Association News -          ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2004 - 2005

I welcome you all to this Annual General Body Meeting of Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists & Leprologists, West Bengal State Branch for the year 2005.

As a customary description I am to place a brief report of the annual activities of our branch during the year.

Some of you, present here may remember in the last Annual General Body Meeting I was given the honour by choosing me as the secretary for this year, though I was not really prepared for that responsibility, which was shouldered on me I may start my speech in the following manner that Executive Council met several times during the year and Editorial Board of Indian Journal of Dermatology met little less. We have organized several Clinical Meetings (accredited CME) during the year in different institutions of the city as usual, which were well attended by the members and PGTs and some enthusiastic persons enroll themselves mostly for life long bond. Of course these were the routine activities of our branch. I have to give brief account of some of the new activities organized by our branch during the year for first time.

1. I am glad to remind you that this year we have sent Bengali New Year's Greetings to all our members.
2. We have organized 3 PGT Award Seminars, two of which were held at School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata and one at SSKM Hospital. I thank M/s Micro-Vision who helped us by sponsoring the programme. The programme was a grand success. We noticed great enthusiasm amongst the PGTs and they enjoyed every bit of the programme.
3. We also organized few General Practitioners' Awareness programme on common dermatoses for the general practitioners. It was meant for updating General Practitioners about skin problems as it is they, who mostly tackle, some time mis-tackle. We noticed great enthusiasm amongst the general practitioners, who gladly used this forum. I thank M/s Croslands for extending their co-operation for organizing the same. The programme actually spread from Siliguri to Kolkata at several places of West Bengal.
4. Two health camps were organized by the association. One at Sheoraphuli, Hooghly and the another at Shantipur of Nadia District with the help of the benevolent association of those areas. Here also, we noticed great response from local people who stood in a long queue for skin check up and we provided free samples as far as possible.
5. This year, for the first time, our branch have celebrated Bijoya Sammilani -cum- Iftar Party at Maharaja Hall on 30th October 2004. The programme was ornamented by the songs of a noted vocal artist followed by a dinner. The entire programme was sponsored by M/s Palsons Drugs. I thank them for their active co-operation
6. We also celebrated Christmas Day and New Year's Day on 28th December 2004 in our office.
7. Though we have extended and diversified our activities, no financial burden was incurred by our branch.
8. Tsunami disaster, which rocked the world and India as well, just after the Christmas, had sent a shivering chill down the spine. We wish we could be with them trying to minimize their sufferings as much as we can, but other bindings prevented us from physically present with them. The executive committee expressed solidarity with grief striken unfortunate people and decided to donate Rs.50,001/- to the Tsunami Fund, which was sent to Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.

We have received the surplus amount of DERMACON 2003 which has been kept in the Fixed Deposit. I thank Dr. Nitin Mukherjee, Organising Secretary of DERMACON 2003 and his team for the same. Executive committee has taken a decision for creating a fund out of the interest of the Fixed Deposit for research activities and will be named as "Dermatology Research Foundation"

This year we have organized CUTICON 2004 very successfully. I convey our sincere thanks to Dr. Koushik Lahiri, Organising Secretary and his team for organizing the conference so nicely and promising a good amount of surplus. We are proud of our journal Indian Journal of Dermatology. Thanks to Dr. S.R. Sengupta, Editor and Dr. Sanjay Ghosh, Managing Editor and the members of the Editorial Board for their sincere effort for upliftment of our journal. I am glad to inform you that this year we are going to celebrate 50 years of our journal in a befitting manner.

I pay my regards to the President Dr. D. N. Gangopadhyay for his guidance during my tenure. I also thank the Office-bearers and Members of the Executive Council for their help and co-operation for running the activities of the association very smoothly. I also thank all the members who always extended their helping hand whenever we required and made all our events successful.

In spite of my best efforts there may be some lapses on my part, for which I sincerely apologize. An individual has a limited power but mankind is almighty. Though I am a humble person but our association has enormous buoyancy and we should be proud of our association.

I welcome the new team and hope that under their able effort the activities of the association will be more improved.