J.Watson, Jan.14, 1997
Dear Guenther and John,
I'm responding to John Lawry's e-mail of 10-JAN-97 and your e-mail reply Guenther posted on 13-JAN-97. As president-elect of ISAC I can forsee that I will have some responsibility for the interrelationships between ISAC and EFCS when I take over the Presidency of ISAC in Feb 1998 and I've included Joe GRAY, current ISAC president, in this discussion loop. I've also included John PARKER current president of the Clinical Cytometry Society (CCS) and Carl STEWART who is CCS president elect.
1) I would see EFCS and ISAC working in parallel and NOT with EFCS working through ISAC. ISAC is in the process of changing its Executive Director and soon will be working through the Chicago office (Sherwood Group) not through the Breckenridge office.
2) There are many issues common to ISAC and EFCS but there are also differences. Common issues generally are no problem but differences are. Having a strong group such as EFCS representing the European Societies can only be "good" for Europe - particularly for obtaining funding from the European Union (EU) and influencing the directions of Cytometry in the clinical context. These are particular European issues and I do not believe that ISAC could, should or would be able to be effective in these areas in Europe. However, lessons learnt, and being learnt, by ISAC could be useful for ESCS and initiatives being developed by EFCS, such as the e-mail and www communications, are lessons which should be learnt by ISAC.
3) I agree with Guenther and I quote from his e-mail - "ISAC is not exclusively organizing clinical cytometry in the US because the clinical division (CCD/clinical committee) of ISAC, CCS, GLIIFCA and the Chesapeake Bay Consortium are active in parallel in the US." ISAC and CCS have differences to resolve which are being addressed and I see parallels between CCS and EFCS and also between EFCS and ISAC. What we need to do above all else is to define areas of common interest in order to pool resources so we do not duplicate effort. This will allow the various groupings (EFCS, ISAC, CCS etc.) to concentrate their efforts on problems which pertain to their particular geographical location and political climate.
4) It is also encouraging, and I quote again from Guenters e-mail, that "EFCS as a regional cytometry organization for Europe will integrate into the world wide network and make all efforts to positively coordinate its activities internationally with ISAC in order to efficiently develop the cytometric discipline." Perhaps in the long term we (ISAC and EFCS) should encourage other "geographical entities" eg. Pacific Rim (not a small entity) to adopt similar organisational strategies.
5) In responding I'm assuming that EFCS is, "de facto", a new
entity from about now. I'm worried about people who wish to join-up but
who are not attached to a national organisation because they have no
national organisation. We could approach this in 3 ways.
(a) Such people should be encouraged to form a national
organisation
(b) EFCS could find a way for individuals to join or
(c) they could join the national society of their nearst neighbour.
Very best wishes and Happy NEW YEAR
Jim