Board Meeting, San Sebastian, Nov 09:
New Members
Ukraine:
Last December, our honorary vice president Horst Brömer, together with his colleague Dr. Juri Sloboda, invited representatives of potential new members from the Ukraine to hold a meeting in Berlin. Besides the two hosts from Tannenhof the following other colleagues were attending the meeting: Christian Heise (board Euro-TC), Jerzy Brozyna (Doroga Lviv), Oleksandr Akhmerov (Stupenje Odessa), Yevgeni Soshnikov (Insight Odessa), Andrey Sokolov (Insight Sevastopol).

The Ukrainian TCs were introduced and officially applied for membership. Their interest focuses on interchanging of experience, support of their own work, as well as concrete partnership with individual members of Euro-TC. Prior to this meeting, the possible new member facilities were visited by Horst Brömer and Dr. Juri Sloboda, who were warmly welcome by the Ukrainian colleagues and shown around the various facilities. The two visitors had the impression that the facilities would make a worthy contribution to Euro-TC, not only because of the strong self-help character they constitute. Their membership in Euro-TC would provide them with additional and necessary connection to other European TCs.

Links:
TC Insight: www.tcinsight.io.ua
Stupenje: www.stupeni.org
A detailed report of the visit was done by Horst and Juri in German and is attached to the newsletter.

Bosnia and Herzegovina:
Kruh Svetog Ante, a facility in Sarajevo, is a charitable humanitarian organisation which offers help in various different areas, such as drug addiction prevention, help for the traumatised, dormitory and grants for students, as well as group therapy, psycho- and physiotherapy, and the work with spiritual content and creative handcraft. Also Kruh Svetog Ante officially applied for membership and has various recommendation letters from well-established organisation in Bosnia Herzegovina.

The three facilities from the Ukraine as well as the one from Bosnia and Herzegovina are to be officially confirmed in the next Euro-TC assembly in May in Odessa.
Link: www.kruhsvante.org

Theatre Seminar in Odessa
After having successfully organized theatre therapy seminars in Pecs, Budapest, Pistoia as well as during the International Youth Forums organized together with ICAA in Vienna and Heidelberg, we certainly want to keep up this tradition which is one of our activities directly featuring therapeutic exchange between and for the benefit of our patients.
Therefore, we developed the idea to organize the next theatre seminar in Odessa, parallel to our assembly and scientific seminar at the end of May. The seminar will again feature training on spot with a workshop for all participants, as well as performances by participating groups who practice theatre therapy within their daily therapeutic programme.

!!! If we receive the Operational Grants (see information below) travel and accommodation costs for all participants will be reimbursed by Euro-TC. As we will not have a decision on these grants before May, there is no guarantee for reimbursement !!!

We urgently need your information if your organization wants to send participants for the theatre seminar (number of persons) and would also be willing to provide a trainer for the common workshops. We certainly hope that the traditional participants from Leo Amici, Pistoia, Villa Renata, Vicenza, Zaragoza, Tannenhof and Knappenhof will again be present to continue this exciting tradition.

Application for Operational Grants
The European Commission, Directorate General for Freedom and Justice, has for the second time called for tenders for operational grants for international networks in the addiction field, which consist of a minimum of 7 EU members. There was an extremely short time slot to prepare the quite comprehensive application, which had to show connection to the EU Action Plan on Drugs with the planned 2010 operations of the applying organizations. Together with Thierry Charlois as consultant we managed to deliver our application with all necessary documents. Unfortunately, the commission will take the final decision not before May. The good news is that we have quite good chances of receiving grants.
In this case we could also finance travel costs for members attending our assemblies, travel for participants of the theatre seminar and for some key persons of the Soccer Without Drugs Cup.


EU Drugs Agency Management Board Elections
Friend of Euro-TC, Portuguese drug coordinator João Goulão elected new EMCDDA Chairman
(03.12.2009, LISBON ) The EU drugs agency’s Management Board convened for a two-day meeting in Lisbon today, kicking off with elections for Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Board.
João Goulão, Portuguese national drug coordinator and Head of the Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction — the national focal point in the EMCDDA’s Reitox network — was elected Chairman for the next three years. Dr Goulão has been member of the EMCDDA Board since 2005 and previously served on the agency’s Scientific Committee (1997–2002). A medical doctor by profession, Dr Goulão has over 20 years’ experience in preventing and treating drug addiction in Portugal , having steered a variety of national bodies in these fields. He was also a member of the Portuguese commission which proposed the current national drug strategy.

DCD II WP Treatment Challenges
Sylke Lein, drug coordinator of the city of Leipzig helped the WP leader Euro-TC with planning and organizing this meeting. Not only did she organize the accommodation as well as the catering for the whole group, but she also arranged for the workshop sessions to be held in the time-honoured rooms of the new city hall. There she also arranged a little excursion to the top of the building’s tower from where one has the most stunning view of all of Leipzig and its surroundings which was a pleasant change of setting in between the morning and the afternoon workshop sessions.
After the afternoon session Sylke Lein showed the group around one of the city’s oldest and most traditional Christmas Markets.