Confirmed Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Trustees
of the British Orthodontic Society held on Friday 8 May 2009
at the BOS Office commencing at 10.00 a.m.
Members present:
Dr Nigel Harradine Chairman
Dr Les Joffe Chief Executive Officer
Dr Alison Murray Treasurer
Dr David Tidy Honorary Secretary
Dr Sue Cunningham Chairman UTG
Dr Arunika Gunasekera Honorary Secretary Community Group
Dr Sadaf Khan Chairman TGG
Dr Helen Knight Chairman COG
Dr Helen Newbrook Chairman PG
By invitation: Tracy Posner
09/32 Welcome by Chairman
Nigel Harradine welcomed members to the meeting, in particular Arunika Gunasekera who was attending as alternate for Community Group Chairman, Dr Alison Newlyn.
09/33 Apologies for absence
Apologies for absence have been received from David Bowden, Keith Pearson, Peter McCallum, Alison Newlyn.
09/34 CEO’s Report
Refurbishment of the ground floor will start in the next two weeks. This will result in a better general layout and an additional office. The new first floor office has been completed and needs to be furnished. Les Joffe commented that the IT consultant will be attending the offices next week to set up the computer and other equipment in this new office and to have a general look at the networking and IT set-up. This office will be used by the new employee and the Archive and Museum. To help in the lead up to the refurbishment of the ground floor which requires a significant amount of additional work, a temporary employee, who has worked for the Society on a previous occasion, has been taken on for four weeks. If this temporary employee proves to be satisfactory and can fulfil the job description for the new post as agreed by the Board, the CEO asked the Board of Trustees to forego the advertising and interview process and to allow this person to be offered the job, subject to a proper formal interview by two trustees, the CEO and the Society Administrator. In the present job market, an advertisement is likely to attract hundreds of replies and sorting through them and interviewing could take hours of the CEO and Ann Wright’s time. It was agreed by the Board that this was a satisfactory way to proceed. The Journals and other publications have now been bound. This will be a continuing process with the issues bound approximately every three years. The Archive and Museum Committee is concerned that these volumes may be taken and the information lost and have asked for them to be placed in a secure, locked, glass fronted cabinet for safety. The call for “case reports” has met with little response. Nigel Harradine is most anxious to build up a central resource so that a member can be advised to contact another member who has experienced a similar problem or to access helpful information on the website, but this depends on members first logging the information with the Society. Members will be sent a further reminder to let the Society know about their experiences, good or bad, on NHS contracting and tendering, central referral systems and the 18 week rule. The Trustee Annual Report and Statement of Financial Activity is being audited and should be available by mid May. The final document will be ready for approval at the Board meeting in July. The budget sheets will be sent out in May for 2010. They need to be returned by early June so that subscriptions can be calculated to be put to the Board for approval at the July meeting. The company sponsorship package scheme has proved very successful. Exhibition space at the spring meeting in Dublin and the conference in Edinburgh has sold out. Les Joffe is hoping that the EICC will agree to a different layout for the registration area so that more stands can be accommodated there. There are presently eight companies which cannot be offered stands. It is possible that in future years a limit might be placed on the number/size of stands which one company can have. A response to the GDC Consultation document on Flexible Entry to Specialist Lists is required by 10 June. COG has written a response which Helen Knight will forward to Les Joffe and David Tidy. Sue Cunningham will check with Martyn Cobourne about the UTG response. David Tidy will compose the BOS response and forward to the GDC. It was agreed that the Radiographic Guidelines can be translated into Japanese, for which there will be no charge to the BOS. It was agreed that distribution will be through the Japanese Orthodontic Society subject to their willingness to be involved.
