Minutes of the annual FEPA Board Meeting

Minutes of the annual FEPA Board Meeting
Milan February 3rd 2018

Attendees: José Ramón Moreno, President, Giancarlo Morolli, Vice-President, Bojan Bračič, Secretary, Alfred Kunz, Treasurer, Birthe King, Ari Muhonen and Nicos Rangos, Directors.
When discussing the point 9 “FIP President’s Election” Chris King made a brief presentation.

Bruno Crevato-Selvaggi and Giancarlo Morolli welcomed all attendees on behalf of Italian Philatelic Federation and wished a successful work.

1 – FEPA Awards. After a report from Giancarlo Morolli and a brief discussion, because all received candidates were of high quality, the following decisions have been taken:
· Ivan Librić, Croatia, will receive the FEPA Medal for Outstanding Services in Philately.
· Raul Moreira, Portugal, will receive the FEPA Medal for Outstanding Services in Supporting Philately from outside of it.
· FEPA Medal for Exceptional Philatelic Study goes to Brian Trotter for the book Southern African Mails, Routes, Rates and Regulations 1806-1916.
Certificates as finalists were awarded to (in alphabetical order of the countries):
– Germany. Wolfgang Maasen, The mysterious Philip von Ferrari, Philatelist,
Philanthropist and Cosmopolite.
– Greece. John Daes, The Hellenic Postal Rates 1828-1875.
– Hungary. GudlinTamas and CsatlosArpadne, Cancellation of Letter-collecting
Agencies, Postal Agencies and Branch Offices in Hungary (1788-2014).
– Italy. Emanuele M. Gabbini, Postal Parcels.
– Romania. Vasile Doros, Impressionism, fascination and Colour.
– Spain. Aranaz, Garcia Fernandez, Gomez-Aguero, Inglesias, Ordonez and Panes,
Illustrated Philatelic Dictionary.
· The FEPA Certificate of Appreciation for 2017 is awarded to (in alphabetical order of the countries):
– Estonia. International Estonian Philatelic Society (REFS), ”Estonia” (Estonia).
– Germany. Briefmarkensammlerverein Lutherstadt Wittenberg (Germany).
– Great Britain. The Czechoslovak Philatelic Society of Great Britain (Great Britain).
– Italy. Associazione Italiana Collezionisti Posta Militare (Italy).

Was also commented the convenience of trying to make easier the presentation of the candidacies in the future.

2 – Provisional information about the 2017 FEPA Finances.
Treasurer Mr Kunz reported that present situation in FEPA finances looks good and we hope that such situation will continue. The FEPA Board persisted in its policy of not supporting the travel expenses to FEPA Exhibitions, even if officially representing FEPA. These expenses are supported by the organizers if they can or wish. Otherwise are paid by the Board members from their pocket. This fact, together with the increasing number of events with FEPA Recognition or Patronage, is allowing having some reserves for the future.

3 – New FEPA Website.
Ari Muhonen reported that everything is prepared for transfer the FEPA website, which is currently registered in Denmark to its full independent site, which will be done in mid of February.
The name (title) of the site will remain, although appearance and the system of presenting information will be modified a little.
All FEPA members will be informed about mentioned change.

4 – FEPA News Magazine.
José Ramón Moreno explained that FEPA News Magazine is important medium for informing all FEPA members about the philatelic events in Europe. In the last issue almost every FEPA member is mentioned in some articles which is highly appreciated for all members. He also mentioned the fidelity of our sponsors maintaining their advertisements in our magazine. We continue doing the magazine and its distribution by ourselves in an artisanal very low cost way that requires a lot of work but saves the FEPA money.

5 – Decision about the FEPA Apprentice Jurors who served in FINLANDIA 2017.
After recommendation of proper Jury teams leaders, Secretary to the Jury and FEPA President who made the final interviews, the following apprentices are appointed as FEPA jurors:
Atle FOSSMARK (Norway)
György LӦVEI (Hungary)
Bill HEDLEY (UK)
Ralph EBNER (Germany)

6 – FEPA Jurors in Open Philately and Picture Postcards.
Last year was decided the nomination of Bernard Jimenez, Jose Ramon Moreno and Birthe King as FEPA jurors and team leaders for Open Philately, as members of the team which established the Regulations. Because a misunderstanding was omitted the inclusion of Bojan Bračič and now he has been accredited also as FEPA juror and team leader for Open Philately.
The practise of using the present Regulations for judging Open Philately shows that:
· Criteria philatelic importance (5 points) and non-philatelic importance (5 points) are to be unite with treatment and gave 10 points in philatelic and non-philatelic area.
· As treatment of the exhibit is uniform no matter of material (philatelic or non-philatelic) so treatment should be a united category with 20 points.
A system has to be established for the nomination of Jurors on Picture Postcards, among those who are acting at exhibitions with FEPA Patronage.

