Secretary General Report

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Membership

As we come to the start of another year we are extremely encouraged to have seen record membership numbers in 2019. Figures show that on average our association membership is growing by 8% a year. IHPBA now has 2,705 members from 98 countries and we anticipate that numbers will grow even further in the run up to the World Congress in September where significant registration discounts are offered to our members and there is also the opportunity to register at a convenient, single new member rate which includes both congress registration and IHPBA membership.

We would like to welcome all our new members over the past year. Please click here to view the full list of new members since 1 January 2019.

Chapters

A strategic goal of IHPBA is to work with our regional associations and strengthen our network of chapters, and the number of IHPBA/Regional Association chapters is now 54. We recognise that as a global association we do not always have insight into the local infrastructure and the specific needs of all countries and we have identified the need to work closely with our regional associations and chapters to develop programmes which are tailored to their local unique requirements. In 2019, 5 new chapters were formed, and I would like to welcome Bangladesh, Belgium, Nigeria, Poland and Vietnam to the IHPBA Community. The map below highlights all the countries which have now have an IHPBA/Regional Association Chapter and this illustrates what a truly global association IHPBA is.

Website & myHPB

We are continuously working to improve our website and myHPB. We are particularly proud of the pre-operative planning modules and we now have a library of 22 modules available to our members.

The Education and Training Committee also plans to build on the existing video library which currently includes videos from previous world congresses, and this will be an area of focus in 2020. If you are aware of any videos which you think could be included, please email education@ihpba.org. Alternatively, if you have a video of your own which you could like to include, this can be uploaded for review here.

World Congress Preparations

Preparations for the Melbourne World Congress are very advanced. The local organising committee and scientific programme committee have been working hard to develop an outstanding event. The program at a glance in now available and the full list of invited speakers will be added soon. If you are planning to submit an abstract, please remember the abstract deadline of 21 January is fast approaching! You can submit your abstract here.

Visit the 2020 World Congress Website for further information.

Social Media

We recognise the increasing importance of social media as a way of communicating with, and receiving feedback from our members. It has been great to see our social media followers grow, and we now have 2,082 Facebook and 4,568 Twitter followers. This is an ideal way to keep up to date with IHPBA news and information. If you have not already done so, please do follow IHPBA on Facebook and Twitter.

Kevin Conlon
IHPBA Secretary General