Summer 2020 Newsletter

Dear All,

We hope you have all been bearing up over the pandemic, and are looking forward to the return back to work.

The UK Eye Genetics Group would like to update you on some news:

1. To continue discussion between clinicians, geneticists and scientists in the UK-EGG membership around cases, new research or health service provision updates in the COVID era. We have set up a new UK-EGG ListServ: UKEyeGeneticsGroup@jisc.ac.uk. 

• Existing members of UK-EGG will need to give us our consent to subscribe to this ListServ, so please email Denize Atan denize.atan@bristol.ac.uk or Gabrielle Wheway g.wheway@soton.ac.uk in the UK Executive committee with your name, valid email address and job role to do this.
• In future, all new members of UK EGG-will be automatically asked if they would like to subscribe to the ListServ.
• For more information about the etiquette of using the listserv, please visit: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/

2. We have a Twitter account @UKEyeGenetics, please follow us and keep up to date with research, activities reating to our field. Let us know is you want us to post any information.
3. Important news about our annual conference, which was due to be held on Tuesday 24th November 2020, but due to concerns about ongoing social distancing, we are postponing our face to face meeting to Monday 21st  June 2021 in the main auditorium of the Francis Crick Institute, so there will be plenty of room to spread out and/or invite more guests. *SAVE THE DATE MON 21st JUNE 2021*

4. Due to this shift of our annual meeting, to continue to mark the 24th November, we hope to introduce quarterly virtual meetings to bring us together for education, learning and active discussion. In order to facilitate this, the executive committee is looking to appoint one or two new members to the team to help us begin this new and exciting UK-EGG webinar programme (see below).

Join us on the UK-EGG committee:

We are looking for enthusiastic and motivated individuals to join the committee for a term of one year initially, although the role(s) could be extended for up to 2 years. The role(s) would be particularly suitable for an early career researcher/clinical trainee in ophthalmology or genetics. 

The title of the new role(s) will be “Director/Co-Directors of seminars” and the main responsibility of the role(s) will be to organize a quarterly seminar series that will focus on the key themes of UK-EGG: education, research, case-based discussion and genetic counselling.  

The holder(s) of the role will coordinate the seminar programme together with the UK-EGG website developer;  promote the role of UK-EGG to the wider eye genetics community; and become integral members of the UK-EGG team, taking part in our regular committee meetings and discussions (4-5 teleconferences per year) chaired by the co-Presidents, Denize Atan and Mariya Moosajee. 

In light of the COVID19 pandemic, the seminars will be hosted by teleconference in the first instance, but the aim is to continue these seminars in the longterm (even after the pandemic has passed) to complement our main annual UK-EGG meeting and provide a forum for continued discussion throughout the year. 

There is no remuneration for the role(s) (nor for any of the UK-EGG executive committee roles) except for registration and travel costs to the annual UK-EGG meeting.

Informal enquiries about the role(s) can be directed to the co-presidents, Denize Atan (denize.atan@bristol.ac.uk ) and Mariya Moosajee (m.moosajee@ucl.ac.uk ).  Applications should be by submission of a half-page statement covering briefly the main challenges of role and what they will bring to the role to Gabrielle Wheway (g.wheway@soton.ac.uk ) 15th July 2020.