Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the International Society of Urological Pathology held at the Gaylord National Harbor Convention Center, National Harbour 4/5, National Harbour, Washington, MD, USA on Saturday 17th March 2019, at 6.30 pm to 6:55 pm
Present: Prof. David Grignon (President), Prof. Kenneth Iczkowski (President-Elect), Prof. Hemamali Samaratunga (Secretary), Prof. Stephen Shen (Treasurer), and 120 other members of the Society.
- Call to order
The President, David Grignon called the meeting to order and welcomed the participants.
- Apologies
Apologies were received from Prof Lars Egevad
- Minutes of previous meetings
The minutes of the Annual General Meeting held in Sydney Australia on Friday 1 June 2018 were circulated to all members and are available on the website. These were taken as read and approved (DG/WD).
- Reports
4.1: Report of the President
David Grignon addressed the meeting and explained that the new ISUP bye laws came into affect in 2018, which set term limits for council members as well as the election processes. 7 new members of Council will start after this AGM as a result of the elections. In April 2018 he wrote to the membership and 388 gave written support for the re-instatement of ISUP as an USCAP Companion Society and as a result of this ISUP was re-instated from January 9th 2019. This will be the 27th Annual Meeting.
ISUP has earned a well-deserved place of respect among our clinical colleagues, providing evidence-based improvements in the practice of urological pathology. ISUP had its first publication in 1998 on grading of urothelial carcinoma and since then there have been over 100 publications with ISUP in the title and many more with ISUP in the abstract. ISUP has awarded 42 trainees with stipends for them to attend meetings or visit other pathology departments and 50 have received research awards. ISUP membership is also reduced for underrescourced countries.
The Council elections were held in January and were managed by an independent external vendor (myDirectVote). 236 members cast their votes.
The new Councillors are as follows:
President-Elect – Kenneth A Iczkowski
Secretary – Jon Oxley
International Councillors –
North America – Sean Williamson
South America – Laura Jufe
Europe – Arno van Leenders
Asia – Toyonori Tsuzuki
Australisia – David Clouston
The website is an important part of the society and it was accessed by 12,194 individuals in 2018. The ISUP education is a new link – free to all – and provides a multilingual learning resource. This web based resource has been developed by Lars Egevad and a publication on this is in press at the moment. The society was extremely grateful for his hard work.
David Grignon then thanked the Councillors, who had completed their terms, for their work and for supporting him.
4.2: Report of the Secretary
Hema Samaratunga presented her report on the activities of the Society in the past year. She commented that it had been a turbulent one for the Society, but ISUP had weathered the storm, thanks mainly due to the hard work of Dr David Grignon. His incredible determination and perseverance had got us back companion status of USCAP which is valuable despite us being a truly International Society. The Society has thrived under the guidance of David, Council members and President Elect, Theo van der Kwast. The molecular pathology Consultation Conference to be held tomorrow is testimony to this success.
Many activities of the Society initiated in the last few years have continued with our immediate past president Dr Lars Egevad working tirelessly to bring us a variety of functions on the web site including the new feature ISUP Education which is a training website available to pathologists all over the world. The imagebase remains a wonderful resource available to all members and the Public Section can be viewed by even non-members. ISUP members have access to the entire series which is quite comprehensive. Promotion of the imagebase continues with special journal publications.
We are thankful to Andy Evans and his team for providing educational material through The Case of the Month function. This has been of value particularly for Trainees and Fellows.
Our membership has continued to grow. When we had our last AGM in June of last year in Australia we had 1462 Members. Less than a year later, now we have 1700 Members an increase of more than 200 and again more than two thirds of our membership are from outside the US.
As you know, we have had elections this year and apart from the President-Elect and Treasurer, a new Council has been elected. This is indeed very exciting news. I would like to wish them all of the very best in guiding the Society in the next few years.
4.3 Report of the Treasurer
Steven Shen presented the Treasurer’s report. The Society currently has funds of $49,902.19. This is a significant surplus compared with the balance on the 31st December 2017, when the funds were $39,957.04. The major expenses in 2018 were for the stipend awards of $4,000.00 and the cost of AGM meeting in Sydney of $831.63 ($1090.00 according to my records). Major anticipated expenses in 2019 would be costs associated with the Molecular Pathology Meeting and the ISUP reception. The focus in 2019 would be a comprehensive review of membership and dues status. It was moved that the report be received and accepted (Evans/Samaratunga). The motion was passed unanimously.
- Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 16:55 p.m
Confirmed
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President Date