Minutes of the AEP General Meeting held in Paris on 8.11.08.

The ordinary General Meeting of 8 November is opened by the President at 10:30 am. Immediately he informs the members that the GA is the first to be held in compliance with the new formula, i.e. highlighting philately. As such, he alone will make all necessary communications and requests the members to raise their questions at the end of his speech as much as possible.

106 members are registered to take part in the proceedings: 59 in attendance and 47 voting by proxy. He reads out the messages received from various Honorary Members including from President Sarkozy, President Rogge of the Olympic Committee, Mr. Wolff of the UPU, etc. The President also goes on to inform the GA of the grounds for not being present, received from several members he met at the “Salon d’Automne”, including Mrs. Caurat, Mrs. Eslinger, Mr. Héry from the French Post, and others. The President also commemorates the members who died in 2008, with the GA observing a 1-minute silence in their honour.

Before detailing the discussions held by the Board of Directors the day before, he also informs the GA of the voluntary resignation of Mr. Francaviglia as member of the Board. He will remain an active member but given his professional activities has no option but to take something of a step back. The President thanks Mr. Francaviglia for his assistance and support over recent years. The Board proposes for Mr. Agostosi to be co-opted as the new member of the Board for the remainder of the Mr. Francaviglia’s current term of office. The proposal is unanimously carried by the GA under applause.

The president then moves to inform the GA of the publication of the new by-laws of the AEP in the ‘Official Journal’ of 28 June 2008, as well as of the decisions taken by the Board of Directors the previous day, which he requests the GA to formally approve at the end of the meeting.

1. The Members

The number of members is seeing a slight rise but, more importantly, we are seeing the arrival (or the return …) of several philatelists of great renown.
Our members are also becoming more active but travel continues to pose a problem: whereas over a third of members have attended one activity or another, it remains rare to see occasions where we are managing to bring together more than 30 members in the same place at the same time.

Hungary and Spain in particular are experiencing difficulties in this respect. The President will travel to Madrid on 13 mars, at the invitation of the Hispanic Academy.

The question as to whether our meetings and/or publications could be made available in other languages is raised on a regular basis. The Board of Directors confirms that only the UPU languages (French and English) are used within the AEP. Nonetheless, the articles for inclusion in OPUS may be written and submitted in other languages to be translated into French or English, through the ministrations of the Board of Directors.

As to Honorary Members, the Board of Directors will proceed to remove those honorary members from the register who have shown no further interest in AEP activities.

2. AEP involvement in various activities.

The Board of Directors proposes to maintain its policy of selective participation in events, i.e. in 2 to 3 international exhibitions and a further 3 to 5 regional and/or special events each year. The latter category includes the exhibitions in Macon (Polar), Bern (100th anniversary of the UPU monument), etc. Moreover, the AEP will bring efforts to raise its profile with the major institutions and organisations. That’s why, the AEP will travel to London to visit the Royal (19 March) and will take part in the exhibition in Essen. A complete list of these activities will be put forward and kept up to date, both in Trait d’Union and on the AEP’s website.

With regard to the location for the next General Assembly meetings, the Board of Directors confirms Monaco for December 2009 and proposes Lisbon for October 2010 (instead of Brussels). A major AEP event will be held in Antwerp in April 2010 however, as part of the international exhibition staged there.

3. Communication and publications.

Since the Board of Directors has received many positive responses on the matter, OPUS and Trait d’Union will be upheld in their current format. OPUS will continue as an annual publication and TdU will have three issues each year.
The following topics have been selected for the two upcoming OPUS editions: ‘Poland, at the heart of European postal relations’ for 2009 and ‘Colonial Europe’ for 2010. For practical reasons and in order to cut down on postage outlays, it has been decided that in future the OPUS will be issued with no more than 200 pages, around 50% of which will be dedicated to the specific annual theme, in a circulation of 500 copies maximum.
The President underscores the important work that has been performed by the members of the Board in charge of TdU, OPUS and development in Central Europe respectively. They are each given a warm applause by the Assembly.

4. Financial report.

The financial year for our association is closed with a positive balance of 6,614.34 € (confirmed by the report drawn up by Mr. Veillault, auditor, who expresses his satisfaction on finding the books perfectly kept, as well the diminishing of costs and the increase of revenues), after the Board of Directors has proposed to assign 10,000 € by way of a provision for the publication of OPUS in 2009. After the auditor having read out his report, the GA grants the board discharge for the 2008 accounts, endorses the policy plans and the strategy as spelled out and approves the budget proposal put forward by the Board of Directors for the 2009 financial year, including maintaining the membership fee at 100 €.

The formal part of proceedings of the GA thus terminated, the President moves on to other topics, first and foremost the Grand Prix of the European Philatelic Press that has been awarded to the ‘Boletin do Club Filatelico do Portugal’ represented by Mr. Frazao. The President then gives the floor to Mrs. Riahi who goes on to remind the members of the options and facilities open to them to have their collections duly insured when under the care of the AEP or when dispatched to be included as part of a philatelic event.
The next person to take the floor is Mr. Strigyne, President of the Russian Academy of Philately, who unfolds his proposal to stage a joint event in 2010, undoubtedly in St. Petersburg, before handing out the diploma of Honorary Member of the Russian Academy to the President.

 The General Assembly is concluded with a brilliant lecture by our colleague Maurice Hadida, who went on to put forward an elucidating look at the postal history of the foreign and sharifian post offices that operated in Morocco during the 19th and early 20th century. The speaker was given a warm applause.

After raising a toast to friendship, the majority of the members take part in the traditional lunch, proving that the AEP has turned a page and is again an Academy of Philately in the truest sense, with warm and open friendship at its very heart.