Dear ECTS members, I just ended my terms as President of our society and would like to express my highest appreciation for your commitment to make the ECTS the premier European society in the musculoskeletal field. I am very much honoured to have served the ECTS in this role and to have worked with such talented colleagues. During my Presidency, about one third of the ECTS members were involved in our activities and I was so pleased to see the perfect coordination of the ECTS committees by our Secretary Gudrun Stenbeck. All Board members largely contributed to the success of the ECTS in these last three years and I would like to thank them one by one for their time and effort. Large part of the success was due to the activities of the ECTS Action Groups, each co-chaired by a talented ECTS member and coordinated by a Board member. This organisation allowed us to develop many activities. Some were established, such as the annual congress, the training courses, the clinical position papers and endorsements, the grants and awards and the ECTS Academy selection, but others were new, such as the webinar series, the global link with other societies and a widespread communication strategy through social media and newsletters. I leave a healthy society in the hands of President Bo Abrahamsen, who will continue to strengthen the ECTS with new initiatives and involvement of more members.
The last months of my presidency were saddened by the COVID-19 outbreak, which is still challenging the wellbeing of humanity. As you can image, this translates into a financial challenge not only for us but also for the other scientific societies. To clasp a positive message from this unhappy situation, we are learning a lot from this experience and we do hope this will make us all better. Our Treasurer, Christian Meier is strongly committed to keep our finance healthy even in this unpredicted situation and to provide the ECTS with the necessary means to meet the member expectations. I am also very grateful to our Corporate members and Sponsors for supporting our educational activities.
A special thanks to Roberta Mugnai, excellent Executive Director who handles our society as she does with her family: same care, same accuracy, same moral strength. Roberta coordinates the staff activities and many thanks also to Dorota Doszko, Julien Delaye and Thomas Pierre for their effort in managing our society, and to Interplan for their excellence in assisting us to handle the annual congress.
Bo Abrahamsen will now chair the ECTS in 2020-2023. Thank you Bo for accepting this important, challenging and exciting role. Last but not least, I would like to thank Past President Claus Glüer for guiding and advising me prior and during my presidency.
Anna Teti
ECTS Past-President