Dear EBEA members,
Happy New Year!
As President of the EBEA, let me begin with wishing you and your loved ones a good and healthy 2015! For EBEA this will be a year of consolidation of past achievements and working on new issues. One of those is the new website. This website is the most important presentation of EBEA towards the outside world, and will hopefully assist in attracting new members. In order to remain a vital society we would like to increase membership again. And this cannot be done without your help: please promote EBEA among your colleagues and students!
Membership dues
Equally important is that you pay your membership dues through our Members Platform. Please do so before March 1st, 2015. Remember that according to Article 5.2 of the Articles of the Association and Article I of the By-Laws you have a lot of rights as members, but only two obligations: to pay the membership dues in time, and, in the unlikely event that you don’t want to continue membership, to inform the Secretary at least 60 days ahead.
It is important for the management of EBEA that we receive the membership dues. The Council has discussed the financial management of the Association last year and decided that the income from the membership dues will be used to cover the costs of running the organisation, including the Chiabrera Prize (see below), maintaining the website, and legal fees. The profit from the BioEM meetings will be used to cover contributions to the Erice EBEA school (we had a very succesful one in April 2014) and to other scientific meetings.
Elections
This year we will have to have again elections for the Council. Several positions need to be filled and we need candidates for the positions of Incoming President (1), Engineering/Physics (1), Biology/Medecine (2) and At Large (3). The Nominating Committee will provide 2 or 3 names for each position, and we would appreciate suggestions from the members.
According to Article V of the By-laws, additional nominations may be made by petition of ten (10) eligible Members of the Society and sent to the Chairperson of the Nominating Committee, who shall compile the nominations from the Nominating Committee and those made by petition, and provide them to the Election Committee. A space for a write-in candidate for each position shall be provided on the ballot.
Please send all suggestions and nomination to me, since the President of EBEA acts as Chairperson of the Nominating Committee: president@ebea.org. The deadline for receiving suggestions is February 1st, 2015.
Kind regards,
Eric van Rongen, President