Welcome from Mr Peter Briggs

It gives me great pleasure to serve as President of the British Society of Prosthodontics. I like many of you will still be on a high after a very high quality 2014 conference at Dundee.

I first became involved with the organisation of society in 2010 and from the word go was struck by the friendliness of the people involved with the society and the 'collective will' to drive on and modernise our society for the 21st century but never forgetting our history and heritage. It was good to see so many senior members supporting Brendan and the society in Dundee.

There is much talent and drive within the membership of BSSPD that has enabled us to re-brand and plan new goals for the future. Promotion of education, training and research are our agreed major core aims. We are committed to supporting and encouraging young clinicians and researchers with talent and providing them support and a platform to demonstrate their skills. I thought that the standard of the oral Schottlander prize presentations at our Dundee 2014 Conference was outstanding. In addition, the quality of the poster presentations was equally good. This means to me that our society is seen as an important place to present high-quality research.

I would just like to take the opportunity to thank Brendan Scott and his organisation team for putting together such a successful conference in Dundee. We could all see that much thought had gone into both the educational and social programme. The feedback confirms that this was much enjoyed by those present. I would also personally like to thank Brendan Scott for his effort and hard work during what was a very strong and successful Presidential year. He certainly leaves the society in a strong position and has set the bar high for others to follow. I welcome James Owen and Gareth Brock to our Council - we plan to keep you both busy!

It is very important that our aspirations remain high in terms of future conferences and CDP output. We must be prepared to take a few risks and listen carefully to what our members want and to also consider carefully the additional things that we might need to do to attract new members.

We plan to run 10 BSSPD webinars during 2014/2015. These are a great way of us providing quality educational output throughout the whole year to which we all can engage. I feel that this is especially important when we have one spring conference. These Webinars will be free to all members and will include broad prosthodontic subject areas that should interest all. CPD certificates will be available via www.bssp.org (on successful completion of 10 best answer questions related to the webinar). I would encourage as many of you as possible to log on and join in with these society webinars. In anticipation I would like to thank the Webinar group that includes: Chris Butterworth, James Field and Phil Taylor and the invited speakers.
Politically, as usual we will make comment and respond to issues that are thought important for our membership, training and prosthodontics. For instance the GDC have recently invited consultation about specialist lists which is something we should engage with.

Although much work and effort has already been put in we are looking to constantly improve our website with the goal of increasing its ease of use and to ensure that we appear on common dental and prosthodontic searches. However web providers are only as good as the information that they are given. We would be grateful to hear any additional views on this from our members. All agree that our Newsletter goes from strength to strength and I would like to thank Derek Moore for his efforts and those supplying him with material for publication.

We are constantly looking to increase our exposure to dental practitioners. James Owen, who has recently joined Council, will be helping us with this. There are plans for the BSSPD to be represented at the 2015 annual BDA conference. It is hoped that this will allow us to better demonstrate what it is that we can offer to new members.

Finally, I would like you all to put the dates of the London BSSPD conference: 'Confronting the Grey Areas' in your diaries. We are making change to our past conference format in 2015. The conference will run on Friday 27th March and Saturday 28th March 2015. The society has booked a number of rooms in the conference hotel: Pullman Hotel, London St Pancras at preferential rates. I am hopeful that many of you will stay in the hotel as I think it is important to have a good hotel central to good conference. The conference with the aid well-known European and UK speakers will be looking into the grey areas of: CAD CAM technology, modern ceramics, society debate on the implication of phase-down of dental amalgam in the UK, cracked teeth, occlusion, prosthodontic dento-legal issues, implant use in periodontal patients and decision-making in terms of the use of adhesive or conventional prosthodontics to manage tooth wear. The society last held a London conference under Paul Wright's presidency in 2001. I am hoping, with your support, that we can make it another successful one.

Kindest regards, Peter Briggs,

President, The British Society of Prosthodontics (BSSPD)
pfabdental@hotmail.com