Report of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) Of Kurdish Medical Association (KuMA),Kurdistan Scientific Association (KSA)
And Kurdistan Medical and Scientific Federation (KMSF)

22nd September 2007
Kurdish Cultural Centre (KCC), London

The meeting was attended by over 70 Kurdish medical doctors, scientific scholars and academics. Also a small number of Kurdish Medical Students in the UK were in attendance.

The meeting started at 3.30 pm, by simultaneous AGMs of KuMA and KSA.

KuMA AGM: Chaired by Dr Firiad Hawezi.

Dr Rizgar Amin, chair of KuMA council presented his report, summarising KuMA’s various activities over the past two years. He also referred to the communications between KuMA and the Medical Schools and the Ministry of Health in Kurdistan. Then Dr Teshk Shawis (Secretary and Treasurer of KuMA) presented a brief financial report. Dr Shawis highlighted the importance of regular membership payment and encouraged members to set monthly direct debits of £5.00.

This was followed by some discussion amongst participants about the future activities of KuMA and in particular its role in supporting the development of expertise in various medical and surgical specialties in Kurdistan. Miss Christine Evans, Consultant Urologist who has visited Kurdistan on a number of occasions, referred to her most recent visit to Kurdistan in May 2007 and her over all impression of the specialty of Urology in Kurdistan. She highlighted the improvements and progress that have been made over the past few years, and areas that need further development.

Participants at the AGM also felt that KuMA needs to take measures so that its members would feel more informed and involved in future. The importance of having a comprehensive mailing list was emphasized.

It was agreed that soon after the AGM and the election of new council members, KuMA would need to organise a meeting to discuss two main topics:

1. The future role of KuMA in supporting medical education and training in Kurdistan.
2. What measures to take to improve networking and communication with members, and to ensure that members’ views and suggestions are taken into consideration in planning future activities?

 

The meeting continued with discussing KuMA constitution. There was a suggestion to reduce the eligibility of membership of KuMA council from three terms (six years) to two terms (4 years). This was put forward for voting and the majority was in favour of three terms. There was also a suggestion that number of council members should be reduced, however the majority voted in favour of the number stated in the constitution (minimum of 9 and maximum of 11).

The meeting continued with elections of new KuMA council members. At this point existing council members formally resigned. Dr Firiad Hewazi then invited for nominations for KuMA Council. The following put their names forward:

1. Dr Rizgar Amin, Consultant Psychiatrist
2. Dr Teshk Shawis, Consultant Physician
3. Dr Soran Chaweshly, Associate Specialist, ENT
4. Dr Sarwat Shareef, General Practitioner
5. Dr Kameran Dizayee, Consultant Physician
6. Dr Hawar Akrawi, Specialist Registrar, Orthopaedics
7. Dr Mazin Raouf, Foundation Year 2
8. Dr Amanj Ahmad, Foundation Year 2
9. Dr Harman Saman, ST3 Psychiatry
10. Yad Zangana, Staff Grade, Maxilo Facial Surgery
11. Goran Jalal, Foundation Year 2

As the numbers nominated did not exceed the maximum membership of KuMA council as per its constitution, it was concluded that all the nominees would be elected as members on the new council of KuMA.

KSA AGM: Chaired by Dr Sayah Saied.
1st Session:
Dr Sayah passed on Dr Jamal Ameen’s apologies for not attending the meeting due to his health problem. She also added that Dr Jamal is willing to nominate himself for the elections of a new chairing committee for KSA.

Dr Dilan Roshani then gave a brief introduction about the activities that have been carried out by the committee members during the last two years since the last General Meeting.
He spoke about the KURDAN project which is preliminarily supported and sponsored by the Ministry of Planning of Kurdistan Regional Government.
Dr Dilan also suggested that the organisation (KSA) should have its own annual calendar for committee meetings and seminars that would be held throughout the year. This would help the members to organise their agenda in order to attend meetings.
Action: All the attendees agreed with the suggestion and the new committee should carry out this task in the near future. 
Discussion:
During this session several issues were discussed:

1. KURDAN project.
2. Ministry of Higher education conference which is sponsored by KRG and will be held in Hawler on 11-13 December 2007.
3. The role that KSA/KMSF members can play in organising the above conference. This could be through presenting papers or providing ICT, or other technical help which is not available in Kurdistan.
4. Project for establishing a national library and how the KSA/KMSF members can contribute to it. 
5. Upgrading the KSA/KMSF website.
6. KSA/KMSF constitution. 
7. Election of new members of KSA chairing committee.

