International Society
of Inflammation and Allergy of the Nose.

ISIAN BOARD MEETING

Tuesday September 20th 12:00-1:30 pm

Tokyo, Japan

Minutes

Present: Drs. Lacroix, Moriyama, Serrano, Kennedy, Kamel, Rautianianen, Pallanch, Ohnishi, Min, Onerci, Gendeh, Palmer, Carney, Fokkens

The meeting was called to order by the president, Sylvain Lacroix. Professor Lacroix gave a brief synopsis of the last ISIAN/ERS meeting in Geneva. The meeting attracted 1149 participants (including accompanying persons). In terms of breakdown, the largest contingent came from China (92 partipants). This was followed by 86 participants from Switzerland and 84 from Turkey. In all, 74 countries participated and there were 376 papers presented.

The president elect, Professor Moriyama, then expressed his thanks to the ISIAN board for their support of this meeting. Because of the earthquake disaster and Tsunami, the meeting originally scheduled for April, had to be postponed. As a result a number of participants who had originally planned on attending, had not been able to do so. Whereas, in early March well before the prior planned date, there were already 500 registered attendees, at the time of the BOD meeting there were 450 registrants from 30 countries for the meeting (this subsequently increased to a final count of 585 participants from 37 countries for the meeting). Under the circumstances, everyone agreed it was still a very successful meeting. The board expressed their gratitude to Prof. Moriyama for all the work that he put in to make it a success.

General secretary, Prof. David Kennedy briefly outlined the reason for proceeding with a presentation from a Professional Congress Organizer (PCO) in preparation for the presentation by Kenes International. Prof. Fokkens mentioned that the ERS has also decided to move forward with a PCO and that they were current considering Congrex. There was general agreement that it would be better if all 3 organizations (IRS,ISIAN and ERS) utilized the same PCO.

Prof. Kennedy also mentioned the need to rationalize the board membership in conjunction with the development of ISIAN Bylaws. The IRS recently developed an agreement that past presidents of the society would serve as voting members of the board for a limited period following their presidency, although they would be allowed to attend as a nonvoting member after that time. It was agreed that Professor Kennedy would work with Dr. Ohnishi to bring forward similar rules for the ISIAN and present these for approval at the next meeting in Toulouse, and a time period of 3 years post presidency was suggested by Dr. Ohnishi.

Professor Reda Kamel 10 discussed the plans for the meeting in 2013 in Sharm el Sheik. Because of the recent unrest in Egypt, some board members had expressed concern with regards to this planned meeting. Prof. Kamel reassured the board that the political unrest had settled down and that life in Sharm el Sheik had in fact returned to normal. The meeting is planned in conjunction with the Pan Arab Society which now has members from 21 countries, and professor Kamel felt that approximately 1000 members from the Arab countries could be expected. The meeting is arranged from November 6-9 2013. Following the presentation, the board felt that it was appropriate to continue the meeting as planned and that if further unrest occurred in Egypt in the meantime, the meeting would be re-discussed at the next meeting in Toulouse in 2012. Prof. Kennedy urged the board members to encourage participants to attend from their individual countries.

Professor Wytske Fokkens then briefly discussed the plans for the combined ERS/ISIAN meeting in Amsterdam, June 22-26 2014. It was agreed that it would probably be best for the ISIAN to have one full day plus, hopefully, one half day devoted to ISIAN. She encouraged the ISIAN board to come up with titles for the ISIAN symposia and to submit these to her.

Quirine Laman from Kenes International then presented the rationale for working with a PCO on a long-term basis. The goal is to improve branding of the meeting, develop increasing relationship with delegates and to lever ongoing relationships with supporting commercial companies. She pointed out that Kenes is the only PCO devoted entirely to medical meetings and that this has significant advantages in terms of focus and relationships. A proposal had previously been submitted and circulated to the board with two financial options (Kenes takes 9% of the registration, or 30% of the profits). Meeting insurance is a requirement of their participation and includes a risk free environment for all eventualities.

Following the brief presentation, there was board discussion regarding the proposal. The resolution was unanimously approved to authorize Prof. Kennedy to develop a contract with a PCO. It was agreed that ideally this should be the same PCO across all 3 organizations (IRS, ISIAN and ERS) and Kenes International will make a similar presentation to the IRS board. Prof. Fokkens will share the Congrex proposal for the ERS with Professor Kennedy and he will share the Kenes proposal with the ERS.

Professor Kennedy followed up on the previous board discussion regarding the potential for adopting The International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology as the official Journal of ISIAN. The resolution to adopt it as the official Journal of the ISIAN was unanimously passed by the board.

Professor Elie Serrano discussed the plans for the combined ERS/ISIAN meeting in Toulouse June 17-21 2012. He assured the board that the fees would be reasonable for the meeting, and the area hotels would also be less expensive than many other meeting cities. The city of Toulouse is easily accessible by plane from Paris with service every 20 minutes. Registration fees of €250 for trainees and €500 for ERS and ISIAN members are planned. Some titles for symposia and names of speakers have already been submitted from the ISIAN.

There was a brief discussion with regard to potential meeting sites for the meeting in 2015. Several options have previously been discussed. Simon Carney mentioned that Australia would not be offered as a meeting site unless a professional PCO took responsibility for financial loss. Professor Onerci mentioned that the IRS is currently considering a meeting site in the Americas for 2015. Ideally the two meetings would again be combined.

The meeting was adjourned at 14:15.