Mailing To IFOS Members:
Plans for 2006 IFOS General Assembly and World Congress

As we approach the General Assembly of the International Federation of Ophthalmological Societies (IFOS) on February 21, 2006 at the World Ophthalmology Congress in São Paulo, Brazil, I will send you e-mails from time to time to keep you informed of plans for the IFOS meeting and the Congress.

1. General Assembly Scheduled February 21, 2006
Please note that the IFOS General Assembly will be Tuesday, February 21, 2006, the day after the Opening Ceremonies of the World Ophthalmology Congress, which is scheduled from February 19 - 24 in São Paulo.

We have changed the date for the IFOS General Assembly to reduce conflicts with other events at the Congress. It will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on February 21 in Room 8 of the Transamérica Expo Center & Hotel in São Paulo.

We are working on an agenda for the General Assembly that will minimize reports and routine business. Instead, we want to engage you in dynamic discussions of critical issues facing ophthalmology and IFOS/ICO in the future.

Please let me know any important international issues you feel we should discuss.

We will send an agenda book for the General Assembly to official IFOS Representatives at least a month before the meeting.

For future ICO and IFOS meeting dates, see: http://www.icoph.org/lead/icomeet.html.

2. Free Registration for World Congress for IFOS Representatives
The ICO and organizers of the World Congress want to have members of every national ophthalmologic society in the world represented at the IFOS General Assembly and World Congress.

To encourage this, the Congress organizers have generously offered free Congress registration for the official Representative to IFOS from each IFOS member society.

If you have not already done so, please let me know (mailto:spivey@icoph.org) the name and e-mail address of your Representative to IFOS.

I will send this information to the Congress Secretariat, which will register the Representatives and send a confirmation directly to them.

I will need to have the name of your Representative by October 1 in order to arrange for the free registration.

To strengthen communications between IFOS/ICO and its members, we would encourage you to name an officer or current leader of your society as IFOS Representative.

Representatives should make their own hotel reservations, which they can do at: http://www.ophthalmology2006.com.br/hotel2.php.

If you or your society’s IFOS Representative needs a formal invitation to the Congress in order to have your travel approved, please let me know as soon as possible.

3. Free Registration for the Best National Papers from Each Country
The Congress has extended until September 28, 2005 the deadline for national societies to report the best free papers submitted to the Congress from their countries.

The Congress will provide free registration to the first author of the best free paper on ophthalmology and the best free paper on prevention of blindness from each country (a total of two authors, one in each category, per country), as determined by the national ophthalmologic society.

You can find details at http://www.ophthalmology2006.com.br/best.php. There’s also a list at that address of the best national free papers that have already been selected.

If you haven’t already chosen the best free papers from your country, I would encourage you to do so and report no later than September 28 to Council Member Pran Nagpal, MD (mailto:manishad1@sancharnet.in).

Dr. Nagpal will inform the Congress of the selection, and the Congress will contact the authors about waiving the registration fee.

Please communicate with Dr. Nagpal, not the Congress, about the best free papers.

4. Deadlines Extended for Speaker Registration and Free Papers
In response to many requests, the Congress has also pushed back the deadline for registration for speakers to August 31, 2005 and for online submission of free papers to October 28, 2005.

Here are the new deadlines:

August 31: Registration of speakers
September 28: National societies notify Dr. Nagpal of best free papers
October 28: Online submission of free papers.

The Congress promises to be the best ever. For more details, see: http://www.ophthalmology2006.com.br.

Please let me know if you have questions about the IFOS General Assembly or the Congress.

I will be back in touch with you before then and look forward to seeing you in São Paulo.

With best regards,

Bruce

Bruce E. Spivey, MD, Secretary General
International Council of Ophthalmology
945 Green Street
San Francisco, California, USA 94133
Fax: (+1) 415 409-8403
E-mail: mailto:spivey@icoph.org
Web: http://www.icoph.org