FESCA

As in prior years, FESCA held a stand this May at the EULAR congress, which was held from 25-28 May in the Excel Centre in the London Docklands.

EULAR Congress 2011 was very busy, and for FESCA very successful. It was the largest ever, at 15,000 participants, but took place in a new conference location in London that made the numbers far less oppressive than in the past. It seemed spacious, purposeful rather than chaotic.

Our FESCA stand was in the EULAR Village, which this year was a lovely, almost tranquil, area representing a corner of Hyde Park with wooden tables and benches. We had a very large number of doctors visiting the FESCA stand, which was beautifully and instructively decorated with the literature of our 20 associations by the Scleroderma Society UK team, who this year had the responsibility of running it. Next year it is the turn of the Germans!

We recorded visitors from 67 different countries. (See the country names below) It was an extraordinary number.  Far too soon, the entire stock of FESCA's SO RARE cards was taken, and the sunflower pins that the Scleroderma Society kindly provided were also so popular that they were gone as soon as we put them out. We also had FESCA drink-mats, pens, and lots of informative literature, and barely anything was left to carry home at the end.

The team taking care of the stand was led by Kim Fligelstone, and consisted of Scleroderma Society members Liz Holloway, Steve Holloway, Susie Hoare, Richard Dodds and Edith Brown, along with FESCA’s Ann Kennedy and Annelise Roennow.

Annelise Roennow of our Danish association presented a poster in the EULAR Exhibition, which related how FESCA had developed World Scleroderma Day in only two years. Many of the visitors to the stand asked how they could join in this celebration and share our materials.

EULAR Congress 2012 will be held in Berlin, Germany, from June 6-9 next year, in the ICC Berlin, New South Entrance Hall. It will begin at noon on Wednesday June 6 and finish at 14.00 on Saturday June 9.

The visitors from this year's EULAR: