Predictably, the Newcastle/ Gateshead Spring meeting held at the fantastic Sage Centre, was a huge success.

The SAGE Centre is one of the most remarkable pieces of architecture in the United Kingdom. The organising committee did an excellent job, not surprising in that they could call upon the considerable experience that Janice O’Connell has accumulated as Meetings Secretary for the Society, plus the talents of Rose Anne Kenny, Dave Beaumont, Steve Parry, Jim Edwardson and Joanna Cox. Condolences to Joanna who, after all her hard work was unable to attend the meeting because of a family bereavement. The energy and strong academic base in the North East enlivened the meeting, the only problem being the dilemmas of choice between the different parallel sessions. I think our meetings compare favourably with any of the other specialist societies (some of which I have spoken at). This meeting exemplified the importance of rotating around the regions for our meetings, because I think that anyone attending got an injection of Newcastle energy. I would like to praise the quality of the posters. This part of our meeting is becoming increasingly important, as there are fewer opportunities for platform presentations of scientific work than previously. The posters therefore form an important function as the first level of academic discourse. I am sorry I did not have more time to speak to some of the poster exhibitors and going through the abstracts following the meeting, I realised I missed out on a few important contributions.

I was particularly pleased by the international flavour of the meeting. Forty-six visitors from Ireland, eleven from the Netherlands, eight from Australia, five from Canada, four from New Zealand, two from Denmark, two from Kuwait, and one from the USA. The feedback from the international delegates was very positive and I am sure there is scope in the future for the number of international delegates to increase.

The joint meeting of Improving Health and Welfare in Older People on Saturday morning in collaboration with the North East Regional Forum on Ageing, attracted a first class faculty and led to a very positive interaction between the Society and the general public. The Forum Years Ahead was launched in January last year and I think it is the first example of a regional group putting together a partnership in working on key issues influencing health and wellbeing in older people. Their achievements in such a short time were impressive and I am sure it is a model that could be generalised throughout the United Kingdom.

RCP/BGS Meeting - Advanced Geriatrics
Our Society seems to have a forte of running great clinical meetings. I would like to draw everyone’s attention to a very important event on 8 June. The Society is running a Joint Meeting with the Royal College of Physicians in London, Medicine for the Ageing Population. The concept of the meeting is to work from the science base through clinical problems to organisation of care (all in one day)! When organising the meeting I realised the wealth of talent we have available, both within and associated with our Society. I realised that there was scope for an annual meeting of this type, which would be a one-day equivalent of Advanced Geriatrics, to the College’s most successful meeting on Advanced Medicine. The present Academic Registrar of the College, Tim Evans, is interested in this concept. The key to achieving it would be a very successful attendance and feedback at the meeting in June, so could I urge as many people as possible to make an effort to attend. In addition, while people are planning their study leave, please give consideration to the autumn meeting. I would particularly ask people from Scotland and the South of England, whom were notably missing at the last autumn meeting, to join us in Harrogate. The strength of our Society is very much based on cross-fertilisation of experience from different parts of the country, and the value of the social and networking side of the meetings cannot be under-estimated. I realise that people do have increasing difficulty in getting study leave but once again we have a superb programme in prospect and I would very much like to increase last year’s numbers if at all possible.

Public Relations
The care of older people moved centre stage in the public eye over the past few months. The different bodies, including the charities, compete to give authoritative views. I was aware when taking up office that we were very weak in this area and tended to be reactive rather than pro-active in getting medical views across. I was reminded at the Spring Meeting in a conversation with Steve Webster, that this has always been a pre-occupation of the society and indeed, Steve did a great job as our public relations officer for some years. Much of that success was due to the fact that we used professional PR advice at that time, although this became too expensive for our then meagre budget. As Treasurer at that time, I was obliged to terminate funding for external help for prudence sake. Now we are in a much stronger position financially, we need to invest heavily in getting a public platform. Amongst the important items aired recently there was the Healthcare Commission Report and I am pleased that we were able to make some progress on this occasion, thanks to, among others, David Oliver, one of our secretaries, who was interviewed on the radio and gave a very good account himself and our specialty.

At the Spring Meeting we had a gathering of the external relations committee. Alex Mair has made some positive proposals about being ahead of the game and will be working hard in the next few months to set up a system where we have properly thought out responses ahead of time and a spokesman available for the media. What we have learned in the last few months is that media interest is very transient and if one comments after the event, one is likely to be ignored. It is fashionable to talk about legacies and with less than six months to go of my presidency, I hope by the time I leave we will have an effective system up and running which will give us the voice we deserve. I am particularly grateful to Alex, Dave Beaumont, David Oliver and Jackie Morris who are giving this matter their attention, continuingly coming forward with positive proposals.

