Letter from Officer of Operations - April 2003

 

Dear BFS members

BFS Association Annual General Meeting April 2003

We apologize for the late approach. According to the Rules for The Pharmaceutical Operator’s Association we are a little late which we deeply regret. The reason for this is partly that there has been some illness in our staff and partly that there is extremely much work to do in connection with Melitek’s new building and establishment in Nr. Alslev.

The following documents can be downloaded here on the BFS website on Friday April 11, 2003:

• The BFS Association’s Annual Accounts for 2002.
• Revised Rules of The Pharmaceutical BFS Operator’s Association.
• Revised Functional Descriptions for appointed officers within the BFS Association.
• Voting paper (if you are not able to participate in the AGM).
• Agenda for The AGM 2003 in Manchester on April 28–30, 2003. URGENT – please remember to fill in the registration form and return it no later than April 23, 2003.

 

Comments on the Annual Accounts for 2002

The result for 2002 shows a loss for the year of EUR -38,333. This loss is mainly related to extraordinary costs accepted by the Board in connection with the following activities:

1) Meetings and travelling expenses (please see note 3)

The extraordinary costs comprise meeting and travelling expenses together with expenses for PDA activities. These costs are mainly related to the resignation of the Western Board and consequently efforts made in order to re-establish BFS activities in North America. Referring to our AGM in New Orleansin December 2002 we must say that we have been successful.

2) PDA activities

We have succeeded in defending the BFS users’ interests towards the FDA, ref. the FDA concept paper and the close cooperation that we have manage to establish to the PDA has given us good possibilities to influence the development in future.

The BFS Association has participated in two meetings in Washington, one meeting in New Orleans, one meeting in Prague, and one meeting in Basle.

In order to be able to present our comments on the FDA concept paper meetings have also been arranged between technical officers and the Secretary of the European Chamber.

The Board has had two meetings in Frankfurt, one meeting in Copenhagen, and one meeting in Stuttgartand New Orleansrespectively in connection with BFS meetings.

Other extraordinary costs are related to a reduction in the membership fee caused by bad debts, i.e. EUR –25,052 (please see note 1) and we have been forced to ask 24 members to leave the organization as they were not paying their subscription fees. We regret this reduction in the number of members which for a smaller part is related to merging activities. However, mainly the missing subscription fees are caused by the reduced activities in North Americaand the economical and political situation in Asia. We have decided to take on the accumulated depreciation hoping that we will be positively surprised.

Revised Rules for The Pharmaceutical BFS Operator’s Association

The Board finds it important to update the rules and to bring them in accordance with the member structure, also taking the globalization into consideration. We are therefore suggesting that we change the organization from being three chambers with international boards to be one common chamber with one international board giving the organization the possibility to speak in one tongue towards the authorities and the harmonization in general. The new international board will be a voted in board.

In order to assist the board in regional matters or in special technical issues the board will have the right to appoint officers. We hope that these changes may help the BSF Association to achieve a closer contact to the leading authorities and organizations like FDA, EMEA, PDA etc. giving better possibilities to talk on behalf of the total BFS Association. The revised Functional Descriptions are of course a result of the change in organization structure.

The budget for 2003 was presented at the AGM in December 2002 in New Orleans. At the AGM in Manchesterwe will present the budget for 2004, where the changes in number of members, technical projects, and travelling expenses are taken into consideration.

Subscription for 2003

You have all received a subscription invoice for the membership 2003 together with an explanation of the increase in the fee. Fortunately most members have accepted and paid the fee. However, observing all the formalities we will need an acceptance of the members on the AGM meeting on this point.

Once again we apologize our late communication to you. We look forward to seeing you all in Manchesterand if you are not able to participate we kindly ask you to fill in the Voting Paper and return it to us.

Best personal regards

Svend-Axel Laursen
Officer of Operation