The Needs of Our Members are Important to Us

The role of SIOPE is to represent paediatric cancer professionals – an essential driving force in making successful cure possible – to ensure the best possible outcome for all patients and survivors. All members of SIOPE are the reason and motivation behind our activities, and we are very pleased to inform you that many paediatric oncology professionals joined our Society this year, and today we can already count more than 1,500 SIOPE members, representing 31 European countries. Thanks to your essential support as members, SIOPE has been able to remarkably grow and raise awareness on the main issues encountered by children and adolescents with cancer in Europe. This year in particular has been marked by the successful launch of the consensus-based ‘European Cancer Plan for Children and Adolescents’ for the next decade. Along with several stakeholders from the wider paediatric cancer community, we would like to continue to count on your precious contribution to implement its key objectives for the next decade. You can take part in this endeavour with your innovative ideas, projects and initiatives as a member of our Society also in 2016. Being the reference point for everything related to paediatric oncology in Europe, SIOPE was established to make your work easier: all SIOPE members can attend the European Cancer Congress and other scientific congresses at a reduced rate, take part in European collaborations, attend the many interesting SIOPE events and initiatives, and receive our regular updates through several communication channels (website, quarterly Newsletter, YouTube channel, Twitter, LinkedIn and monthly ‘E-Blasts’). This year, as your opinion as a member of SIOPE is immensely valuable to us, we would like to do even more to support our community. In order to understand how to fully address your professional needs and meet all your expectations at every level, we would like to kindly invite you to take 5 minutes of your time to express your views via an online survey. We would really appreciate if you could please send us your answers to this survey by 1^st February 2016. We would particularly like to thank all of you who were able to attend the SIOPE General Assembly last 28^th September 2015 in Vienna (Austria). As you already know, the General Assembly is the supreme governing body of SIOPE, and it is the ideal occasion where all members can really feel part of our Society, discuss our activities and strategy, analyse the latest achievements and plan the priorities for the SIOPE office in the coming years. As announced at the General Assembly, we also set up a SIOPE “intranet” (private space) for your use. Here you will be able to easily find any kind of document or information you might need from our Society (e.g. General Assembly meeting minutes, membership documents, etc.). Early January 2016 you will receive a separate email from Microsoft providing you with the access details required to access this exclusive online space for members’ only. For any difficulty you might encountered to log on to the intranet, please do not hesitate to contact us. In September we also presented you a summary of the changes in the structure of our Society, and in particular:

• The amendments to the SIOPE Statutes – some parts have been updated to accommodate the recent changes in our Society;
• The new SIOPE Clinical Research Council (CRC) – the revised structure of the former European Clinical Research Council (ECRC) aims to better convey the voice of all European Clinical Trial Groups and National Societies of Paediatric Oncology, and will be inaugurated during the final ENCCA General Assembly on 17-18 December 2015;
• The call for nominations for a new Board member – SIOPE decided to welcome a new member on the Board as from 1^st January 2016, especially as Prof Henrik Hasle will finish his term by the end of the 2015. Five remarkable candidates expressed their wish to join this decision-making body.

Two parallel voting processes took place after the General Assembly, to both elect a new SIOPE Board member and to approve the amendments of the Statutes. Following the current Statutes, any voting process within the SIOPE organisation needs to be channelled via the National Paediatric Oncology Societies (NaPHOS). The Chairs of each NaPHOS designated the delegates who casted their vote preferences on behalf of the society/institution (the delegates number depends on the total number of SIOPE members belonging to that NaPHOS). We are glad to hereby announce the results of these voting processes: the recent amendments to the SIOPE Statutes have been officially approved by a majority of 97-99% of voting members, and we are glad to announce that Prof François Doz will be our new Board member of SIOPE. Senior Paediatric Oncologist and Deputy Director of Research at the Curie Institute in Paris, France, Prof Doz is also Professor of Paediatrics at the University Paris Descartes. Member of the SIOP Scientific Committee, the research interests of Prof Doz include paediatric neuro-oncology (especially medulloblastoma), retinoblastoma, early drug development and ethics of clinical research in paediatric oncology. Prof Doz is part of several research groups, including the European retinoblastoma group (EURbG), the SIOPE Brain tumour group, ITCC and the SIOPE PNET5 MB protocol, and he is involved in both the ENCCA and the ExPO-r-Net projects. Prof François Doz will begin his 3 years’ term as SIOPE member on 1^st January 2016 and, in particular, he will pilot the implementation of the ‘Ethics, Social Sciences and Humanities’ programme of the SIOPE Strategic Plan. Congratulations Prof François Doz! As you noticed, our Society changed a lot during the last year. We do hope to welcome you at the 2016 SIOPE General Assembly – which will take place during the SIOP Congress in Dublin (Ireland) – to report on the further developments in the months ahead. More information: please do not hesitate to contact the SIOPE Office (office@siope.eu).