ESA News

ESA Newsletter: November 2001

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Endocrine Society of Australia - held at Conrad Jupiters, Gold Coast, Queensland
Monday, 10 September, 2001

Attendance:
Judith Clements, Guck Ooi, Walter Plehwe, Nik Chosich, John Delahunt, Roger Smith, Shaun McGrath, Joe Casey, Bruce King, Robert McLachlan, Peter Illingworth, Evan Simpson, Iain Clarke, Peter Fuller, Rob Baxter, Errol Wilmshurst, Howard Smith, Mark McLean, Joe Proietto, Mark Stein, Jack Martin, David Phillips, Lois Salamonsen, Allan Tilbrook, Anne Turner, David Healy, Chris Glatthaar, Peter Leedman, R. Leeach, Paul Williams, G. Jeremy, Leon Bach, Peter Ebeling, Christine Rodda, Brendan Waddell, Cathie Coulter, Ben Canny, Fran Thomas, Duncan Topliss, Albert Frauman, Paul Komesaroff, Jim Stockigt, Margaret Jones, Jeffrey Zajac, Mary Wlodek, George Werther, Brian Hirschfeld, David Robertson, Peter Stanton, Cathy Chong, Yong Mong Tan, Ross Cuneo, Sonia Stanton, Christine Rowland, John Burgess, Peter Davoren, Tony Bachmann, Kate Loveland, Ken Ho.

AGM-Continuation-11th September, 2001 Attendance:
David Hurley, Stephen Twigg, John Casey, David Handlesman, Warrick Inder, Margaret Jones, Paul Komesaroff, Judith Clements, Ross Cuneo, George Werther, Leon Bach, David Robertson, David Torpy, Peter Ebeling, Howard Smith, Walter Plehwe, Duncan Topliss, Tony Bachmann, Jeff Grice, Christine Rowland, Sonia Stanton, F. Thomas, Ken Ho, Cathie Coulter, Ben Canny, Brendan Waddell, Evan Simpson.

1. Apologies:
John Funder, Adrian Herrington

2. Confirmation of minutes:
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting that was held on 29th October, 2000 were accepted as a true and accurate record. Proposed by D. Topliss and seconded by C. Rodda.

3. Business Arising: Nil

4. President’s Report:
The activities of the ESA included: ICE 2000: Ken Ho stated that ICE 2000 was an outstanding success, attended by 3500 delegates, returning a surplus of $260,000. Sponsorship: Strong support has been received from Eli Lilly and Pfizer, as major corporate sponsors with Novartis, Servier, Alphapharm, Boehringer and SKB as corporate sponsors. The ESA have established a Sponsorship Committee to co-ordinate and consolidate efforts to raise support for the ESA at all levels of operation.

RACP: The ESA has provided solicited input to the RACP on:

1. inquiry into post mortem and anatomical examination practices, supporting the retention of human tissue for research.
2. vocational training in addictive medicine
3. guidelines for the writing of human gene therapy proposals
4. the Australian medical workforce
5. input to the NHMRC Clinical research Working Party.

Other Societies: The ESA has worked to strengthen its relationship with societies in the Asia Pacific region. The ESA is establishing an exchange speaker program with the Japan Endocrine Society. The ESA has continued to participate in the Trans-Pacific Symposium. Congratulations to John Funder who was elected to serve on the Board of the US Endocrine Society and Paul Komesaroff as Chair of the Ethics Committee.

Database: The Society’s database is being updated to a new platform application at the Secretariat. This has involved a considerable amount of work including the transfer of files from an old application. The Society thanks Kris Tan for setting up the previous database.

Auditors: The Auditors for the Society has changed to P. Gruchy & Associates. Special thanks to Cathie Coulter, Ivone Johnson and Brendan Waddell for working together during the difficult period to maintain the financial operations of the Society.

In closing, Ken thanked Patricia Crock for organising a highly successful Seminar Meeting in Newcastle, David Torpy for organising the Clinical Weekend, Judith Clements and the Local Organising Committee for this Annual Scientific Meeting, Leon Bach and his Program Committee for putting together a superb scientific program, Stephanie Edmondson for editing the Proceedings and Sonia Stanton for editing the Newsletter.

