October 2024

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Time is passing by with unprecedented speed (at least this is the way many of us "old timers" perceive it) and we can't find time to do all the tasks that we schedule (including swimming - this weekend in Greece was very hot, ideal for it).
Yet, the international situation does not permit optimism and the luxury of remaining free from concerns. People are being killed every day and the drums of war are heard loudly and clearly. Nobody can be indifferent to the brutality of war.

If, however, we concentrate on our EAPE we have some very good news:

1. The former EAPE President Prof. Natale de Santo has informed us that the President of the Italian Republic Prof. Sergio Mattarella has awarded a President's Medal to our Association, for the Day of Older Persons' events (1st October) organized under the guidance of Prof. de Santo.
   This is an important distinction provided to our Association for the second time.
2. The EAPE, in collaboration with other organizations, is organizing an International celebration of the World Mental Health Day, to be held in Athens, at the office of the European Parliament, οn the 10th October, 4.00-6.30 pm. (Athens time). Our Section on Mental Health will be represented by four of its members, Dusica Lecic-Tosevsky, George Ikkos, Nancy Papalexandris and George Christodoulou. The event will be a hybrid one and those interested can attend it electronically.
   The zoom link is:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82510123306
3. I am happy to report that the Internal regulations of our Sections, as modified by a Committee composed of the President, Dennis Cokkinos and George-Andrei Dan has been approved by the Board and will be uploaded on the EAPE Website.
   Thus, the Sections will have guidance concerning how to function, how to carry out elections etc. An item has been added concerning the possibility to award the title of Honorary Member to a person who has excelled in the area covered by the relevant section.
4. The EAPE Board has authorized the President and Former President Prof. Cokkinos to represent EAPE and offer salutations in two important meetings where our Association will be a collaborating organization:
   Hippoctatic Foundation Congress, Hippoctatic Island of Kos, 13-21 October 2024.
   9th European Conference on Tobacco control, Athens 22 October 2024.
5. During our Board meeting of the 25 September, the President-elect Prof. Giancarlo Bracale provided preliminary information on the EAPE Interim Congress to be held in 2025 in Naples (the main EAPE Congress will be held in 2026 in Athens). Further information will follow.
6. I am happy to say that the Membership of our Association has increased. Not dramatically but it has increased. Could each of us please try to recruit one member during this month? And, could each of us pay one's dues? I am sorry I have to deal with such trivialities. If I was you I would certainly be annoyed by this appeal but what can I do?
   The only thing that I and the rest of my board colleagues can do is to make membership in EAPE worth the yearly dues of 50 euros. If you have ideas that can further increase our performance towards this end, please do not hesitate to communicate your ideas to me.

With cordial regards and best wishes.
George Christodoulou
EAPE President
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Mobile phone: 0030 693 6743498

September 2024

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Autumn is considered as a melancholic season. It is associated with the painful return from the summer vacations, is often accompanied by rain fall, fallen leafs ("les feuilles mortes") reminiscences from the time we were students and were going back to school from the summer carefree happiness (for those of us who can still remember!) etc.

However, this summer was not a particularly happy period. With at least two major wars occurring with fierce violence and many victims, with the climate change producing catastrophic wildfires (e.g. Greece, Portugal), floods and other natural disasters as well as many tragic losses, we can hardly call it a happy period in the life of humanity and our own lives. Let us hope then that, in spite of being "melancholic", autumn will remedy some of the consequences of these human-made and natural disasters.

But, enough with this introduction!... CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE LETTER

August 2024

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I hope that you are all well and tolerant. This continuing heat wave is difficult to tolerate but I am sure that we will manage to at least survive. Following this optimistic prediction I would like to share some brief but important information with you

1. Elections of Sections
Officers.
The elections for the leadership of our sections have been carried out succesfully and uneventfuly and we now have new officers. The elected chairs are as follows:

Section on Mental Health
Dusica Lecic-Tosevski

Section on Culture
Athanasios Dianandopoulos

Section on Ethics
Luigi Campanella

Section on Health Prevention and Promotion
Dennis Cokkinos

Section on Nature Protection
Paolo Ciambelli

Section on Meeting the Needs of Children and Old-olds
Halima Resic

Section on Enrollment and Advocacy
Nikos Markatos

You will find the full information on all elected officers as well as the new list of members of each section in the Sections' page of our website. Once again I would like to underline that we are "investing" in our sections for the implementation of the mission of our Association. I would like to encourage you to join one or two (maximum) of our sections with an e-mail to our secretary Georgia Drosatou (e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), accompanied by a short CV and a copy to me (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and to the chair of the section you want to join.

2. Sections' and Committees'
Seminars and Webinars.
The program of the sections' seminars and webinars up until December 2025 is now ready and has been uploaded on our website. We will start with two important events.
On the 1st October 2024 we will have the celebration of the Day of Older Persons in a great number of cities in Europe. Natale de Santo and the Committee to celebrate this event have coordinated this impressive program the details of which will be available soon. We are thankful to them for organizing these events and thus promoting the visibility of EAPE.
On the 10th October we will have the celebration of the World Mental Health Day that will take place at the impressive building of the Hellenic Committee of the European Parliament in Athens. The organizers will be our EAPE, the Society of Preventive Psychiatry and EPIONI, an Advocates' organization and it will be a hybrid event in order to allow people from all over Europe to attend electronically. Our Section on Mental Health will have an active role to play in organizing the event and participating in it with three of its members (Dusica Lecic-Tosevski, George Ikkos and myself). Michel Botbol will help in organizing the event.

