AGM NSCMID 2025 (30 august 2025 Mariehamn, Åland Islands, Finland)
Annual General Meeting (AGM) of NSCMID
Saturday 30 August 2025, 08:00-08:30
Alandica Culture & Congress Centre, Strandgatan 33, Mariehamn, Åland Islands, Finland
1. Chairman's welcome The Chairman of the NSCMID board, Truls Leegaard, welcomed the 32 members that were present at the AGM. The AGM agenda had been posted on the NSCMID website (nscmid.org) on 6 August 2025.
2. Appointment of meetings chairman and secretary Terho Heikkinen was appointed the chairman of the AGM and Lena Rós Ásmundsdóttir as the secretary of the AGM.
3. Chairman's report Truls Leegaard, Chairman of the NSCMID Board, gave an oral presentation where he summarized the main content of his report for 2024-2025 (appended in this PDF), including highlights from the 40’h Annual meeting of NSCMID in Oslo 28 August - 1 September 2024, recent changes to the NSCMID board, appointment of a new chairman of the SSAC Foundation board and reports from NSCMID working groups. The members accepted the report.
4. Honorary Treasurer's report Ole Schmeltz Sagaard, Honorary Treasurer of the NSCMID board, presented the Financial Statements of NSCMID for the financial year 1 June 2024 - 31 May 2025. The net result was - 255.660 DKK, mainly explained by a deficit from the Oslo meeting and NSCMID expenses. The equity (assets minus debt and liability) at the end of the financial year was 3.289.671 DKK. The treasurer showed a graph of the trend in equity for the past 10 years, 2015-2024, demonstrating that following a decline in equity from 2018/19 up to the pandemic years 2020/21, the organisation has had a healthy economic recovery, and in the past years the equity has been stable. A current equity of nearly 3.3 million DKK means that the Society is well situated to abide by its commitment to cover all costs in the unlikely event of a failed conference. Ole reported that the board had discussed other ways to use this surplus, including the possibility to initiate new activities, e.g. Nordic collaborative projects and webinars on hot topics, and to support other member activities that promote research collaborations and/or exchange of clinical and laboratory expertise. The assembly accepted the Treasurer's report.
5. Release of responsibility of the board The members released the board from responsibility.
6. Membership dues (annual fee) Truls Leegaard presented proposals from the NSCMID board for changes to the membership fees for 2025-26. The board proposed that the regular member yearly fee would increase from 12 EUR to 20 EUR, whereas young scientists (not older than 35 years of age or in specialist and/or academic training) would pay half the fee, i.e. 10 EUR. It was also proposed to decrease the 10-year membership fee from 120 EUR to 100 EUR. The proposals were endorsed by the assembly.
7. New members af the board
a) Nominations from national societies of clinical microbiology (CM) and infectious diseases (ID)
• Hans Linde Nielsen (CM, Denmark) had announced that he would be leaving the board at the end of his term at this AGM after six years (two 3-year terms) on the
board, including being the meeting president of the 38'h Annual Meeting of NSCMID in Aalborg 2022. The national CM society in Denmark has appointed Mette
Damkjær Bartels, consultant microbiologist and clinical associate professor, Amager and Hvidovre Hospital, as his replacement. Mette will be the president of the
upcoming Annual Meeting of NSCMID in Copenhagen 2026.
b) Election of new members of the board
• No board positions were open for election at this year's AGM.
8. New NSCMID members
Erik Forsblom, webmaster of NSCMID, reported that on 29 August 2025 there were 423 registered NSCMID members; 123 with a one-year membership, 64 with a 10-year membership and 236 with a lifetime membership (an older type of membership not available anymore). Overall, there are 91 new members since the last AGM (31 September 2024).
9. Report from the webmaster
Erik Forsblom reported and showed a brief overview of the activities of the past year. Last year a major update of the NSCMID website was performed, including a comprehensive technical update to a version with more strict security aspects that fulfil GDPR requirements. Other minor website updates were also performed.
This spring large efforts were made to update the NSCMID membership register and to recruit members whose membership had expired. Duplet and triplet membership registrations were changed to a single registration. Former members with expired memberships were contacted by e-mail and asked to renew their membership (or inform if they wished to be removed from the register), and if they did not respond despite two further reminders they were taken off the register. Overall, these efforts have led to an acceleration of membership sign-ups, with 91 new members since the last AGM. Komunikado, a web agency assisting with website matters, is currently constructing an automatic e-mail reminder mechanism for members whose membership is about to expire reminding them to renew their membership (3 reminder emails in total). If they don't respond they will be taken off the register. This process will hopefully keep the register automatically updated in the future. It was noted that currently more than half of the members are registered as lifetime members, which makes it inherently difficult to ascertain the total number of active members.
10. Reports from working groups
As Chairman of the NSCMID Board, Truls Leegaard reported that he had received reports from all working groups, and they were included in the Chairman's report (appended). Some NSCMID members have expressed interest in forming new working groups under the NSCMID umbrella, but they will need to make a formal request thereof to the NSCMID board.
11. Report from the SSAC Foundation Magnus Rasmussen, Chairman of the SSAC Foundation, reported. In summary, this year there were 10 eligible research grant applications that were reviewed and scored, focusing on scientific quality and Nordic collaboration. The SSAC foundation board had a meeting at Svenska Läkaresällskapet in Stockholm on 17 March 2025 and decided to award grants to 6 research projects, for a total amount of 1.200.000 SEK. The low number of applications is a concern, and Magnus reported that the NSCMID board has decided to publish a newsletter twice a year that will be emailed to NSCMID members, where the grants will be promoted. One newsletter (autumn) will include an advertisement for SSAC Foundation grant applications and the other (late spring) a list of those that were awarded grants.
12. The upcoming NSCMID scientific meetings
The next Annual Meeting of NSCMID will be in Copenhagen on 27-30 August 2026. Mette Damkjær Bartels, meeting president, and Ingrid Maria Cecilia Rubin, meeting secretary and young scientist NSCMID board member for the upcoming meeting, introduced themselves to the members. They reported that preparations for the meeting are underway, showed the conference website (nscmid2026.org) and informed the members about the location of the meeting venue (Scandic Copenhagen) in central Copenhagen.
13. Any Other Business There was no other business. The meeting's chairman Terho Heikkinen closed the meeting and the NSCMID board Chairman thanked him for having chaired the NSCMID AGM.
30 August 2025
Lena Rós Ásmundsdóttir, Secretary Terho Heikkinen, Chairman of the AGM