5. Treasurer’s Report:
The Treasurer reported an overall net profit of $294,440. The transition over to the new auditors caused some problems, particularly in that the audited accounts were not received in time to present to members at the start of the AGM. This necessitated a continuation of the meeting the following day to allow further consultation with the audi-tor. A small number of items need-ed to be reconciled due to a change in overall format and differences in accounting procedures. These teething problems have now been overcome and it is envisaged that the auditing process will be relatively straightforward in 2002.

The major items of income were:

1. The profit from the ICE 2000 meeting of $260,472
2. The Interest of $38,471 which was earned from the bank accounts for ESA ($3,946) and ICE 2000 ($9,430) bank accounts, and the Societies Term deposits ($25,095).
3. Corporate Sponsorship calculated over the financial year was $53,000, but this included late payments from the previous calendar year and so our annual Corporate Sponsorship remains at around $40,000 per annum.
4. Membership subscriptions have provided a lower amount of income in 2001, as those financial members who attended ICE 2000 had their membership subscription fee waived for this year.

The key items of expenditure were:

1. Travel grants for 34 trainee members to attend the ICE 2000 Congress in Sydney.
2. Our part-time Secretariat is running at a very modest cost. Recent expenditure was required for the purchase of new computer equipment, and is itemised as a depreciation expense.

Approval of the Treasurers Report was moved by Duncan Topliss and seconded by David Handlesman.

6. Medical Affairs Report
The Society has been active in providing representation, assistance and advice to various government agencies concerning a range of health-related matters:

1. Duncan Topliss serves as a member on the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee.
2. Bronwyn Stuckey served on the APMA Code of Conduct Appeals Committee.
3. The ESA provided 3 nominees to Medicare Service Advisory Committee for assessing the use of thyrogen in thyroid cancer.
4. The ESA provided input to the TGA to support the introduction of an oral formulation of desmopressin.
5. The ESA’s position on adult GH deficiency contributed to the approval in December by the TGA of GH for replacement therapy in adults.
6. The ESA provided a position statement on metformin and the polycystic ovarian syndrome with the Australian Diabetes Society and the Australian Paediatric Endocrine Group.
7. Working with ANZBMS to support the use of intravenous pamidronate in osteoporosis.
8. Representative on the Specialist Medical Review Panel of the Veteran’s Medical Authority.

7. Report on 2001 ESA Meetings
(Seminar, Clinical weekend, ASM) ASM -Conrad Jupiter’s, QLD Judith Clements stated that there were 468 registrations for this meeting, including 58 from the trade. There were 6 major sponsors. The surplus will be in the order of $10,000-20,000.

Seminar meeting - Newcastle, NSW Trish Crock, Chair of the Seminar Meeting, reported that the meeting was highly successful and that strong sponsorship has been received for this meeting.

Clinical Weekend - Nara Resort, QLD David Torpy stated that there were 174 registrations for this meeting. He thanked the sponsors Novartis and Novo-Nordisk and Professional Conference Organiser, Mike Pickford.

8. Future Meetings
ASM-2002, Adelaide Convention Centre, 22-25 September The ESA will be meeting with the SRB and ADS with Ray Rodgers being Chairman of the Local Organising Committee. ASM-2003, Melbourne, 14-17 September. The ESA will be meeting with the SRB, ADS & possibly the NZ Endocrine Society. Rob McLauchlan has agreed to be Chair of the Local Organising Committee. Seminar-2002, Hobart, 5-7 April John Burgess will convene this meeting.

9. Other business – email use
The ESA email service that was launched by Council appears to have been met with general approval, without many complaints. Council are fully aware of the irritation that can be generated by unsolicited emails, but believes that the email service can be of use to the majority of members. The ESA membership would prefer not to receive emails containing advertising. Positions vacant will now be advertised on the ESA website and in the newsletter.

10. Date of next meeting: 23rd September, 2002.

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