Our all-inclusive approach within AUGIS continues. The Annual Scientific Conference in Liverpool this September will provide exciting content for all those doing upper GI on call. We have lined up some outstanding talks on the first day including David Sellu’s experience of prosecution and prison and Todd Hore’s involvement of managing patients from the recent terrorist attack in Christchurch. The second day has a new format with three parallel streams providing something for everyone throughout the day. Liverpool is the warm up for next year’s “UGI Congress 2020” in Belfast. This big meeting includes AUGIS, BOMSS, GBIHPBA, EUS Society, Pancreatic Society and The Roux Group as well as a large contingent of surgeons from China. Each of these organisations have fully committed to the Belfast meeting which is very exciting. The news of this conference has also been warmly welcomed by industry who seem very pleased to be able to focus their efforts on one large meeting. We have already set up both a Scientific Committee chaired by Ian Beckingham and a Management Committee chaired by Nick Maynard. Both Committees have already made excellent progress. The AHPs and CNSs will again be prominent in Liverpool. Their integrationandpresenceissovaluable to AUGIS as it is to our clinical teams. Louise Jones and Bernadette Fairley both sit on Council and once agreed at the AGM in Liverpool will have a full vote. This will also be the case for the Roux Group representative who is currently Siobhan McKay. AUGIS is really making an effort to truly represent all team members of both benign and cancer upper gastrointestinal units. We also want to be a home for liver transplant. I have attended Association of Coloproctology Council meetings recently and they have very successfully kept all the colorectal surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland together under one roof. Like us, they very much think of themselves as different subspecialty surgeons but the reason they are so effective politically is because the small groups within ACP, such as pelvic floor, inflammatory bowel disease and robotic are fully represented by ACP when it comes to needing action. We have our new trainee group, “Roux Group”. The stunning training weekend we had earlier this year in Leamington Spa was full of trainee Upper GI surgeons wanting to work together and wanting their seniors to do the same. Let’s hope the UGI Congress in 2020 is the start of something special. SUMMER 2019 NEWSLETTER issue 29 Reports/Events/Reviews/Fellowships/Updates www.augis.org for all the up to date information PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Professor Giles Toogood for our members