Nominations for officers of Council

Council meeting 7th March 2007
Venue: Royal College of Surgeons

Dear Members,

The IMPT Secretary contacted all members for nominations to Council at the beginning of this year via the website and a reminder was emailed to members on the 14th of February. The nomination process is an annual event set out in our Constitution with the intention of ensuring a democratic organisation. Legally Officers must hold a minimum of Full membership and be proposed and seconded by colleagues of equal standing. Council of The IMPT can therefore consist of:

1. Officer – Full members and the Company Solicitor – Voting.
2. Co-Opted Officer – A person joining Council on its request and terms to provide specific expertise/input, may or may not be a member of The IMPT – Non voting.
3. Co-Opted Officer – Volunteer IMPT member, (any level) usual term one year/four meetings – Non voting.

Group three above was introduced a number of years ago to enable members to experience and assist Council before committing to a formal nomination.

Officers serve a term of three years after which, Council requires them to submit to the nomination process again if they wish to continue and then as before they may be subject to a ballot. This year five Officers complete their current term; David Allen, Richard Eggleton, Sarah Jones, Chris Maryan and Kevin Page.

Five nominations have been received and accepted by Council;

David Allen, Barry Edwards, Richard Eggleton, Kevin Page and Sarah Quinn. Council is of the opinion that its current commitments require that its compliment be maintained and therefore five nominations for five places should obviate a ballot of members. It will therefore ask the 2007 Annual General Meeting, (AGM) for its ratification of this decision. Council will then consist of 14 Officers including the Company Solicitor and one Co-Opted Officer, (as 2. above). Our Constitution allows a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 20 Officers. It is interesting to note that two of the nominations this year are from colleagues who joined Council as volunteer Co-Opted Officers and Council would welcome further interest from members wishing to contribute in this capacity.

I am a new Officer of Council (May 2006). I have not served any previous terms. I would like to remind members that nominations are open to any Full member from any hospital. I am grateful for the time that Officers, elected and Co-Opted have given up to attend numerous meetings on behalf of the membership. An example of this is David Allen’s continued dedication to the AFC process, securing another victory (March 2007) for MPT’s at the DoH with the latest email that went out to members.

It has been mentioned to some members of Council that the ‘make-up’ of the Council is limited and not representative of the profession as a whole. All views of this democratic process are welcome and this was discussed at some length at this Council meeting. With 4 representatives from East Grinstead currently on Council potential bias was discussed. Only 1 of these members can vote on any issues that arise, as 3 are Co-Opted members. After the 2007 AGM this situation will be reversed but I can assure the membership that this is not an issue. Lively debate always takes place. We should be grateful to anyone willing to give there time (sometimes holiday entitlement) to the service of the membership. It is an open process, and any individual is able to be nominated. I would like to ask those who might criticise this process to be more positive, stand up and take a place at the table. Only then can you offer a perspective on this process.

Jason Watson BMedSci MIMPT
Council Member
QMC Nottingham