held in room B of Hotel Histria, Pula, Croatia on Tuesday June 3d, 2003, 18.00 - 19.30 hrs.

The following members of the EMS Executive Board were present: J.L. Carrascosa (President, Spain), E. Wisse (Secretary, Belgium), L. Ginsel (Treasurer, The Netherlands), members: L. Frank (Czech Republic). In total 17 EMS members attended the meeting, including the President of IFSEM, D. Cockayne (UK).

Agenda of the meeting:

1. EMC 2004 in Antwerpen, Belgium (web site: < http://www.emc2004.be >).
2. EMS-extensions in 2005 and 2006
3. Planning of scientific activities, workshops and specialized meetings
4. The EMS membership situation
5. The Yearbook
6. Finances
7. E.communication, e.address-corrections, e.voting
8. Any further matter to be discussed

     The General Assembly was chaired by J.L. Carrascosa, President of EMS, the minutes are written by E. Wisse, Secretary of EMS. The agenda is accepted as proposed.

1. EMC 2004 in Antwerpen, Belgium.

        The chairman of the Programme Committee, G. Van Tendeloo reports on the activities in Antwerpen in preparation of the next European Microscopy Congress (previously called EUREM). The congress will take place in August 22 - 27 (2004) and will be located on the Campus of the University of Antwerp. With the aid of the International Scientific Advisory Board and the Progframme Committee a well-considered programme is presently under construction. Special events are three plenary lectures, special interest lectures (in art, industry, bionano structures, photons and image archiving), Sunday courses (on EELS, STEM, FIB, 3D and NFOM), will be completed by regular scientific sessions, eventually concluded by round table discussions. The sessions fall into three regular catagories: Instrumentation, Materials Sciences and Life Sciences. The number of parallel sessions will be limited. Invited speakers will be suggested by the chairpersons of the sessions, but will be invited by the Programme Committee. A large Exhibition is planned together with a poster session at which more than 600 posters are expected.

2. EMS extensions in 2005 and 2006.

        The EMS President, J. Carrascosa emphasizes the importance of the organization of EMS extensions, connected to larger scale microscopy meetings. Because of the fact that EMS is presently missing the support of a bureau with payed personell to assist EMS in its functions, we have decided to take an intermediate course and ask societies with large scale microscopy meetings in Europe to host an EMS extension. So far three EMS extensions have been held with increasing success: i.e. Lecce (2001), Lille (2002) and Pula (2003). EMS has supported the EMS extensions by financially supporting two or three invited speakers, who are also invited to publish their contributions in the EMS Yearbook. The purpose of the EMS extensions, besides the primary goal of scientific communication, is to let them grow until we could eventually transit to annual European microscopy meetings, such as the annual MSA meeting in the USA. A complicating factor is given by the fact that more and more large scale microscopy meetings are being organized in Europe, resulting in an irregular number of good, but uncoordinated microscopy meetings for selected groups of microscopists spread all over Europe. EMS considers this development as undisirable and plans to contact the players in the field for a discussion on the coördination of microscopy meetings in Europe. This intention is strongly supported by industry, where we observe a kind of fatigue, caused by the irregularity of this multitude of different microscopy meetings. The Executive Board of EMS intends to decide on the EMS extension of 2005 at the end of the year 2003. The President of IFSEM asks to respect the time schedule of IFSEM meetings, also when they do not take place in Europe.

3. Planning of scientific activities, workshops and specialized meetings.

        The president reports the support given by EMS to the 1st Stanis?aw Gorczyca Summer School on Advanced Transmission Electron Microscopy organized by A. Czyrska-Filemonowicz in Krakow, Poland, June 30 til July 5, 2003. EMS has supported this workshop with one invited speakers, who are also invited to publish their contributions in the EMS Yearbook. It is the wish of EMS that other initiatives will be taken by the members of EMS to organize summer schools, workshops, symposia and other meetings that serve the purpose of increasing and distributing the knowledge on microscopy and directly related techniques.

4. The EMS membership situation.

        The EMS Secretary reports on the membership situation of EMS. At present, about 19 societies for microscopy in Europe cooperate with EMS to collect Euro 5 for (part of) their membership to pay for the annual contribution of EMS members. Among the largest societies for microscopy we can mention the Dutch Society for Microscopy (498 members), the Swiss Society for Optics and Microscopy (460 members), EMAG (UK, 411 members), the French Society for Microscopy (280), the Italian Society for Microscopy (250 members), the Czech and Slovakian Society (189), the Spanish Society (160), the Belgian Society (116), the German Society (105) and other societies with less than 100 members in Croatia, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Yugoslavia. We await and would welcome the cooperation of the societies for microscopy in Austria, Hungary and Slovenia.

5. The Yearbook

        P. Hawkes is working hard on the production of the Yearbook 2003, together witht the firm E.R.I. in France. It is to be hoped that the Yearbook will appear soon.

6. Finances.

        The Treasurer presents an overview of the expenses and revenues of EMS. At the end of year 2002, the financial situation of EMS was healthy with Euro 21,535 in the bank account of the society. The treasurer surveys the expenses and expected income for the year 2003.

7. E.communication, e.address-corrections, e.voting.

        The Secretary overviews briefly the intentions to further develop and improve electronic communication with the EMS members. It is obvious that with an annual fee of Euro 5 it is excluded to send any printed mail to the members. The secretary and P. Hawkes are spending efforts to improve and correct the list of members, which will be printed in the Yearbook. An address correction form will soon be available on the EMS website. We would like to have the ability for electronic voting during the year 2004, but the members present at the Assembly are not aware of software enabling EMS to organize electronic voting.

8. Any further matter to be discussed.

        The Secretary and Treasurer have written a text which will soon be used to establish an EMS Foundation according to Dutch law and registered at the Chamber of Commerce, giving EMS legal status amongs international learned bodies. No further matter being presented, the EMS President closes the meeting and thanks all participants for their contribution.

E. Wisse, Brussels, July 14th, 2003