“W­ hat have the Romans every done for us?!” So begins the brilliant section in Life of Brian before the Pythons list all the wonderful things the Romans had done, finally concluding that peace was their only undesirable contribution! Much of an organisations’ work is done behind the scenes and I hope this newsletter demonstrates to members that their annual fees are being well spent and that AUGIS membership remains relevant to them and their patients. Council has met twice so far in 2018. In May we invited allied healthcare professionals (AHP) & clinical nurse specialists (CNS) representatives from each region to join us for the first two hours of the meeting. We had a great turn out and discussed how we can make AUGIS more relevant and useful to this important group; we and our patients would be lost without them. BOMSS has fantastic engagement from its non-surgeon members and we are determined to learn lessons from them to help improve things for the whole organisation. The new AUGIS IT system is now working well and members are renewing their direct debit instructions relatively easily. If you have not yet done this please contact Nichola Bartlett in the office. We have had some difficulties with the electronic BJS subscriptions but these appear to have now been fixed now. Although investment in new IT is always painful, we are optimistic this will pay dividends in the longer term. The regulations around GDPR were always going to require us to refresh our relationship with members, so a complete re-set made sense. AUGIS runs a lot of meetings each year and you will read about the recent ones in this newsletter. Hepatic, pancreatic, oesophageal, gastric and bariatric surgery have all been covered in the last 6 months. These meetings are well attended and we get great feedback from attendees. This in no small part due to the enormous efforts of Mark Taylor as Education and Training Lead and, of course, Sarv & Nichola in the office. Meetings generate vital revenue for AUGIS but balancing the books is becoming increasingly challenging. Our Hon Treasurer, Steve Fenwick continues to do a great job with this but the pot of industry sponsorship money is shrinking. Consequently, AUGIS Council are exploringnewwaysofdeliveringmore- with-less which may mean different formats for meetings in the future. To stimulate local AUGIS meetings around the UK we now provide modestfinancialsupportofupto£500 pa. If you have ideas for these please contact your Regional Representative. During my term as President I have investigated what can be done to re- invigorate our Trainee membership and engagement but, so far, have made little headway. The triumvirate of HPB, OG & Bariatric surgery, which is at the heart of AUGIS, does not lend itself easily to a single club for trainees. Having seen the success of The Dukes Club for Colorectal trainees I know that it is both possible and beneficial to pursue a solution for AUGIS trainee members. Individual trainees are beginning to come forward and offer suggestions and leadership which is encouraging and I remain optimistic that fresh ideas can move this issue forward. SUMMER 2018 NEWSLETTER issue 27 Reports/Events/Reviews/Fellowships/Updates www.augis.org for all the up to date information PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Mr Richard Hardwick for our members