News of Wales - Issue 1
October 2005
News from around the Welsh divisions
Gwent Division by Dr Elizabeth Evans
Have you heard of a rubber screwdriver or a car with square wheels? That is the level of sophistication BMA divisions have at the moment. To communicate with your members you need to get your local office to send to London for labels for the list of members; then all the paperwork goes to Whitchurch for the flier or other communication to be stuffed into envelopes. Then it is sent off. Not surprisingly on more than one occasion fliers have arrived to members after the event in question has taken place.
So what do we want? We would like an e-division with a regularly updated electronic list of members’ e-mail addresses, and an easy-to-access website with customized features such as software for virtual meetings. Early last year we thought we were going to get this when we were asked to pilot some local reps pages on the main BMA website. With lots of enthusiasm we set about making it work. We shook the old Gwent division out of its torpor; appointed new officers and advertised the local Reps pages.
There was no help from the London office to get members’ e-mail addresses so we got as many as we could by snail mailing members. As a result we were able to hold several well-attended real meetings; we held discussions on the web site on local issues, and we sent out a questionnaire to members to see what they wanted from their local division.
However no further developments have taken place this year. The local reps pages are so poorly advertised and inaccessible that one wonders whether anyone in the web team really wants them to be used. The pilots (there are six of them altogether although ours is the only one in Wales) have not yet been evaluated and I have heard of no plans to improve the pages.
However the worst problem of all is that we are broke.
The money in our accounts (some of it members’ money raised from social events) was sent back to the BMA in 2002 when we were not active and despite the best efforts of our Treasurer and Chairman, we have not been able to get any more money sent down to the new accounts we set up. One long-suffering speaker is still waiting for his fee!
I am sure divisions can be made to work well with modern technology. It is essential that Wales gets the ability to finance and run the divisions and websites itself. The needs of divisions seem to be very low priority on London’s list.
Cardiff and the Vale Division by Dr Jane Fenton-May
Last September we held a joint cheese and wine meeting with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. This was preceded by a talk about health fads given by Norman Vetter, senior lecturer in Epidemilogy and Public Health, University of Cardiff.
In December we had a lively joint meeting with the British Small Animals Veterinary Association on the Risks in Anaesthesia and Medicine: Human and Animal Including Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Small Animal Fatalities (CEPSAF ) with guest speakers Dr Jonathan Secker-Walker, emeritus consultant to UCL hospitals and Dave Brodbelt of the Animal Health Trust at Newmarket.
Andrew Dearden notified a filled room of the proposed changed to the superannuation and pensions system in March. The government withdrew the proposals prior to the election but the work lead by Andrew of the BMA Pensions Committee continue in anticipation.
We were delighted t that our local members Andrew Dearden and Prof Michael Vickers - our Treasurer, and in 2005 the chairman of the Retired Members Forum - were both honoured as Fellows of the BMA.
Four divisional representatives: Andrew Davies, Norman Vetter, Andrew Ezsias and I all went to the ARM in Manchester. Several of the division’s 22 motions were debated and all of us spoke during the meeting as did other local members representing their craft groups including Kay Saunders, Iain Robbé, Eddie Coyle and Andrew Dearden.
Our next meeting will be in the autumn when Dr Brian Gibbons will address a joint meeting with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.