RECORD

From the first Member's meeting of the Association for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Southeast European Countries (AMAPSEEC), kept in the Ceremonial hall of the Pharmaceutical Faculty of Belgrade's University, in Belgrade on June 26, 2001, with the beginning from 11.00 a.m.

Present: Dušan Adamović (Novi Sad), Damir Beatović (Belgrade), Cvijo Bogojević (Belgrade), Silva Dobrić (Belgrade), Radiša Jančić (Belgrade), Slavica Jelačić (Belgrade), Nada Kovačević (Belgrade), Branislava Lakušić (Belgrade), Pavel Lenhart (Belgrade), Ljiljana Lupšić (Belgrade), Stevo Marić (Belgrade), Borivoje Marković (Majdanpek), Milena Mihajlov (Beograd), Neda Mimica-Dukić (Novi Sad), Aleksandar Miladinović (Svilajnac), Zoran Nikolić (Belgrade), Dragica Obratov-Petković (Belgrade), Slavica Paripović (Belgrade), Silvana Petrović (Belgrade), Mihailo Ristić (Belgrade), Janko Rode (Žalec), Dragana Sekulović (Belgrade), Nebojša Stanojević (Sokobanja), Tatjana Stević (Belgrade), Tatyana Stoeva (Sofija), Dragan Veličković (Leskovac) i Nenad Šulja (Belgrade).

Before the start of the session (presiding: Mihailo Ristić), Dragana Sekulović and presiding addressed to the present colleagues, expressed their attitude to significance of this meeting for the further activities of the AMAPSEEC and thanked to the dean of Pharmaceutical faculty, who provided conditions for keeping this meeting. After reading of welcome message of AMAPSEEC co-ordinator for Romania Dr Radu Albulescu, present agreed to work according to timetable supplied for this meeting on June 15, which consisted of the following ten items:

1.      Report about activities of the AMAPSEEC during the last four months.

2.      Election of members for the Executive Council, Advisory Board and Board of Directors of the Association.

3.       On providing additional funds (plan of the activity adoption).

4.      On formation of working committees, regional training centres, common projects and databases of the AMAPSEEC.

5.      Information about the.comanisation of the second Conference (II CMAPSEEC), which will be kept in Greece next year.

6.      About the formation of new scientific journal, dealing with medicinal and aromatic plants, which will be basically AMAPSEEC's journal.

7.      About the preparation of Internet presentation of the Association.

8.      On the implementation of conclusions dealing with list of benefits set aside for the members of the Association.

9.      Transfer of the authorities, archives and seals to elected Executive Council of the Association.

10.  Determination of date and place for the keeping of the next regular Member's meeting.

Conclusions

Ad 1. Presiding underlined, that from the registration of the Association by authorised institution (on February 23, 2001) till this time, seals and current accounts of the AMAPSEEC have been made, as well as that in the second half of April the circular, which consisted of the information about the foundation of the Association and call for membership has been distributed. This circular has been distributed to more than 80 addresses in FR Yugoslavia (by classic mail), and to Italy, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia by e-mail. In the focus of the activities was attempt to gather membership and creation of primary list of members. Report about all these activities, membership, Association's incomes and expenses, Member's meeting completely accepted.

Ad. 2. For the Executive Council (after discussion) Mihailo Ristić (president), Vassilios Roussis (vice-president), Vlastimir Stamenković (vice-president), Milan Martinov (secretary) and Ljiljana Lupšić (treasurer) were elected. According to the Bylaws of the AMAPSEEC, members of the Advisory Board are representatives of the supporting members of the Association, whose election takes place automatically, as well as that of Board of Directors.

Ad. 3. Estimating financial resources (formed on the base of membership fees collection) as insufficient for conduction of all planed activities, Member's meeting adopted plan for providing additional funds (necessary for improvements of AMAPSEEC's financial base), which consists of plugging into lists of national NGOs and establishing of contact with selected potential donors. This plan was adopted just as directives for the upcoming actions of the Board of Directors, which is de facto responsible for making such decisions (see Bylaws).