7 – Picture Postcards Regulations
After decision in Athens Regulations for Evaluation Picture Post Cards Exhibits will be revised on the FEPA Congress in Prague August 2018. Unfortunately in two years period there were not enough opportunities to got real picture of present regulations and its possible imperfections. So FEPA Board proposed to prolong this revision for the next two years.
After the information that we already received about some misunderstandings with the present regulations, a team led by Birthe King will prepare a seminar for jurors and exhibitors. Other members of the team are: Jose Ramon Moreno, Alfred Kunz and Bojan Bračič. José Ramón Moreno presented the briefing that he is using when acting as Team leader in FEPA exhibitions “Basic Points when Judging Postal Card Collections”, useful for those jurors not very familiar with this Class.

8 – FEPA Congress in August during “Praga 2018”.
The FEPA Congress will take place at August 19th 2018, so all motions and remarks must be send to the FEPA board to May 19th 2018 at the latest.

9 – FIP President’s Election in Thailand 2018.
Chris King who was invited to this point, explained some statistic data about high awarded exhibits from separate countries he collected and presented. He ascertains again that FIP Board doesn’t give any suitable information to FIP members and hasn’t any correspondence with them. He will again inform all FIP members what is wrong and what is missing in FIP Board work. He will give to all FIP members clear informations about his intentions in future FIP work, if he will be elected. The FEPA Congress in Prague will be very important to try to get the support of all the FEPA members.
José Ramón Moreno informed about the main matters discussed at the meeting held in Brasilia among the FIP Board and the Continental Federations.

10 – The cost of Exhibiting Literature
Giancarlo Morolli had made an analysis of costs for Philatelic Literature exhibits, and got following conclusions:
As in some countries VAT must be paid for items with value over 50 €, we advise exhibitors to add pro forma invoice in amount lower than 50 € to every example of literature.
In today circumstance one copy of each title is quite enough. He will made o proposal about this for the FEPA Congress.
Birthe King suggest that juror in literature class should give a written remarks to exhibitors. As authors pay the “frame fee” for exhibited literature, organizers should give them on disposal one frame each who want to represent the exhibit.

11 – Implementation of the FEPA SREV for Literature into the FIP.
Giancarlo Morolli explained that new regulations was tested on FINLANDIA 2017 from juror’s point of view. He suggest that mentioned regulations must be tested also from organizers side. He is working with some European jurors in Literature and with the Chairman on the FIP Commission.

12 – Relation among FEPA Members
If exhibition hadn’t a FEPA patronage, FEPA doesn’t have any influence to the Jury team, so it can’t be arbiter in such case. FEPA can only advise that if anybody invites jurors or collaborators for its event from abroad it will be nice and pleasant to inform and to ask for agreement to the organization from where these persons come.

13 – FEPA Events in 2018
FEPA recognition was granted to the following events:
ESTEX 2018, 13 – 15 July, Tallinn, International
PRAGA 2018, 15 – 18 August, Prague, World Specialised
GMUNDEN 2018, 23 – 26 August, International
MALMEX 2018, 31 August – 2 September, National
ODESSA 2018, 26 – 28 September; International
The Great War, 21 – 25 November, Multinational Specialised, Verona
FEPA Patronage was granted to:
Italia 2018, 21 – 25 November, Verona, Specialised Literature

14 – Request for FEPA Patronage and Recognition
For Philatelic events in 2019 and 2020 FEPA already granted:
Slovenija 2019, 28 – 31 March, Multinational (Alps-Adriatic Phlately), Kamnik, FEPA Recognition
Bulgaria 2019, May 2019, Continental, Plovdiv, FEPA Patronage
Ӧvebria, 2019, Wiener Neustadt, Multinational (Multilaterala)
Nordia 2019, 23 25 August, Oslo, Multinational
Nordia 2020, 4 – 6 September, Malmö, Multinational, FEPA Recognition
Ankara 2020, 7 – 10 October, Ankara, International, Provisional FEPA Patronage.

New requests are expected to be received for exhibitions in Austria, Croatia, Portugal and Spain.

15 – FEPA Flags
Due to the more and more events with FEPA recognition, support or patronage only two FEPA flags are not enough. Fredi Kunz will order to make two or three new, depend of price per piece.

16 – Next FEPA Board meeting.
After very generous invitation from Pedro Vaz Pereira as President of the Portuguese Federation was decided to have the 2019 annual Board meeting in Lisbon.

17 – Any other matters
Giancarlo Morolli prepared proposal for new FEPA GREX independent from FIP GREX with some new solutions in accordance with changes occurring through time. He will continue with help from board members.
He also proposed a list of responsibilities of board members.

Fredi Kunz proposed idea of having the FEPA Pin. The FEPA Pin will be received by thePresidents of National Federations, Associations or Unions, Members of FEPA,Fredi Kunz will investigate cost for such pin.

Jose Ramon Moreno proposed for appointed FEPA Jurors to present them also with a special Certificate, not only information to the national federation.

At the end of the meeting, the FEPA President Jose Ramon Moreno thanked Giancarlo Morolli for his excellent organization of the whole meeting.

Bojan Bračič
FEPA Secretary