ESA News

ESA Newsletter: November 2003

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Endocrine Society of Australia - Held at Melbourne Convention Centre Melbourne, Victoria, Monday 15th September, 2003

Attendance: Ben Canny, Jeffrey Zajac, Catherine Coulter, Ross Cuneo, Evan Simpson, CatherineChoong, John Burgess, Ken Ho, Leon Bach, Stephen Tivigg, Stephanie Edmondson, You Mang Tan, Christine Clarke, Frank Ng, Paul Williams, Jenny Gunton, Ray Rodgers, Brendan Waddell, Mark Hedcer, Harvey Newnham, Jini Stockigt, Jim McFarlane, Trish Crock, Jane Girling, Lois Salamonsen, Peter Stanton, Richard Prince, Rob McLachlan, David Handlesnian, Peter Ebeling, Duncail Topliss, David Torpy, Guck Ooi, Peter Leedinan, Jon Hirst, Tamas Zakar, Peter Illingworth, Ken Ho

1. Apologies: Peter Fuller, Burnie Tuch, Don Perry Keene, Henry Burger, Paul. Farnworth, Bronwyn Crawford, Julie Owens, Kathy Gatford, Mary Wlodek, Rob Baxter, Bruce Robinson

2. Confirniation of minutes: Minutes of the Annual General Meeting that was held on 23rd September, 2002 were accepted as a true and accurate record. Proposed by Duncan Topliss and seconded by Paul Williarns.

3. Business Arising: Nil

4. President's Report
The President, Ben Canny, stated that ESA have seen an appropriate balance of new advances and steady growth. The Society continues to grow and now boasts a membership of approximately 900.

A number of our members have been recognized for distinguished service both nationally and internationally as follows:
John Funder, Evan Simpson, Peter Fuller and Paul Koniesaroff have been appointed to specialist committees of The Endocrine Society.
Mike Waters has been awarded the Asia Oceania Medal from the Society of Endocrinology in the United Kingdom.
Richard Larkins became an officer of the Order of Australia, and has recently been taken up the position of Vice Chancellor of Monash University; Stephen Judd became a member of the Order of Australia.
Robert McLachlan has been awarded the Erie Susman Prize of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.
John Funder. Marelyn Wintour Coghlan, Jim, Stockigt, Cres Eastinan, Jack Martin, Philip Harding, Don Cameron and Richard Larkins have been awarded life membership of the ESA. This year the council of the ESA would like to propose Dick Gordon
and JohnTurtle as Life Members of the Society. Both have been long standing members of the Society,
and have contributed significantly to its administrative and scientific activities.

This year has seen the first award of the ESA. International Travel Grants, Emma Ball of Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development and Peter Mark of the University of Western Australia have used the funds to help support travel to the USA.

4.1 Sponsorship
The Society continues to receive strong corporate support with Novartis as MaJor Corporate Sponsors and with, Servier, DSL and Ipsen as Corporate Sponsors. These and other companies have also generously supported the Seminar and Annual Scientific Meetings. It appears that the companies prefer to directly sponsor educational activites of the Society. As a society we need to appropriately develop our relationships with our Industry Partners. The Sponsorship Committee, chaired by Jeffrey Zajac, is working to develop the most appropriate portfolio of sponsorship to cover our activities.

It is my considerable pleasure to announce an exciting new initiative involving ESA and Mayne Pharma to develop the profile of Clinical Endocrinology at the Annual Scientific Meeting, Negotiations have been underway for several nionths, and are still to be finalised, and will almost certainly comprise the sponsorship of one or more awards for Clinical Endocrinology, with associated dedicated sessions at the Annual Scientific Meeting.

4.2 RACP
Over the past year, ESA has worked closely with the College on two important issues:

1. Finalisation of the Memorandum of Understanding including direct representation on the Specialist Advisory Committee.
2. Working with the SAC to develop coherent recommendations for advanced training in Endocrinology, including the development of a curriculum in Endocrino)ogy.

In May of this year, Bruce Robinson and I met with Kathy Samaras and representatives of the RACP to discuss these matters. Shortly after, we met with Presidents and representatives of our sister societies (ADS and ANZBMS) to negotiate how to work together to ensure that each Society is appropriately represented on the SAC. I am pleased to announce that John Prins has agreed to be ESAs representative on the SAC, and council has put in place mechanisms to ensure that it can be kept informed of, and have input to the work of the SAC.

Council anticipates that the development of the curriculum in Endocrine Training will be one of our most important activities over the next few years. Council will be closely following the activities of the SAC, communicating with the membership, and seeking your active input into the society's responses to the various propositions that will come before us. While council fully expects to take a leadership role with regards to this initiative, the input of the membership is essential.

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