Ad. 4. Former suggestions and attitudes given as a base for the formation of working committees, regional training centres, common projects and databases of the AMAPSEEC were verified. As in the previous case, Board of Director is in charge to make appropriate decisions. Initiative on the formation of sections (committees) dealing with controlled usage of MAP resources (with accompanied regulation), development of analytical methods and standardisation of quality of plant drugs, extracts and essential oils, introduction, cultivation and breeding of MAPs, phytotherapy, and with educative programmes in that fields, accepted earlier, has been approved, as well as those on the formation of the training centre in Sofia and one of the Association centres in Berane. Board of Directors is in obligation to check, justify and conduct these ideas.

Ad. 5. The information about the progress in preparation of the Second Conference (II CMAPSEEC, Greece, 2002), has been given and accepted. According to the report supplied by Prof. V. Roussis and Prof. M. Couladis, estimated expenses of the.comanisation of that Conference should assume following items: preparation of written materials (circulars, posters, programs, book of abstracts, book of proceedings, forms, name tags, etc.) (about 25.000 DM), compensation for invited speakers (2.000 DM per speaker), hall renting (500 DM daily), farewell dinner (50 DM per person), snacks during the coffee breaks (50 DM per person), airport-hotel transfer for participants (1.500 DM), and manipulative expenses of secretariat (90 DM per participant, charged by agency). Registration fees on the basis of such calculations (for 100 participants) should be estimated to 150-200 USD and could be eventually reduced only in the case of significantly higher number of participants, or obtaining of powerful sponsors. Colleagues from Greece underlined that in this moment (a year before keeping the Conference) potential sponsors still did not express remarkable interest for this meeting, even in the sense to promise to provide certain funds. Conference will be kept in Northern Greece (Halkidiki), at the end of June, or beginning of July 2002. At the end of the report Organisers expressing their hope and expectation to have more precise data about elements necessary for the.comanisation of the Conference till the end of July.

General impression of the present colleagues was that prices are to high for the majority of regional countries, but that these prices reflect real ratio between the supply and demand on the market in Greece. Idea about Turkey as a possible.comaniser of the Second Conference was rejected, not only as being opposite to our previous determination, but (moreover) because in this moment we do not have any member from Turkey. Dušan Adamović gave proposal to ask Organisers to provide discount of at least 10% to registration fees for AMAPSEEC'S members. Nada Kovačević expressed her attitude that members of the Association do not have right to interfere in the.comanisation of the upcoming Conference, as well as that list of general sponsor, potentially interested to support our conferences (disregarding where they will took place), from all of the regional countries should be prepared. Proposal of M. Ristić to Organisers was to include in working bodies of the second and our further conferences members of the Association only. He also suggested prohibiting to those already being the hosts of CMAPSEEC, to apply for the.comanisation of that meeting in the next two terms, what could improve mobility of the conference itself. Tatyana Stoeva informed present that scientific and professional meetings in Turkey are very well.comanised, but that prices there are too high too. She mentioned that Bulgarians just trying to establish base, which will be used for the financing of such and similar meetings on the national level. According to J. Rode, it would be necessary to find sponsors (for participants of the Conference) on the national level, whose names will be put (in return) to AMAPSEEC's Internet site.

Conclusion: Report given by Prof. V. Roussis and Prof. M. Couladis on the progress in preparation of the Second Conference has been accepted. Proposal to Organiser are to include in working bodies of that conference members of the Association only, and to provide discount of at least 10% to registration fees for AMAPSEEC's members. Managing bodies of the Association are in obligation to reconsider idea about the sponsorship of participants of our conferences on the national and regional level, as well as our conferences themselves.

