Dear Colleague. I do not know whether you would agree, but time seems to march on with an apparent increasing speed as it only seems a short time since my term as President of this society commenced, in September 2001. I now find we are nine months further on and at the Joint Meeting of the ETRS and the Wound Healing Society in Baltimore I will hand over the presidency to Mark Ferguson.

At this stage of my term of office I would like to feel the society has achieved something and more activities and developments are in the planning stage. In my last letter to you I indicated that I believed the annual meeting in Cardiff last year was a success and we introduced a number of novel aspects to the programme to ensure we continue to improve our educational meetings.

I am pleased to inform you that over the weekend of 19 - 21 April the Board met in Amsterdam to hold a routine Board Meeting, view the conference facilities for our annual meeting in 2003, and have discussions on a wide range of strategic issues of importance for the future of the society.

In May we will join colleagues in Baltimore and I do sincerely hope many members of the ETRS will be there as it is a joint meeting involving both societies and we will be holding our Annual General Meeting at that time.

In June the ETRS will be holding a focus meeting on chronic wound biology that has been supported by Johnson & Johnson. This meeting will hopefully result in communication to members of both the presentations and the results of the discussions.

In September two meetings will be held in France that will provide an opportunity for colleagues from industry to attend an educational course and for us to hold another focus meeting on the subject of tissue repair. We are also in discussion with the organisers of the Second World Wound Healing Congress, which will be held in Paris in 2004, and it is anticipated that the ETRS will be one of the hosting societies.

From the above, hopefully, you will agree that the Board have not been idle and there are a number of activities that will take place to ensure we provide you, as members of this society, with an opportunity to both participate in and receive information as a result of activities we have been involved in.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Baltimore.

Best Wishes, Yours Sincerely

Keith Harding
President