Minutes of ESRA AGM Liverpool May 2009

1 Apologies – none proffered

2 Minutes of previous meeting – could not be dispersed for general consumption due to last-minute problem with the conference printer. Dr Scott apologized but affirmed there were no contentious issues and this was accepted.

3 President’s report

1. Change of name, bye-laws and constitution

These are to be presented for approval at the main ESRA meeting in Innsbruck in September. Each country will form its own Association. 30 members will be elected to a Council of Representatives and from that Council an Executive Board of 7-11 members will be elected. The Executive Council will organize ESRA and co-opt other members on to the Board when appropriate.

Thus we need to change our name and constitution to bring us in line with these bye-laws and have democratically elected members.

The name cannot be ESRA (GB and I) since Ireland has broken away to form its own Society. The recommended new name is RAUK. Discussion took place over other options such as ESRA-UK and RAGBI but following this the voting was unanimously in favour of RAUK with nobody opposing it.

1. Membership and Fees

It was agreed that we would, henceforth, have three different types of member. Ordinary membership, a Trainee membership available at a reduced rate and an Associate membership for non-anaesthetists such as APS nurses. The latter two would be able to join RAUK but not ESRA and the membership fee would be 10% less than the ESRA fee.

Life members would remain “untouchable” and would not pay any annual fee.

Dr Tighe suggested separating membership fee and database from ESRA. Dr Denny agreed that this would generate a small additional income for RAUK. Dr Tighe informed the members that the Society’s expenses have gone up since becoming affiliated to  AAGBI at the same time that profit from our annual scientific meeting has gone down. Dr Herrick said there must be a proper watertight system for collecting fees, which Dr Nicholls confirmed was the situation in France. Dr Harrop-Griffiths asked whether representation at ESRA would be dependent on the number of RAUK members or the number of ESRA members in our Society or both? It was pointed out that each zone had a maximum of 3 votes (250members) so decreasing the overall number of ESRA members should not affect this.

After a short discussion it was agreed that we would have a £20 membership for everyone but that consultants would have to be members of both ESRA and RAUK. The details would be worked out by the Board before next year’s AGM.

1. ESRA Diploma

This exam is considered by the Society to not be academically robust, requiring an examination board, Dean Vice-Dean and Diplomats. The situation will not change until after the 2010 AGM. A set of criteria by which courses will be accredited are to be presented at the Salzburg meeting, which if agreed will shed greater light on the merit of the Diploma.

1. Dr Nicholls suggested that the Society donate a sum of £2000 to ISRA as both  a gesture of support and recognition of their contribution to ESRA (GB and I) over the years. It would help them get up and running as a Society. This was unanimously agreed                                                                                                                                               
2. The Abbott Clinical Fellow

Dr Scott has spent the last 2 years attempting to create a Clinical Fellow’s post that all UK trainees that are ESRA members can apply for. The post is a 4 month out-of-programme module attempting to provide the successful applicant with a broad based grounding in all forms of regional anaesthesia and acute pain management. During their time they will be expected to undertake audit or research on a specific topic and will be encouraged to sit the ESRA diploma. The Board has fully endorsed the project and Abbott has kindly donated £60,000 towards it which should allow us to run it for at least the next 3 years. An advertisement will be appearing in the next couple of months in the main journals and it is hoped to interview and appoint before the autumn. The Society members were encouraged to spread the news around their departments and health boards.

Treasurer’s report

Dr Tighe was delighted to report to the Society that the year 2008-09 had been financially very rewarding with a surplus of £67,488.75 and our current bank balance is £97,211.57. This was mainly a result of an excellently organized meeting in London and Dr Harrop-Griffiths was congratulated on this. Given the current financial situation it was felt that the Society should keep their accounts below £50,000 with any single bank and therefore it was agreed to open another deposit account with £49,999 which will require 2 signatures to enable any transaction.

Election of Officers

It was agreed that the RAUK Board needs more Board members and all members of the Board should henceforth be democratically elected. Accordingly we are delighted to welcome on to the group, Dr Svetlana Rutter from Oxford and Dr Morne Wolmerans from Norwich.

BBRAUN Award.

The Society was even more delighted to announce that this year’s recipient of the BBraun Award for Clinical Excellence was Dr Fred Sage for his outstanding contributions to regional anaesthesia throughout his career and in particular the annual RA “festival” that he has run in the South West that is really a terrific opus magnus that all society members are encouraged to support and attend in future years.

 NBS Sept 09