EUROPSO General Assembly and Members Meeting

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This year’s EUROPSO General Assembly and Members Meeting was special, being the first face-to-face event after a two-year pause, due to Covid-19 pandemic. The event took place on Saturday, November 12, when EUROPSO welcomed to Madrid delegates from Greece, France, Slovenia, The Netherlands, Serbia, Czech Republic and Slovakia, and providing a video link for others who could not join in person.

The General Assembly held Board elections. After the election process was completed, Jan Koren, EUROPSO President announced the new Board, consisting of the following members:

  • Jan Koren – President
  • David Trigos Herraez – Vice president
  • Henk Hulshuizen – Secretary
  • Jaime Melancia – Member
  • Tina Koukopoulou – Member
  • Vanda Marjanović – Substitute member
  • Gabriela Doleželová – Substitute member
EUROPSO Board members present at the Madrid meeting, from left to right: David Trigos, Jan Koren, Tina Koukopoulou, Gabriela Doleželová and Henk Hulshuizen

The main topic of the day was the upcoming launch of the EUROPSERVATORY Project’s first phase in May 2023. Explaining all three project phases, David Trigos, EUROPSO Vice President said the overall goal from the project was having „More clinical research, better access to treatment and raised awareness of the psoriatic patients’ needs, until every approved drug finds its way to the patient in need and stigma around this disease ceases to exist. “

Speaking about this overarching goal, Trigos emphasized that it could not be achieved without inviting other interested organisations for an alignment of activities and achieving better impact on the EU policy makers. The members discussed in details about the idea of having a joint initiative for tackling psoriatic disease, which was later on accepted after a short discussion.

The afternoon sessions were dedicated to three workshops:

  1. Fundraising by using the EUROPSERVATORY project
  2. Awareness & Advocacy
  3. How to get younger people more involved in your organisation
Fundraising workshop

After the meeting ended in late afternoon, the members brought a piece of positive atmosphere back to their national organisations, along with valuable new insights and a plan for EUROPSO 2023 activities.