for the association, including a return to in-person meetings as well as a host of other seminars, webinars, regional conferences and educational opportunities.
The Board has been consistently meeting throughout the year, and in fact we have had 10 Board meetings – two of those in person (in Ghent and in Versailles), whilst the other meetings have been online and have taken place every month. There are a number of standard items that are discussed every time we meet, including the current state of our membership, our budget position and other initiatives that are important to our association.
There are almost 1900 TIAFT members now and that is quite an achievement! Maintaining our membership database and keeping it up to date is no small task – and for this I would like to recognise and thank our Secretary Carmen Jurado who does an amazing job keeping all of this in check. There are many categories of membership including Standard, DCF, Retired and Honorary – but we also have a number of members who either do not renew their membership on time or at all, and then seek to be reinstated sometime later (even after many reminders to keep their membership active). This creates an enormous amount of unnecessary work for Carmen and could easily be rectified if members log into the website regularly, paying their membership dues on time (where applicable) and essentially be active as part of belonging to TIAFT.
We have much to look forward to for 2023 – including our 60th Jubilee celebration in London. Plans are underway and an announcement will be made very soon regarding the details and program for the momentous occasion. Registering for the event will be via our TIAFT members’ website. We are also excited about our next annual TIAFT meeting in Rome in August. Simona Pichini and Francesco Paolo Busardò are their team are working very hard to ensure an unforgettable conference experience for all delegates. There have been many updates on the website and abstract submissions will open very soon (January 9, 2023). Early bird registration will close on May 21st; and given that it is in Rome, please plan as early as possible. Of course there will be travel grants available for this meeting as well. We will announce the number of available grants in the next month.
There are educational seminars planned for next year and by all accounts our most recent webinar on cannabis was quite well attended and we had excellent feedback on the quality of presentations from Marilyn Huestis, Jeffrey Block, Kirsten Müller-Vahl, Stefan Toennes and Edith Viel.
One final thing is that our Treasurer Christophe Stove reminded us that dues will be payable from January 1st, 2023. Don’t forget that DCF donations are most welcome and do go a long way to assist the association to provide a number of member benefits. Also Christophe reminded us that if you do not want a hard copy of the Bulletin please select the ‘opt out’ option on our members website. Simply log in, click in the upper right corner on your name, then ‘Settings’, and then, at the left, click ‘Postal Communications’. To stop receiving the Bulletin, simply untick ‘Hard Copy Bulletin’. We are likely to change our current printer in Belgium and we are looking to minimise some of our operational costs for the coming year.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays and have a prosperous and healthy new year.
Until next time, take care
Regards
Dimitri Gerostamoulos
TIAFT President