Ladies, form an orderly queue…

It’s been a busy few months in the BADN office – our National Dental Nursing Conference in Cheltenham last month, Showcase in Birmingham this month and now we are nearly at Christmas! Plus, we’ve had a few personnel changes.

The National Dental Nursing Conference was a huge success with a record number of delegates attending. We were sponsored by the BDTA, NHS Direct and Philips Sonicare; speakers were sponsored by the British Chiropractic Association, Colgate, Nobel Biocare, Philips Sonicare, Schuelke, the University of Kent and WR Berkley – and covered everything from law and ethics to health and safety to cross infection to personal and professional development, implants, forensics, max-fac and prosthetics! We had a black-tie dinner with swing music – we even had British cheeses from the British Cheese Board!

This year was the first time we fully used our new online conference registration facility CVENT, and it meant that delegates could register online, choose which presentations they wanted to attend, choose what they wanted to eat and let us know who they wanted to sit with.

The conference feedback was also on line and delegates will be able to download their CPD certificates – as soon as I have done the necessary techie bits! The feedback on the Conference will be analysed and forwarded to delegates, speakers, sponsors and published in the British Dental Nurses’ Journal.

We’d hardly got our breath back when it was time to pack up again and head off to Birmingham for Dental Showcase. A record number of dental nurses attended – and most of them came to our stand to get their free USB memory stick, courtesy of Colgate.

We handed out nearly 1,000 membership application forms – although we had underestimated the number of student dental nurses likely to attend and had to take email addresses to forward student associate forms later.

This was the first Conference and Showcase for Katie, our new admin assistant, and also for Chris from Parliament Hill (who provide our BADN benefits scheme) who proved to be quite a hit with the ladies!

Chris will be back on the stand next year at ExCel – so, ladies, please form an orderly queue.

I was up and down to London twice in one week at the end of November – once for the Memnet Conference (Memnet is the professional association for people who run professional associations) on Monday (which meant travelling down on Sunday – never a good thing!); and then again on Thursday/Friday for meetings with the GDC and with the BDA, with our insurers to discuss an exciting new online development early next year and the BDA Honours and Awards Dinner.

The BADN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Dental Nursing was awarded to Janet Goodwin for her work in dental nurse education. A full report and photos will be in the Winter 2010 edition of the British Dental Nurses’ Journal.

I normally take a week’s leave after Conference, but our front office admin left unexpectedly in October, so it was all ‘hands on deck’ for the post-conference/pre-showcase period.  I did manage a few days after Showcase, but had to come into the office to conduct job interviews. We are delighted to welcome Val Forshaw, who will be our new membership admin assistant.

While all this was going on, we were getting the autumn journal ready for publication, marking the verifiable CPD for the summer/autumn journals – and held the November finance committee and council meetings.

It all seems unnaturally calm at the moment – just a few meetings in the run-up to Christmas – although next Friday I have a meeting at the Hilton to start organising next year’s Conference!

This will be 26 and 27 November at the Blackpool Hilton – details will be in the July (summer) edition of the British Dental Nurses’ Journal and on the BADN website.

The 2008 and 2009 delegates will get a priority email invitation next spring. We’re probably going with a Christmas theme – there’s no presidential dinner next year, just an informal – possibly fancy dress – evening.

We’re also hoping to be able to announce the launch of new CPD options AND an online membership application/renewal facility in 2010.

The BADN office will be closed from Christmas Eve until 4 Jan – but I’m off on holiday until mid January.  I’m off to Malta for a bit of R&R – no meetings, no ‘crackberry’, no phones or email – just me, a good book, a few cocktails and the occasional visit to the spa!

Visit www.badn.org.uk.

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