Dear All,
We had our first face to face meeting this week and we had a chance to meet colleagues and have discussions regarding the future of the group as well as a general chit chat.
As some of you will have heard via What’s app, I am taking over from Peter Hughes as President of the group. So in my new and concurrent secretary role I would like to thank Peter for all his hard work as President of NWULG. He has worked very hard behind the scenes and was truly instrumental in the way we hosted BESS in Liverpool which went extremely well despite the numerous challenges that were presented late in the day. Mike Walton has agreed to stay on as treasurer and Jo Winton as AHP rep. I thank both of them for their support so far and their commitment to their roles for the immediate future.
I would like to open up the floor for expressions of interest for the role of Secretary of the NWULG. It is a role that is rewarding in that it is the powerhouse of keeping the group going but does involve planning, organisation, communication and deadlines. The work has spikes around the meeting months of November, January and May. The first task will be to find a new venue. Our old venue is no longer a hotel and the Holiday Inn is not suitable for future use. We will have to balance cost, convenience and ease of working relationship for the group. No easy task for the new secretary!!
If I could have all expressions of interest with a proposer, a seconder and a little paragraph of why you would be suitable via EOI Form then we can put it to the vote. Deadline 24thSept. We feel that the group should have a greater presence from our AHP’s on the committee and I hope that one day we will have a non-surgical President in the not too distant future, so we would strongly encourage expressions from ALL of our group not just the surgeons.
Along with newsletter my final task as secretary is to confirm that the Functional Neurological Disorder Team have agreed to present on the 8th November. So that will be our next meeting date. Venue TBC.
We had a discussion regarding the meetings and their content and in principle we have agreed to continue to have external guests for the November meeting, to have the Jan meeting from a local team on a particular given topic from a surgeon and physio perspective and then to convert the May meeting to a meeting to showcase all the local BESS accepted presentations. This will allow feedback on the content, a trial run for the presenters and to showcase all the work we continue to do within our region.
I would welcome any comments, suggestions and feedback as we strive forwards again after the pandemic.
Thanks,
Rish.