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History

The Swedish group started in 1974, when Sonia Vanular initiated the European Association for Professional Secretaries, EAPS, as the association was called at that time.

As the members are geographically spread (approx 1800 km between the most northerly and the most southerly member) EUMA Sweden is organized in four regions: North, East, South and West, working with their own programmes and organizing events for their regional members. Each region has one representative in the EUMA Sweden Board.

EUMA Sweden has arranged the European AGM three times; in 1984 in connection with EUMA's 10 year anniversary, in 1993 and last time in 2006. This meeting was held in Malmö and EUMA's 32nd Annual General Meeting focused on the theme: Social Responsibility - How can Business and Organizations Contribute to Society in the Future?

Regions

  • East
  • West
  • South
  • North

Events and projects

EUMA Sweden has initiated a number of activities working towards EUMA's aim to focus on the members' personal development and on the future of their profession.

Every spring, EUMA Sweden organizes the Annual General Meeting, combined with a one-day seminar that is open also for non-members. The venue varies every year as the regions do the organizing in turns. In 2008 Region West arranged the meeting in Gothenburg, the 2010 conference and AGM was hosted by Region North, in Piteå in northern Sweden, and in 2011 the conference was arranged by Region East in Stockholm, with the theme Innovation and Mindfulness. In 2012 the Swedish Annual Conference and AGM will be arranged by Region South.

Every year, EUMA Sweden arranges Autumn Seminars on the same theme in three regions - East, West and South - on themes connected to our profession. The two last years, the themes have been Rhetorics and Mentorship and Social Media and Personal Meetings. The purpose with these seminars is to attract new members and to stimulate the development of our present members.

Every second year a members' survey is carried out among the members of EUMA Sweden. Last time was in 2010. The outcome of the survey gives a lot of good and useful feed-back on how we can develop EUMA for the future and confirmed that we need rejuvenation to keep EUMA alive. It is also gratifying to note that most of the members feel that they benefit from EUMA's network.

EUMA Sweden has run a number of mentorship projects where older, more experienced members, have been mentors to younger members. These projects have been very appreciated and successful. The last mentorship project, which ran from January 2009 to June 2010, had ten participants - five mentors and five mentees.

In the work to create external visibility, EUMA Sweden has a close co-operation with the professional magazine DS for administrators, coordinators, assistants and secretaries. On several occasions, the EUMA association and/or EUMA members have been mentioned in articles in the magazine. Also, the National Chairman of EUMA Sweden is part of the DS Mentor Panel, which has the task to answer questions from the readers about the concern regarding career paths, titles, coaching, etc.

For detailed information on EUMA Sweden's events and projects, please visit www.euma-sweden.se (in Swedish) or contact EUMA Sweden National PRO eva.borg@alfalaval.com.