WELCOME NOTE

Dear Friends,

I am delighted that the oldest city of France, Marseille, has been chosen as the venue for the 11th Epilepsy & Society Conference, 2008. With a history dating back to 600BC, the city has enjoyed periods of great prosperity but Marseille also has faced some very difficult times and has survived revolution and plague to become a modern metropolis without forgetting its past.

A little like life itself; we all experience good and bad times, happy and difficult days and for those with a chronic medical condition, such as epilepsy, there are often problems to be faced. We also learn from life experiences and it is good to be able to come together to share those experiences.

The Epilepsy & Society Conferences, focused specifically on social issues relating to epilepsy, are important meetings both for those of us who work in lay epilepsy organizations and for people with epilepsy, their families and carers, providing the platform both for learning and for discourse.

The European Regional Executive Committee, which is organizing the meeting in Marseille, has prepared a fantastic conference programme covering a wide range of topics from Epilepsy in the Family and Achieving Goals, to the lighter side of things in the topic Epilepsy and Humour. As usual at these meetings there will be plenty of time to network with friends old and new.

It promises to be a great conference in a terrific location. And you will see what I mean when you come to Marseille, a wonderful city with a beautiful old port basking under warm Mediterranean skies.

IBE is grateful to the many people who are working hard to ensure that this conference will be a big success and I am confident that when we arrive at the start of the conference we will be able to borrow from La Marseillaise, the stirring French national anthem whose title comes from the soldiers of Marseille, and say that "Le jour de gloire est arrivé!" (the day of glory has arrived!).

See you in Marseille!

Best wishes,



Susanne Lund
President of the International Bureau for Epilepsy

Important Dates
February 2008		Registration open
February 2008		Poster Submission open
4 July 2008		Early Registration deadline
5 September 2008		Poster Submission deadline
3 October 2008		Late Registration deadline
15 October 2008		On-site Registration open
15-17 October 2008		11th European Conference on Epilepsy & Society