The society has been quite active over the last year. Having Marge Greyling as our Secretariat, a number of outstanding issues have bee resolved specifically the membership database.

The Private Practice sub-committee with Peter Jeffrey has been very active in collating data from Vascular Surgical practices and we now have a collection of data which we can present to DoH. The present NRPL status is in a disarray and we will engage possibly the funders (Dr L. Levien has agreed to help with this venture) to see if a vascular surgeon can be compensated separately for procedures.

Congratulations to Dr J. Pillai our Secretary for having established the Endovascular Education Forum. The plan is to that the Forum involves other centres.

Outstanding issues which we as a society need to address urgently are the training and curriculum of the vascular fellows. I am in the process of getting all University heads together with Professor John Robbs to come up with a structured plan for fellowship training.

As your President, I will represent the Society together with Prof M.G. Veller at the Vascular Society of India in October 2009 to be held in Hyderabad.

I would also like to Congratulate President Elect Philip Matley for having established the Endovascular Workshop, which has now become a feature at our congress.

I wish you well for 2009 – 2010 and would like to take this opportunity in inviting you to KwaMaritane – North West Province for our Biannual meeting to take place from the 14 – 17th October 2010.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr Nad Naidoo for organizing the present congress from the VASSA point of view.

Prof A.T.O Abdool Carrim.
President - VASSA