Council changes The meeting opened by welcoming Anthony Oxley back to Council. It was noted that Simon Riley had resigned from Council and that Helen Remington intended to resign after the April meeting. It was reported that Cathy Mooney had agreed to take on the role of District Member for London North.
Council Elections Nomination forms have been issued and must be returned by 22/2/03.
Celltech Medals It was announced that Ian Simpson had been awarded the Celltech Gold Medal and that Trevor Beswick had been awarded the Celltech Silver Medal.
OFT Report response A response to the Office of Fair Trading Report into control of entry regulations for community pharmacies is to be compiled and sent to each of the Home Country Health Departments. The response will be placed on the www.ghpscot.org.uk website after completion.
Amicus Technician Structure Section General Secretary, Barry Jones, is to write to all pharmacy technician members with a view to creating a proper section for technicians with a structure to enable proper input to Amicus policy and health matters. It was noted that the Association of Pharmacy Technicians is primarily a professional organisation and Amicus technician members need some way to feed into the national negotiating machinery.
Recruitment It was announced that there was to be a prize for the 3000th member recruited to the Guild. No further details are available, but it is hoped that the identity of the new member will be known by the Annual Conference. Martin Pratt was elected as the new recruitment officer.
Annual National Conference, Bristol, 4-6 April 2003 Full details of the conference have been sent to members. A pdf file of the application form can be downloaded from here.
Agenda For Change Pharmaceutical Whitley Council Staff Side is to produce briefing papers on different aspects of the Agenda For Change package. Further details were not available at Council as the people involved were attending an AFC briefing meeting at Amicus-MSF HQ in Moreland Street. Members were urged to attend local briefing meetings being held by Amicus full time officers or senior reps. There should also be local training events for reps taking place.
www.ghp.org.uk website A password protected, members-only section of the website is to be set up within the next couple of weeks. Members will need to enter their membership number and a password to access the area. I will be informing members of the password through the ghpscot-announce mailing list. If you are not a member of the mailing list, you can join by contacting me or by completing the form here
Colin Rodden 7 February 2003