To:
All members of the ESC Board
CC:
All members of the ESC Executive Committee
Date: Friday
15 November 2002
Re.:
Change of venue of the 8th ESC Congress in 2004
Dear friends,
Further to the organisation of the 8th ESC Congress in 2004 in the
Birmingham International Conference Centre, the ESC Executives revised the
budget related to this venue. It appeared that the Birmingham venue is an
expensive location, the cost for the congress venue only being almost double in comparison
with the three previous congresses.
The ESC Executives agreed to consider switching the location of the
8th ESC Congress to another venue in the UK and requested the ESC Central Office
to undertake a comparative study over 3 other possible locations in the UK. The
Edinburgh International Conference Centre (Scotland), the Scottish Exhibition
and Conference Centre (Glasgow, Scotland) and the Manchester International
Conference Centre/G-Mex (England) were studied.
The Edinburgh International Conference Centre (Scotland) came out
as the best alternative to Birmingham. The capacity of the venue rooms is
comparable, flights to Edinburgh are mostly via London/Glasgow but also via direct
connections and hotel capacity is more then sufficient. Most important was that the
Edinburgh International Conference Centre turned out to be more than 90.000 euro
less expensive compared to the Birmingham venue, even with an additional
built-up day included.
Besides
the practicalities of a congress venue, the financial impact of the congress is
very important as for our Society, as well as for most other medical
societies, a congress is the only one source of income. Congress profits enable the ESC to continue with several traditional
activities (non-profit seminars every other year, free journal subscription for
all members, web-site, central office, professional accountancy etc.). It should
be said that a substantial profit for the Society was obtained in the past by
the congress in Ljubljana, where there were only 850 registered participants. With the high cost of the Birmingham congress venue, the zero profit
level would need approximately 1300 participants.
The only reason for changing venues is a serious economical
concern. By means of this letter I’m happy to inform you that the members of the
ESC Executive Committee reached consensus in changing the venue from Birmingham
to Edinburgh. Important to know is that the relocation will not affect the
engagement and the collaboration with the Local Organising Committee.
The ESC Executive Committee
would
like to welcome your possible comments regarding this issue not later than next
Wednesday 20 November 2002. You can e-mail your comments to the ESC Central
Office who will forward them to me ([email protected])
With
best personal wishes,
S.O. Skouby, President of the European Society of
Contraception