Richard Oliver introduces plans for our Annual meeting this year.
I started as Programme Secretary formally at the start of the year, but as an ex-Board member (until 2017) and a participant at both the most recent Presidential meetings, my induction period didn’t contain too many surprises.
The previous Board decided to hold a survey about the meetings held by the BSPP; thanks to everyone who participated. As a result, there are a few changes to the way we run our meetings schedule.
First, we have decided to change the name. Ever since the BSPP started, the main annual meeting has been called the Presidential Meeting. The survey suggested that many of you would favour a different title. Calling it the Presidential meeting suggested that the meeting would be solely about the interests of the President. This has never been true. Certainly, the President has always had a major input into the meeting, and this will continue. But we wanted to emphasise that the meeting was for the entire plant pathology community and would be designed to reflect your wishes and with your input. We had to come up with a new name and we have decided to call the meeting Plant Pathology 2023 (and so on) with these twitter handles – #PP2023 and #PlantPathology2023.
Second, we also asked when and where you would like the meeting to be held. A range of views were expressed but the most support was for a September meeting and mid-week. The dates for #PP2023 have been set for Sept 5-8 in Birmingham and for #PP2024 for Sept 10-12 in Oxford. Indeed, our intention is to stick to the second week of Sept (week 37) for the foreseeable future; i.e. Nottingham in 2025 and Norwich in 2026.
So, if you have any suggestions for meetings – suggested speakers, topics, formats, locations – please let me or the President know.