09/35 BOS/VLE
At the Board meeting in March, there was some concern about the costs of licensing and maintaining BOS VLE and some consideration of alternative platforms was proposed. A report written by David Tidy was circulated which addressed these issues and also looked at the wider issue of VLE with a view to clarifying the future needs of the Society. As Chairman of the Education Committee, Sue Cunningham welcomed the excellent, wide ranging report, although she commented she was unaware that it was being written. Financing VLE in 2009 will cost £73,000 with an income from the FGDP/DwSI course of £6,000 (against an income in 2008 of £56,000). Expenditure includes an amount of £39,000 for Bristol University of which BOS pays £24,000 and FGDP(UK) £15,000. The contract with Blackboard has been renewed for a year and runs up to December 2009. Chris Mills at Bristol has already asked about Blackboard/VLE plans for the future. It is therefore very timely to consider the way forward. David Tidy’s report included a job description for an unpaid post of Director of BOS VLE to be filled by a specialist orthodontist with possible teaching and editorial experience. The post holder would join the BOS Education Committee and would manage the operation of the BOS VLE including authorising and monitoring the activities which the VLE provider unit undertakes, as well as undertaking business planning, costings etc on behalf of the Trustees. Sue Cunningham said it was important to be very clear about the type of person required: a manager or an educationalist. Nigel Harradine emphasised that the Director of BOS VLE would take on all the administrative tasks leaving the Education Committee to concentrate on all educational issues. He also confirmed that the Education Committee would be involved in all education matters, not just VLE. Les Joffe said the Director role would involve the post holder standing between the Education Committee and the new provider. It was agreed that VLE should be moved to a new platform and there has been some dialogue with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh about transferring from Blackboard to their platform. David Tidy’s report included a discussion on Moodle versus Blackboard. Moodle is used by organisations such as the Open University which has contributed greatly to its development. David Tidy questioned if members would like other avenues besides Moodle/ RCS Edinburgh to be pursued, such as Nelson Croom. After discussion it was agreed that this was not necessary. More talks will be held with RCS Edinburgh between now and the Board meeting in July with a view to a report at that meeting. It was difficult to establish how much transferring to RCS Edinburgh would cost and how much extra will be needed for inter active modules. Sue Cunningham is organising a conference call with her Committee members following a further discussion with (DAVID – ALICE – SURNAME NOT GIVEN AND NOT AT ALL SURE HOW SHE FITTED IN TO THIS BECAUSE IT WASN’T SAID). It was important to move forward particularly with the undertaking made by the Society to members and the ONG that online CPD would be available by 2010.
09/36 Radiograph scanner for Leighton material
A decision on how to move forward with scanning the Leighton material needs to be made. There are several issues including how valuable is the material and, if thought to be sufficiently valuable, where the funding for preserving the material is to come from and who will take the responsibility for the project. After much discussion, it was agreed that, from a historical point of view, it would be worthwhile to preserve the material. Professor Moss has been promised money from the Hotz Memorial Fund and that, together with the £5,000 for the project already agreed by the BOS, should be sufficient to purchase the scanner sourced by Professor Moss. The Leighton material is sited at Kings and is likely to remain under their care and control which gives rise to many issues such overall funding of a project, the basic material of which the BOS does not own, and future access for BOS members. Funding the purchase of the scanner is one issue; funding the rest of the preservation project is another and could be financially open ended for the Society. Following the scanning, accurate filing of the scanned material is absolutely crucial. Professor Moss has been asked to develop a proper business plan but even a satisfactory business plan still leaves the question of ownership of the material wide open. Les Joffe advised that it would be better to donate the agreed £5,000 to the project but only after agreement that: i.) the Society owns the scanner and ii) BOS members must be allowed free access to the material and the Society should be given a copy. He then suggested that the Society should stand back. Professor Moss could then negotiate the best way forward with Kings. Professor Moss has been informed that the matter is to be discussed by the Board of Trustees. He will be attending the Representative Body meeting following this Board meeting to speak to the item.
09/37 Webcasting BOC
Nigel Harradine has discussed this with Peter McCallum, Chairman of the Conference and Meetings Committee. The existing pilot arrangement for the Conference in Edinburgh in September is that the UTG presentations will be recorded and the winning presentation and possibly one or two others, will be selected and the recordings used to as a basis for online CPD. Every effort will be made to select presentations with no identifiable patient which could lead to problems. Those entering abstracts to present at the Session have been advised about these arrangements and asked to agree them and also that their supervisor agrees. David Tidy commented that downloads could be sold from the website if required.
09/38 Any Other Business
1. Mark Simon of Maney Publishing has passed on a request from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh that the Society should consider offering College members the Journal of Orthodontics at a discounted price. Maney has suggested £98.00 as a fair price for the four issues per year. This was agreed. Les Joffe will liaise with Maney.
2. The Training Grades Group would like to offer a prize for the best trainer. The Board thought this might be a good idea but that judging would be very difficult. This would need to be done based on a citation rather than the number of votes because of the varying number of trainees in different areas. Sadaf Khan indicated that the TGG representatives around the country would be asked to put forward nominations with citations. He will write a paper for consideration by the Scholarship and Grants Committee whose approval for the award would be needed.
09/39 Date and Time of next meeting
Board of Trustees Thursday 9 July 2009 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. BOS Office
The Chairman closed the meeting at 11.30 a.m.
I confirm these are an accurate record of the meeting:
Signed............................................................................Chairman.........................................Date