Ad. 6. Decision about the formation of new journal, dealing with medicinal and aromatic plants (which will be basically AMAPSEEC's journal) was made. For the implementation of such resolution Executive Council and Board of Directors are responsible. On the basis of their directions, ad hoc elected commission will define the details dealing with characteristics of that journal. After that, on the bases of the offers, which would be supplied by countries belonging to the Association, the decisions where the journal will be edited and printed would be made. It would be very nice if promotion of that journal coincide with our next conference (Greece), to have significant part of contributions presented there published just in the first numbers of our journal. It was concluded that our journal should be not only scientific, but professional too, meaning that besides scientific results achieved in the field of MAP's, this journal should cover whole spectrum of other professional aspects, as well as supply and demand of MAP's and related products and services. Periodicity of that journal and form in which it will be edited (in printed or electronic format), would be defined after full examination of attitude of mentioned commission, taking in mind available funds. Nada Kovačević suggested to managing bodies of the Association to provide funds for the first gathering of members of that commission, what will be considered.

Ad. 7. It was decided to prepare Internet site of the Association, along with clear conclusion about it's content. This presentation will surely contain brief review of activities on the formation of the Association, Bylaw of the AMAPSEEC and data about the membership, as well as review of upcoming activities of the Association. Along with plugging (free of charge) Internet sites of supporting members into our site (or setting up of appropriate links to them), it will be enabled to all those being interested in, to announce their supply and demand there (under the most favourable conditions). In that sense, mentioned supply and demand (of seeds and seedlings, herbal drugs, extracts, essential oils and related products) should contain the minimum of elements, which will include, for example in the case of herbal drugs, name of drug (in Latin and in English), unit price, quality requirements matching the product (for example, DAB10, Ph. Eur. 3, etc.), package, terms of payment and delivery, as well as all other details, what we have to define. This (commercially oriented part of site), should surely contain offer of all services, which MAP problematic assumes, too. Preparation of our Internet site should be finished till the beginning of September and for this action Executive Council will be in charge.

Ad. 8. It was approved (once again) that list of benefits given by Association to it's members contains the following items: participation in all the meetings.comanised by AMAPSEEC under most favourable conditions (1); possibility of drawing funds from the AMAPSEEC, necessary for additional financing of the.comanisation of national and other meetings, as well as own promotional activities, being in the scope of the work of AMAPSEEC (for supporting members only) (2); drawing of the written materials from all the meetings supported by AMAPSEEC under the most favourable conditions (3); free access to electronic and other databases of the AMAPSEEC (4); Obtaining of consultative (scientific and professional) support, processing, analytical and other services from the side of other members of AMAPSEEC under the most favourable conditions (5); Receiving of informative bulletin of the AMAPSEEC free of charge; purchase of electronic and other publications of the AMAPSEEC under the most favourable conditions (6); free of charge advertising supply and demand (of raw materials, products and services) on AMAPSEEC's Internet site (for supporting members only) (7). It was decided to enable supporting members drawing of funds up to 50% percents of their membership fees automatically, according to their requests being in agreement with pt.8.2. Silva Dobrić gave proposal to add free of charge distribution of our journal to the list of benefits for the members of the Association. This initiative has been excepted, and that proposal will be added to the mentioned list immediately after realisation of the idea on formation of our journal. It was concluded too, that further adding of other possible benefits to the actual list would highly depend upon available funds, which is in this moment insufficient for such consideration.

Ad. 9. As for the president of the Executive Council temporary president of the Association has been elected, just quite formal transfer of the authorities, archives and seals has been made.

Ad. 10. It was decided to keep the second Member's meeting in the frame of our next conference (II CMAPSEEC), which will be kept in Greece during the summer 2002. Simultaneously, proposal given by Dragana Sekulović to schedule the supplementary Member's meeting during the Seventh meeting "Days of Medicinal Plants", which will be.comanised by Institute for Medicinal Plant Research "Dr. Josif Pančić" in October 2001, has been accepted too.