Chairman's Report
Feedback from the 2008 meeting at the University of Oxford. 88 responses were received. Virtually all responders rated the meeting as excellent or good. There was continued support for the Skin Club and guest speakers, with most rating these events as successful.
BSID Membership and Annual Meeting 2009. The membership stands at 340, including new members, compared with 337 in April 2008. Four members resigned and 27 were removed from the membership list (no subscription received for >4 years and not contactable). There were 160 individuals registered for the 2009 meeting. There are 28 oral and 39 poster presentations, as well as keynote, local, trainee and educational speakers, 4 Skin Club lectures and a British Photodermatology Group (BPG) guest speaker. The following companies are involved in the BSID 2009 meeting: Schering Plough, Janssen-Cilag, MerckSerono, Wyeth, Unilever, Abbott Laboratories Ltd, Typharm and XcellR8. Dr Graham Ogg thanked the local organiser, Dr Clive Archer and the facilitators Dr Tess McPherson and Dr Felicity Edwards.
Association with other societies. We are currently within a five year agreement with the BPG (2009-2014) to offer a guest lectureship slot during the meeting. Feedback for this lecture has typically been good.
Publication of BSID abstracts within the British Journal of Dermatology (BJD). Dr John English and the editorial team at BJD have worked extremely hard to include the BSID abstracts within the BJD, so that they are available online at the time of the meeting. Dr Graham Ogg expressed his thanks to the BJD team for their continued support.
Location of future meetings. The BSID meeting in 2010 will be in Edinburgh (12-14 April) and in 2011 it will be held in Manchester (11-13 April).
BSID Medal for Contributions to Dermatological Research. Members were reminded of the new award and the mechanism of nomination. The award will be offered initially annually or in alternate years. Nominations should be received from the membership by 24 April 2009 and the decision on the successful recipient will be taken by the committee shortly afterwards. The successful nominee will be invited to give a presentation at the 2010 BSID meeting.
Travel awards. For the 2009 meeting, these were awarded to:
Dr Noor Almaani, Alasdair Anderson, Dr Hsien Chan, Monika Cichon, Dr Suzanne Clements, Dr Caterina Ferreli, Dr Emma Hiscutt, Dr Ute Laggner, Dr Joey Lai-Cheong and Dr Marta Polak.