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WFO Council elects new EC and approves Bylaws

The WFO Council convened September 26th prior to the 8th International Orthodontic Congress® (8th IOC) in London, England. During this meeting, the Council elected the members of the 2015-2020 WFO Executive Committee, approved several Bylaws amendments, and reviewed reports of the Executive Committee’s actions over the past five years, including a full financial report.

Executive Committee Election
The newly elected members of the 2015-2020 WFO Executive Committee are the following individuals, who are listed by region:
•    Africa and the Middle East - Dr. Joseph Bouserhal of Beirut, Lebanon
•    Central and East Asia - Dr. Keiji Moriyama of Tokyo, Japan; Dr. Nikhilesh Vaid of Mumbai, India; and Dr. Yanheng Zhou of Beijing, China
•    Central and South America - Dr. Ricardo Machado Cruz of Brasilia, Brazil 
•    Europe - Dr. Jonathan Sandler of Chesterfield, England; and Dr. Panagiotis Skoularikis of Nea Smirni, Greece
•    North America - Dr. Thomas Ahman of Lima, Ohio, USA; and Dr. Amanda Maplethorp of Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada
•    Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore - Dr. Himawan Halim of Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia.

These individuals will serve with Dr. Allan Thom of Tunbridge Wells, England, the WFO president; Dr. Lee W. Graber of Vernon Hills, Illinois, USA, the WFO secretary-general; Dr. Jorge Faber of Brasilia, Brazil, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the World Federation of Orthodontists; and Dr. Takashi Ono of Tokyo, Japan, the representative for the Japanese Orthodontic Society, which is the host of the 9th IOC in 2020.

 

 The 2015-2020 WFO Executive Committee: Front row, from left, Dr. Ricardo Machado Cruz of Brasilia, Brazil; Dr. Amanda Maplethorp of Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada; Dr. Allan Thom of Tunbridge Wells, England, WFO president; Dr. Lee W. Graber of Vernon Hills, Illinois, USA, WFO secretary-general; Dr. Thomas Ahman of Lima, Ohio, USA; back row, from left, Dr. Takashi Ono of Tokyo, Japan, the Japanese Orthodontic Society representative; Dr. Panagiotis Skoularikis of Nea Smirni, Greece; Dr. Joseph Bouserhal of Beirut, Lebanon; Dr. Nikhilesh Vaid of Mumbai, India; Dr. Jonathan Sandler of Chesterfield, England; Dr. Yanheng Zhou of Beijing, China; Dr. Keiji Moriyama of Tokyo, Japan; Dr. Jorge Faber of Brasilia, Brazil, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the World Federation of Orthodontists; and Dr. Himawan Halim of Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia.


Bylaws Amendments
The Council also approved five Bylaws amendments. The updated Bylaws are available online at www.wfo.org/governance.

The first change was to approve the use of the American Institute of Parliamentarians Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure to govern the WFO’s parliamentary needs.

Then the Council approved the creation of an Awards Committee as a new standing committee of the Executive Committee. This committee, as outlined in Article 8.4.2, will have the authority to develop named awards to recognize those individuals who have rendered distinguished service to the WFO and the specialty of orthodontics.

The following amendment was added to Article 6.3 to address non-payment of dues by national or regional WFO affiliate organizations:
Any national or regional association or society that fails to pay the affiliation fee within four years from the due date shall be ineligible to be a member of the WFO, and its affiliation with the WFO shall be terminated. Any association or society that has failed to pay its WFO affiliation fee by the due date shall not be entitled to representation on the WFO Council unless and until payment of the past due affiliation fee is received by the WFO.

The 4th amendment clarified the definitions of WFO affiliate national and regional organizations.

Article 6.1.7 now reads as follows:
National and regional associations are distinct and separate. Members of a WFO-affiliated national association must be educationally qualified and recognized to be orthodontic specialists by governing law, and/or national association bylaws compliant with WFO bylaws, within said country. WFO-affiliated regional associations are organizations composed of two or more WFO-affiliated national associations. WFO-affiliated regional association membership may not include national organizations that are not WFO-affiliated, and no derived group (society, chapter, local organization, etc.) of members of a WFO-affiliated regional association is eligible to become a WFO-affiliated national organization.

The last amendment addressed representation on the WFO Council. The membership of all WFO affiliate organizations differs greatly, and each organization, no matter how large or small its membership might be, has something of value to contribute to the welfare of the WFO. As such, Article 6.5 now reads as follows :
In addition to the councilors provided for in Article 6.4, forty (40) additional councilors, who must be fellows of the WFO, will be elected every five years by affiliated national or regional associations or societies on a pro-rata basis in proportion to the number of their members who are dues-paying fellows of the Federation, provided no single organization be represented by more than seven (7) of these forty councilors. In the event multiple WFO-affiliated organizations exist within a single country, the total number of councilors for that country may not exceed seven (7). The affiliated organizations shall send the names of the representatives to the secretary-general prior to the regular meeting of the Council. Such representatives’ terms shall commence at the first regular Council meeting occurring immediately after their election and shall end immediately prior to the next regular Council meeting. Subject to the provisions of these Bylaws, any such representative may be changed only upon written notification to the secretary-general by the organization that appointed the representative.