December 2007

Community Dental Health (2007) 24, 268-270 © BASCD 2007 Ladies and Gentleman, it gives me great pleasure to both address you today, and welcome you to Edinburgh. It is a great honour to be elected as president and to follow in the footsteps of the famous names in the history of UK dental public health that appear on this weighty badge of office. First, I would like to thank Sue Gregory for leading our association through another busy and demanding year. You may recall that it was in Cambridge, in March 2006, Sue stated that it was chance that her conference coincided with the biggest change in NHS dentistry since 1948. nGDS went live in England & Wales, and this happened just after we left the restful confines of Robinson College. Sue’s contribution to community dentistry, dental public health and her leadership of BASCD has been outstanding. Because of her leadership the Association is robust and healthy. From everyone, thank you Sue. I also have to thank the members of BASCD council who work hard on behalf of their members. Our council members do make a huge contribution to the association and both the benefit of their experience and the fruits of their hard work have made my time on BASCD Council so much easier. One of the many strengths of BASCD is our broad membership. All of you members, officers and council are drawn from a wide spectrum across dentistry. So that our meetings always have tremendous atmosphere which I think results from the many different perspectives that delegates bring to the meetings. I would encourage each one of you to introduce at least one suitable work colleague to BASCD to make sure we grow and continue to be the specialist society for community dentistry. I would also ask the younger members to consider standing for BASCD council. My experience is that you will not be disappointed. I enjoyed an excellent training in Dental Public Health; in fact I had a great time, I would recommend it to everyone. It was a privilege to study public health and widen my horizons.