The OAA celebrated its Golden Jubilee at the ASM in Newcastle in 2019, where we looked back at 50 years of endeavour to improve care in obstetric anaesthesia. Since then, tumultuous and disruptive national and international events have posed challenges for our members.
The OAA has worked hard to support its members work through these challenges. We provided advice and support on delivering care during the Covid pandemic and, more recently, how to cope with supply chain failures of essential equipment and drugs.
Behind the scenes, the OAA has also been working hard to lay solid foundations for the next 50 years. New Articles of Association have been written so that OAA governance is now compliant with current charity law legislation. New database systems have been built to modernise our membership and event booking systems. There is a new abstract submission system for our ASM. In addition, a new OAA Survey system is being built to make it easier for members to submit survey proposals for OAA peer review and dissemination and to make it easier for members to respond to the surveys and have their voices heard.
Streamlining membership
We have also streamlined our membership categories and made it easier to pay membership subscriptions. Members who have retired from clinical practice now have the option of a single payment lifetime membership, giving access to IJOA and free entry to all future OAA meetings. Our retired members represent our institutional memory, and we welcome their continued engagement with the OAA family.
For those members who have a prolonged leave of absence from work, there will be the option to pause their membership subscriptions but still retain all membership rights. There is no better time than now to join the OAA!
New website and branding
Reading this blog, you will have already noticed the most visible changes, a new OAA website and new OAA branding. We hope that the new website will make it easier for you to navigate all the helpful OAA resources and deliver value for your membership with lots of member-only content. It is early days, and the website will continue to evolve and mature as the OAA continues to progress and innovate.
The introduction of our new brand design reflects our determination to evolve and our commitment to being a relevant and inclusive organisation for our members.
We have not forgotten LabourPains. It, too, has had a brand makeover, and a fresh new website has been built. We will be reviewing all our LabourPains content to ensure it is up to date and accessible to the public.
The Executive Committee are committed to ensuring that OAA continues to work hard to educate, inform, and be a voice for obstetric anaesthetists everywhere.
This blog is the latest incarnation of the PencilPoint newsletter. We will bring you further blogs to keep you informed, so why not bookmark the blog page to ensure you don’t miss it.
We thank you for your membership and support.