3. One of the items discussed during our last Board meeting was the Financial situation.
It is not desperate but it does not allow us to fund our programs without external assistance or in kind assistance from some board members. For example we can not fund technical assistance for the webinars of our sections. Our Treasurer Paolo Ciambelli has been asked to prepare a Financial Action Plan, but if you have ideas on how we could improve our finances, please do not keep them to yourselves. Let us know urgently!

4. Please do not forget to read the exciting current issue of our BULLETIN.
It is very interesting in content and very remarkable in appearance. George-Andrei Dan, our Editor and collaborators have carried out excellent work!

With warm (but not too warm) personal regards.
George Christodoulou
EAPE President
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July 2024

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I promised you that after the first "President's letter"... a second one would follow.
Here it is!

1. Sections' elections
In line with the Association's By-laws, following the Board elections we must hold elections of officers of our scientific sections. The Board decided that the elections should be carried out by the co-ordinator of each section. I suggested a simple procedure for voting by e-mail and I am happy to say that the voting was carried out smoothly in four sections, with the following results:

Section on Mental Health
Chair: Dusica Lecic-Tosevski
Co-chair: George Ikkos
Secretary: Michel Botbol

Section on Culture
Chair: Athanasios Dianandopoulos
Co-chair: Gaetano Thiene
Secretary: Dimitris Dougenis

Section on Ethics
Chair: Luigi Campanella
Co-chair: Lucija Cok
Secretary: Michael Biggs

Section on "Meeting the needs of young and old-olds"
Chair: Halima Resic
Co-chair: Dusanka Micetic-Turk
Secretary: Oliver Racz

The procedure for the election of the remaining three sections is on its way. Dennis Cokkinos and Maria Ochsenkuhn-Petropoulou will organize the elections for them.
Congratulations to all elected officers and our gratitude to the coordinators of each section who have organized and have carried out the voting so smoothly.
Jo Ehrich, Luigi Campanella, Thanos Diamandopoulos, thank you very much.
Soon the program of webinars for the Sections will be communicated to you.

2. The Day of Older Persons (1st October).
The preliminary program of activities related to the Day of Older Persons has been communicated to the Board by Natale de Santo. They include events to take place in Kosice, Sarajevo, Athens, Messina, Naples and Frascineto (Univ. of Calabria). A rich program to be further enriched.

3. Interim Congress in Naples.
In between the official Congresses of EAPE in London (2024) and Athens (2026) there will be an interim Congress to be held in 2025 in Naples. The organizer of this event is the President-elect Giancarlo Bracale.

4. I would like to urge the EAPE Membership to make appropriate use of the EAPE Position Statement on "continuation of Academic Activities by Emeriti and Retired Professors"
In Greece, legislation has been voted upon by the Parliament that is in accordance with this request. Perhaps colleagues in the rest of Europe can use our Position Statement to push for Government or University decisions that would allow those of us who would like to continue our academic activities, to be able do so.

That is all for now!
Until next month, wishes for a happy or at least uneventful summer.
George Christodoulou
President EAPE
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June 2024

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

In the framework of the need for more frequent communication of the Board with the Membership, I thought that a "President's Letter" to the members of our Association would serve this scope. The aim is to publish the "letter" every month covering a limited number of topics each time.

1. The EAPE Position Statement on continuation of Academic Activities by Emeriti and Retired Professors
This Statement that has already been published here (and in the rest of the EAPE Media) has been accepted favorably by our colleagues. It has been sent to the Ministry of Education In Greece and to the Deans of all Greek Universities. We already had a response by the Ministry stating that most points we raised had already been dealt with by a recent Law of the Ministry of Education. I responded by noting that additional moves to see to it that there will be actions to IMPLEMENT this favorable legislation are needed and that we would be willing to collaborate on this issue.
Yet, it should be noted that our Association is EUROPEAN. Under this light our Position Statement should be conveyed to ALL Government authorities and Universities in Europe. Please feel free to use it when addressing the authorities in your Country. If you want me to support you in this, please let me have the relevant e-mail address and I will help with pleasure.
I should point out that academic work after retirement should be considered as a RIGHT and not as a DUTY.

2. Mental health in Old Αge
From 6 to 8 June 2024, the Crown Prince Alexander and the Crown Princess Catherine of Serbia organized an important Congress of the Serbian Diaspora, in Belgrade.
A very successful and well-organized Congress. Three members of the EAPE Section on Mental Health organized a well- attended symposium on Mental Health in Old Age. A lot of issues were discussed and clarified during the discussion that followed. The EAPE perticipants were Dusica Lecic-Tosevski (Serbia) George Christodoulou (Greece) and Michel Botbol (France).

3. The EAPE Survey
We have now received the responses of the Membership to the EAPE questionnaire.
The response rate was very low (only one in eight members responded) and this clearly indicates a minimal interest and involvement in our Association that must be remedied.
From the analysis of the resp onses, however, some useful conclusions were obtained. I am analyzing them now but I can give you some clues.
People seem to be happy with the EAPE Media (Website, Bulletin, Newsletter) satisfied with the previous EAPE Congresses, with the sections' seminars (although many members do not have the time to attend) most responding colleagues want to participate as speakers in these seminars, three more sections have been proposed and most respondents state that each one of them CAN recruit at least one new EAPE member!
These and other responses will be taken into consideration in designing our ACTION PLAN for 2024-2026.

That is all for now, until next month.

Enjoy the Summer,
George Christodoulou
President EAPE
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