Society for Social Medicine

 

MINUTES OF THE 46TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY FOR SOCIAL MEDICINE HELD IN LETURE THEATRE 2 OF THE SHERRINGTON BUILDING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL ON WEDNESDAY 11TH SEPTEMBER 2002

 

35 people attended and Catherine Law chaired the meeting. 

1.      Minutes of the 45th AGM – These were accepted as correct and signed. 

2.      Matters arising - None 

3.      Honorary Secretary's Report (copy in the October mailing) – Rebecca Hardy reported that the Society had 1337 members, a number very slightly up on last year with 54 new members having joined.  She thanked the organisers of last years ASM at the University of Oxford for what had been a very successful and enjoyable meeting jointly organised with the IEA European Group.  She also thanked the organisers of this years meeting at the University of Liverpool.  This year, just over 200 abstracts had been submitted for the conference and 80 had been selected for oral presentation and 35 for posters.  The committee had also invited 2 overseas speakers in addition to the Cochrane Lecturer. She also explained how the committee had discussed the issue of attracting new members to the Society and new delegates to the ASM. She described changes made to the SSM website and future plans for further website development and an email database. She reported that the changes to the constitution which had been voted on by the membership had been easily carried by the required majority. The main change was that new members need only have one current member (instead of the two required at present) propose them. She reported that the Society had joined the IEA European Federation of Epidemiological Societies and highlighted the main issues being tackled by this group that were of importance to the Society. They were the influence of the new data protection directive across Europe and the setting up of European Competence Criteria in Epidemiology.  The committee had also been active in thinking how the Society could help within the UK in relation to the impact on research of the data protection legislation. A response was given by SSM to the document “Independent Health Care: National Minimum Standards regulations Consultation Document”. SSM has a representative on the NICE Interventional Procedures Advisory Committee. Rebecca highlighted that an article with an update of the history of the Society had recently been published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Last, and most importantly, she thanked all those who had helped in the running of the Society in the last year. 

4.      Honorary Treasurer’s Report- Ian Harvey reported that a profit had been made on the ASM in Oxford and that the finances of the Society were in a healthy state overall.. There were still 338 members who had not changed their standing orders to increase subscription rates. Ian also reported that the committee had looked into the potential benefits of SSM becoming a charity and had decided against such a move.

Discussion: Ian was asked whether, with the development of the email database, the cost of mailings would be reduced as the newsletter could be distributed electronically. Ian replied that the European Journal of Public Health would still need to be mailed and this was the main cost of mailings. He was also asked whether there were any plans for the production of a new directory of members. The committee indicated that there were no such plans at present as it is a very expensive process. Discussion regarding the possibility of setting up such a directory on the website took place and was thought to be a good idea as long as the information was “protected”, possibly with access via a membership password. The possibility of a CD/disk version of a membership directory was also discussed and will be an item on the agenda for the next meeting of the committee. 

5.      Report on EUPHA – The SSM EUPHA representative was not present at the meeting. Any important EUPHA matters will be communicated to the membership through the newsletter. 

6.    Election of Honorary Officers, Ordinary Members of the Committee, and Honorary Members of the Society - The honorary members nominated by the Committee this year were Mike Clarke and Jim McEwen. Members at the AGM agreed these nominations. The Committee had received a single nomination for Chair Elect (Margaret Whitehead) and there were three nominations (Shah Ebrahim, Gillian Leng, Alicia O’Cathain) for the three vacancies for Ordinary member of the Committee. These nominees were formally elected. 

7.   Proposal for formation of sections in the Society for Social Medicine

Klim McPherson introduced his proposal (in June newsletter) to form sections within the Society. He highlighted that the AGM should decide, firstly, whether it wished to pursue the idea of sections and secondly that it would then be up to enthusiastic members to form such sections. 

Discussion: Although there were some concerns, in particular that the formation of sections must not disrupt the current format of the ASM, that there should not be too many groups and that they should be mutually exclusive, there was in general support for the idea. The main positives were seen as bringing in new members, reducing the proliferation of new societies and helping to revive the one day meeting programme. It was agreed that the committee should take the idea forward, but with caution, that members should join SSM and not just a section and that the committee should have final say over section matters. Catherine Law proposed that the committee should go ahead and draw up the changes to the constitution that would be required to allow for formation of sections and that Klim’s proposal should be amended in the light discussion at the AGM. This would be prepared for presentation to the AGM next year and if the AGM was in favour of the proposal would be put to a vote of the membership. Seconded by Karen Dunnell. 

9.   Future Scientific Meetings – The following future meetings have been arranged:

Annual Scientific Meeting 2003 will be held in Edinburgh from the 17th-19th September.
Annual Scientific Meeting 2004 will be held in Birmingham from the 15 th -17th September.

The Society was still looking for a venue for the 2005 meeting and volunteers were called for.

A one day meeting on Genetic Epidemiology will be held in London on 26th November 2002

10.  Any Other Business – Karen Dunnell highlighted that there were interesting documents regarding the history of the Society in the Wellcome Library, but that they need to be made complete. She suggested that a note be put in the newsletter to encourage members to visit. Robert West was concerned that there had been a reduction in one day meetings organised by the Society. The Chair indicated that this was something that the committee were currently actively pursuing and there were suggestions of topics for such meetings from delegates.