The current executive committee of the Portuguese Association of Otoneurology, elected for a three-year term at the 2010 Annual Congress in Carvoeiro, is now nearing the end of its term of office. At the next annual congress, in June 2013, in the city of Gaia, elections will be held, from which the new governing bodies will emerge to lead the APO for a further three-year term. The time has therefore come for a brief moment of reflection on our contribution to the development of the APO during this period.
We took office during a period of transition and economic crisis which took everyone by surprise due to its severity and duration, and which caused us great difficulties in managing our resources. We have moved from a situation of relative economic ease to one in which we have inevitably been forced to exercise much greater restraint and rationalise our expenditure. For example, the venues we now choose for our conferences cannot be of the highest category, amongst other restrictions that may be even more significant. Let there be no illusions: these constraints will remain and may well worsen, so a great deal of effort will be required of all those who, from now on, are responsible for managing institutions such as ours.
We have held two annual conferences and are preparing to organise our third and final annual conference at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Gaia. It was our intention – which we believe we have achieved – to decentralise the venues so that they could encompass different parts of our country. Thus, in 2011 we were on the Troia Peninsula, and in 2012 in the city of Aveiro.
We take pride in the scientific standard achieved at these conferences. This standard depends not only on the scientific calibre of the colleagues invited to participate actively through lectures and panel discussions, and on the members who voluntarily offer to present their work, posters or oral presentations at the conference, but also on the active engagement in the discussion of all those attending the sessions, which always see a high level of participation. Our international guests have included, amongst others, Nicolas Perez, Herminio Perez, Mans Magnuson, Claus Clausen and Raymond Boniver. This year we look forward to welcoming Alain Semont and Herman Kingma.
One of the APO’s long-standing events is the so-called Winter Meeting, which takes place annually in February. This event is aimed at a select group of participants chosen from amongst those most dedicated to a specific topic within otoneurology. During our term of office, the following topics were selected: Tinnitus (Curia, 2011), Vestibular Rehabilitation (Vila do Conde, 2012) and Meniere’s disease (Setúbal, 2013). For the first time in the APO’s history, we introduced a requirement for participants to write up their presentations, which were then organised and edited into a book distributed first and foremost to all APO members. This is an initiative of which we are very proud and which we would like to see continued.
Another initiative by this Executive Committee was the creation of the so-called ‘Iberian Meetings’ – a project carried out in collaboration with the Otoneurology Committee of the Spanish Society of Otorhinolaryngology, which aims to organise an annual meeting between Portuguese and Spanish colleagues. Three such meetings have already taken place: in Madrid in 2011, in Porto in 2012, and again in Madrid in 2013. Next year’s meeting will once again be held in Portugal, at a venue to be decided by the new Executive Committee. We believe that this is an initiative that should be nurtured and preserved, for all the obvious reasons and also because the success of these meetings has been widely recognised by all those who have taken part in them.
But our Association does not live by scientific events alone. It is necessary to organise day-to-day affairs and manage the running of the Association. To this end, and within the remit entrusted to us, we decided to modernise the Association’s management by outsourcing the secretariat to an external organisation, in this case Diventos. We believe this was a commendable move which will greatly benefit the management of the APO. Naturally, this entails a fixed monthly cost, which we consider to be modest given the benefits we have derived from it, including the collection and management of monthly membership fees.
Financially, the result for this financial year, despite all the difficulties encountered, is also positive. As our treasurer will demonstrate at the General Meeting, the balance for this period is in the Association’s favour.
The website has been one of APO’s calling cards. We went through a difficult period following a cyber-attack that forced the site to go offline, but thanks to the commitment of everyone involved, this obstacle was quickly overcome.
Another of the Association’s hallmarks, which truly serves as a bridge uniting all our members, is our Newsletter. Although there have occasionally been delays due to editorial issues, we have managed to maintain a frequency of three issues a year; whilst this is not ideal, given the inherent difficulties, it should nevertheless give us cause for satisfaction.
A final word to the new Executive Committee due to be sworn in following the Gaia Congress. We wish them every success; whilst we know that the path ahead is not an easy one, we are certain that they will do everything in their power to promote the growth and development of the APO.
To everyone who has supported us along the way – and there have been many – we would like to express our heartfelt thanks and promise that we will remain active and open to new challenges, whether within or outside official structures.
To paraphrase a well-known politician, “let’s have a look around”.
We look forward to seeing you in Gaia.
