This weekend two colleagues and myself travelled to Edinburgh to meet members of our two Scottish Branches (East Scotland, based in the capital, and West Scotland, based in Glasgow).
It was a long trip but well worth it. A good number of members from both branches turned up and proved to be very positive about the recent developments within the organisation and our plans for the future.
We also discussed our plans to ask the Big Lottery Fund to fund a new research project based at Edinburgh University. Naturally members were keen that we attract funds for any RP project, but this one is particularly interesting as it focuses on prevention of retinal degeneration and is not gene-specific. Hopefully we will be able to make more announcements about the project soon.
The group were very welcoming and had lots of questions for us, which led to healthy discussion about a whole host of issues.
Edinburgh is a beautiful city too, though we didn’t get to see a lot of it (we were working … honestly). I hope to go back again soon and perhaps make a full weekend of it and tour the castle and so on.
Overall a very positive branch meeting with some very supportive members. My thanks to the local Chairs Jim McLean and Lynn Barr for their hospitality.
Tags: branch network, edinburgh, retinitis pigmentosa, scotland
April 25, 2009 at 6:20 pm |
All this is very interesting, but for me it is a 200 mile round trip to attend a branch meeting. I understand there are 2 other RP people in this part of Scotland each about 60 miles away and uninterested in contact. It gets a bit lonely!!! Also I do not understand the ‘computerspeak’used to suggest ways of getting more information. eg. RSS20 or trackback!!!
April 26, 2009 at 11:01 am |
Hi Sheila
You’ve hit one of our top issues on the head – trying to get people together in rural areas. There’s no easy answer but I hope the technology will help a little bit.
RSS is about getting information from this blog, and other sites, showing directly in your internet browser screen. It’s a way of having news and information delivered directly to you rather than you having to go searching various sites for it. You can click on the little orange icon and you should be offered the opportunity to set the link up on your machine. They are often known as “feeds”. You’ll find the chance to get feeds offered by lots of news sites, the BBC site is a very good example (http://news.bbc.co.uk).
One other suggestion is joining Facebook (www.facebook.com) which costs nothing and will allow you to link with people around the world with similar interests. We have set up what is called a ‘group’ on Facebook which is at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=45878335090. There about 150 members at the moment.
Keep in touch
David