In Wales
I continue to have pleasure in attending regional and national meetings, though unfortunately due to a clash with the UKMC meeting in May, I will not be able to go to the Celtic meeting of Scotland and Northern Ireland, which I had very much hoped to attend. By way of compensation I have visited Wales twice! On this occasion I was earning my corn by giving a talk on Parkinson’s disease, a bit like taking coals to Newcastle, with Jolyon Meara, John Hindle and Dwarak Sastry amongst others being leaders in the field! Dinner at the meeting was marked by the retirement of Mo Fernando. Mo is one of the many unsung heroes of our specialty. The first striking thing was that I thought I must be mistaken that he was retiring because he looks so youthful, as does his most attractive wife. Mo has been a stalwart of the Welsh BGS and has worked at the excellent centre at Wrexham for many years with Ickram Shah (the convenor and organiser of the Wrexham meeting) and Tony White. Debra King was recently the College representative on the interview panel for Mo’s successor. She pointed out to the Chief Executive that whereas Wrexham has thee geriatricians, her unit in Arrowe Park has more than three times the number of geriatricians for the same size population and they all had to work very hard! She also pointed out that if one looked at all the other specialities in Wrexham they had more than doubled or tripled in size during the time of Mo’s tenure, while the geriatric component had remained the same. In one way of course this is a tribute to the hard work of the three geriatricians in Wrexham, but it is also a most blatant example of ageism. Debra King’s remarks were not well received by the Chief Executive, possibly because they were so irrefutable.

On a happier note, the very youthful Mo is still working (this time as a gastroenterologist). The secret of his eternal youth is his great love of sport. I had not known previously that he had represented Sri Lanka as a cricketer and has also represented Wales Seniors at tennis. I wish both him and his wife all the best for their future and thank him for the tremendous contribution he has made to our specialty.

In Yorkshire
On March 30th I fulfilled a long-standing invitation from Oliver Corrado to attend the Yorkshire regional meeting of the BGS. If ever there was evidence of the vitality of our Society and the importance of the regional groups, this meeting exemplified it. Over sixty delegates attended, representing every stage of career, making the meeting a wonderful mix of youth and age. I was highly impressed by Dr Liz Iveson, Dr Cath Tandy and Dr Rachel Stockdale’s presentations at the beginning of the meeting. They all dealt with core issues in geriatrics in an enthusiastic and stimulating way, presenting audit data and original research - the life-blood of the specialty. I was struck by one of the difficulties of our reorganisation when, whilst attending the Welsh meeting, it was evident that they had clear political channels and were directly involved in the strategy and planning of older people’s services in Wales. English regions, some of which are larger than the principality, feed their views into the English Council, but there may be less of a sense that they are contributing to opinion, influencing national policy. The Yorkshire group have a great feeling for the BGS because they have many prominent members involved in the committee structure of the society. Oliver Corrado is stepping down as Chairman of the Education and Training Committee, to which he has made an outstanding contribution. I was particularly conscious of a link between Merseyside and Yorkshire BGS as Oliver was anxiously anticipating the Grand National where a horse Haut De Gamme, was running. He owns the horse in a syndicate with Merseyside geriatrician Emer Ahern, Ronan Collins from Dublin and Morgan Feeley. Needless to say, when I placed a bet on this horse, it was jinxed, and fell at the 20th!

Unsung hero
Another unsung hero is Dr Abu Nasar. I had the great pleasure of presenting Abu with the President’s medal at Gateshead. Abu must be tired of me introducing him as the smallest member of our Society with the biggest smile and the biggest heart! It was great to see him at the Dinner accompanied by his wife and four sons. The President’s medal is an honour given by the President to a member of the Society who has not held one of the three positions of office in the Society. Of course the choice of people one could award a medal to is overwhelming and I sincerely believe that most geriatricians do not receive the recognition they are due. I was driven to give him the medal for a number of reasons. I was talking at a national meeting with the Chairman of the Patient’s Association, who happened to come from Bridlington. When I asked her whether she knew Abu, she gave him one of the best references anyone could ever have. He had looked after one of her relatives, and she ended by saying that if we had a thousand Abu’s we could solve all the problems of the Health Service! Abu has been a great supporter of the Society and he like me, has an interest in Parkinson’s disease. He has often attended international meetings unsponsored and very frequently with a poster of his work in the Day Hospital, Bridlington. He has a very generous nature. Inevitably, when I talk to his staff they speak very highly of him. He is a true exemplar of somebody who works in a truly inter-disciplinary and supportive way. His posters often have a picture of a very happy team of people, with Abu’s big smile dominating the picture. I have many stories about Abu but one of my favourites is the time we were coming back from an international meeting and the flight was delayed. We were told there was a weight problem; therefore they were not allowing the last passenger to get on the plane. The plane was delayed by an hour, but eventually they relented. We were all on tenter hooks as we realised the passenger left out was Abu, who was certainly the lightest person on the plane. When he arrived on the plane all the passengers erupted in applause and I was glad to add to that ovation from the society when presenting him with the President’s medal.

The election for President Elect is now on. As a sign of the strength of our Society, we have two superb candidates for the post in Graham Mulley and Doug MacMahon. Both in their different ways have been great supporters of the specialty and the Society and in voting, members have a difficult choice but with the reassurance that whoever is successful will do a superb job.

J R Playfer