Autumn Newsletter 2010
Welcome to the Autumn newsletter.
Carys Bannister
It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of Carys
Bannister on 20 August this year.
Carys was an Honorary Member of the Society and a familiar
figure at the Annual Meetings. She was appointed OBE in 1999 and,
in her retirement, whilst still working on research in the labs at
UMIST, enjoyed some success breeding and showing her beloved corgi
dogs.
Tributes to Carys and an obituary can be found on the
website.
Vancouver meeting 7-10 July 2010
The 54th Annual Meeting was held at the University of
British Columbia at the invitation of Bill Arnold, Doug Cochrane
and Bev Irwin who arranged a packed and exciting programme both
scientifically and socially. We even had hot, sunny and -
apparently unusually for Vancouver - dry weather for which the
organisers happily took full responsibility! The
welcome reception was held at the Museum of Anthropology on the
campus, the Society outing began with a salmon barbeque lunch at
the Long House followed by a dinner cruise through the fjords of
Howe Sound off downtown Vancouver. The Annual Dinner was held at
the Cecil Green House, an historic mansion with stunning mountain
views.
The scientific programme included presentations by three Special
Lecturers: Dr Benjamin Warf on "Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida in
Uganda", Dr Rima Rozen on "Biochemistry and Genetics of Folate
Mechanism" and Dr Margot Van Allen on "Prenatal Diagnosis and Folic
acid in the Detection and Prevention of Neural Tube Defects". In
addition, Dr Harold Rekate gave an extended presentation on "The
Definition and Classification of Hydrocephalus".
All these presentations can be found on the Society website.
The Casey Holter Essay prize, due this year, was not
awarded.
For the first time, the Executive Committee awarded prizes to
presenters at the meeting. There were five prizes awarded of £100
each.
Best Clinical Oral: Renate Verbeek "Does fetal
endoscopic closure of the myelomeningocele prevent loss of
neurologic function in spina bifida aperta?"
Best Basic Science Oral: Sonia Podvin "Augurin
production in the mammalian choroid plexus: implications for CSF
and hydrocephalus"
Best Clinical Poster: Ester Pages: "Patients
with spina bifida and bladder cancer: our experience"
Best Basic Science Poster: Emilia
Carmona-Calero "Immunohistochemical study of human embryonic brain
choroid plexuses and subcommissural organ"
President's Prize: Reinhold Cremer "Is it
possible to use specific IgE to single latex allergens to
discriminate between spina bifida patients with natural rubber
latex allergy and sensitisation?"
Many congratulations to all the prize-winners.
The Society is very grateful to the organising committee, the
BCU staff and the volunteers for all their hard work in making this
one of the most successful meetings that the Society has had.
Subscriptions
Our Hon Treasurer, Roger Strachan, asks that you all respond to
requests for payment of your subscriptions due in January 2011 and
please use the facility on the website now set up to pay by credit
card through PayPal.
If you have a problem, please email Roger at rogerstrachan@hotmail.com
New members
The Society welcomed 13 new ordinary members this year. In
addition Hazel Jones and Ray Fitzgerald were elected as Honorary
Members, and their citations can be found on the Society website.
Elin Ifan becomes a Senior Member.
Executive Committee changes
Rosemary Batchelor is now Honorary Secretary; many thanks to
Hazel Jones who has worked hard in this post for the past 5
years.
The two new Ordinary Committee Members elected at the AGM are
Sven Mattson and Gill Yaz.
Publication of proceedings
The proceedings will be published online in Cerebrospinal
Fluid Research www.cerebrospinalresearch.com
They have also been published on the Society website.
At the AGM in Barcelona in 2005, there were discussions around
whether the Society should continue to publish in CSFR and it was
agreed to revisit this after 5 years. It is now time to poll the
Society members for their views as to how we should move
forward.
Please look at the website for information on this topic and how
to vote.
Everybody has a vote: please use yours.
Future meetings
2011: Nottingham 22-25 June
The Nottingham meeting will be held at the Jubilee Campus,
University of Nottingham organised by Roger Bayston, Waheed Ashraf,
Lyn Rylance and Rosemary Batchelor.
The Jubilee Campus is an award - winning eco-friendly campus and
accommodation [single, en-suite rooms], dining facilities and the
lecture rooms are within a few minutes walk of one another.
The welcome reception will be in Town at the Council House
[Nottingham's Town Hall] where we hope to be joined by the Lord
Mayor and the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine.
The Annual Outing will start with a visit to Nottingham Castle
where the annual photograph will be taken. We will then go on to
the Manning School, a performing arts school for girls where we
will be entertained by the pupils and will have afternoon tea. The
buses will then take us to the River Trent for an evening dinner
cruise. The Society Dinner on the Friday evening will be held at
the Old Library, Nottingham Trent University where Sir Peter
Mansfield, Nobel Prize-winning inventor of MRI, will join us as
will the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Please note: the closing date for abstract submission
will be Monday 14 February.
2012: The Netherlands at the invitation of
Pieter Dik and colleagues. Pieter is negotiating the possibility of
running a joint meeting with the European Society of Paediatric
Neurosurgeons with some shared sessions but with the majority held
separately. In this event, the meeting will be in Amsterdam with a
change of date to 1-4 May.
If the meeting is to be arranged as usual, the venue will be
Utrecht and will be held at the end of June.
As soon as the plans for 2012 have been finalised, there will be
information on the website. If you have views on these two
alternative arrangements, please email them to the Hon Secretary
<rosemaryb@asbah.org>
2013: No meeting arranged as yet.
If you are interested in running this meeting, or have
suggestions for the Committee to approach, please email to srhsb@asbah.org
Rosemary Batchelor
October 2010