2nd Session:
Annual membership collection: all attendees paid their annual membership of £10 each. 
Election of new committee members:
During this session the new committee structure was discussed.
The attendee members nominated themselves to become a member of the new KSA chairing committee.
Seven people were nominated including Dr Jamal Ameen.

The nominee's names are listed below:
Dr Jamal Ameen (absent nominee)
Mr Fazil Kawani
Mr Muhammad Khailany
Dr Gerad Guatier
Mr Barzan Rahman
Dr Suad M Khaffaf
Mr Ali Shuker (absent nominee) 
The nominated members had a separate meeting for 10-15 minutes which started by allocating the responsibilities of the committee members.
The final decision was as follows: 
Chairman of KSA committee:
Mr Fazil Kawani
Co-Chairman:
Dr Jamal Ameen
Secretary:
Mr Barzan Rahman
Treasurer:
Mr Mohammad Khailany   
KSA/KMSF webmaster:
Candidate need to be appointed (a member with IT skill is required) 
Communication links between KSA and KMSF
Dr Soad M. Khaffaf   
Education Consultant: Dr Jerard Geutier, to help with Education projects in Kurdistan

Academic and Scientific liaison between UK Universities and Kurdistan Universities
Dr Jalal Khaffaf 

KMSF AGM: Chaired by Dr Rizgar Amin.

The second part of the meeting was dedicated to Kurdistan Medical and Scientific Federation (KMSF) AGM. It commenced at 5.30 pm.

Dr Hiro Khoshnaw gave a brief presentation about the background to the formation of KMSF.  She highlighted various general meetings, which were held since January 2005 with the participation of all KMSF member organizations namely KuMA (Kurdish Medical Association UK), SCHEIKUK (Support Committee for Higher Education in Iraqi Kurdistan-UK), KSA (Kurdistan Scientific Association) and KSS (Kurdish Students Society).  She reminded the AGM members about the rationale for the formation of KMSF, its aims and objectives and the future prospects and functioning.

Soon after Dr Khoshnaw’s presentation, Dr. Sherwan Ghafoor declared to the AGM that   
SCHEIKUK’s executive met a few days before KMSF AGM and decided to opt out from the membership of KMSF.  This was entirely unexpected by AGM members which led to various questions being addressed to Dr. Ghafoor.  The chair of the session reminded the AGM membership that the membership of KMSF is a voluntary process and SCHEIKUK has every right to opt out from its membership.  As it stands the KMSF membership at the AGM are KSA, KuMA and KSS.

The constitution of the KMSF was then discussed.  Various points were raised for discussion and apart from some disagreements regarding the membership and constitution of the KMSF executive, there were no major points of disagreement and the meeting agreed that apart from the chairs of KSA, KuMA and KSS being members of the KMSF Board, there was a need for the election of chair, secretary and treasurer for KMSF board from eligible candidates from any of the three membership organizations.

Nominations were then invited for the offices of chair, secretary and Treasurer for KMSF.  Prior to the AGM, there was one nomination for the chair and one for secretary of KMSF.  No one else nominated themselves or other members of the AGM for the offices of chair and secretary of KMSF.  Therefore Dr Hiro Khoshnaw was elected as Chair and Dr Sayah Saied as Secretary of KMSF. Then Dr Abdul Kadir Hassan was elected as the Treasurer for KMSF.

Following the election of the officers of KMSF, the second section of the KMSF AGM was brought to an end at about 7pm.

Prepared by: Dr Suad M Khaffaf, Dr Rizgar Amin and Dr Hiro Khoshnaw,
November 2007