December Business Meetings

Dear FIABCI Members,

 

Around the world, we have all been closely following the events in Brussels over the past days with great concern. For FIABCI this presents an additional concern as our annual December Business Meetings have been scheduled to take place on December 2nd-5th in Brussels.

 

Yesterday the Belgian authorities announced that Brussels would be maintained at the maximum level of security alert until at least November 30th. This alert level includes closures of a number of public places and parts of the public transport system, along with strong recommendations to avoid large events or crowded places such as airports or train stations.

 

The safety and wellbeing of members and staff must remain the priority for FIABCI. For this reason, the Board of Directors has decided that the meetings in Brussels will be cancelled next week.  While we sincerely regret the disruption of plans that this situation will have created for many of you, the Board of Directors believes that this decision was entirely necessary given the security risks involved.  We are already looking into alternative plans for our committee meetings and General Assembly and will communicate them as quickly as possible so that members can make arrangements to attend.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our dedicated organisers in FIABCI-Belgique, in particular Patrice Spadone, Hendrik Nelde and Didier Fierens,  for all the work they have put into planning our meetings. Their enormous efforts are greatly appreciated  by all in FIABCI and we know that, while understanding the necessity for this decision, this is extremely disappointing for our hosts. We also send all our members in Belgium our best wishes as they deal with these difficult circumstances on a daily basis.

 

I send my thanks to all FIABCI members for your understanding in these difficult circumstances and look forward to seeing many of you soon at our future meetings.

 

Best regards,

Danielle Grossenbacher

FIABCI World President