The BPOS 30th Birthday Conference

17th – 18th January, Southampton

2013 marked 30 years since the creation of BPOS in 1983 and so we pushed the boat out and organised an extra-special celebratory conference. Professor Maggie Watson was invited to open the conference with a short speech about her experiences of setting up BPOS and the growth that she has seen in the last 3 decades. Excellent keynote presentations were given by Professor Neil Aaronson (Netherlands Cancer Institute), Professor Eilis McCaughan (University of Ulster), Professor Jessica Corner (Southampton University) and Professor Amanda Ramirez (King’s College, London).

Oral presentations were grouped into four themed sessions: Caregiving, families and genetic risk; Treatment and transition; Measurement and methodology; and, Survivorship. The conference also saw one of the biggest poster presentation sessions of any recent BPOS conference.

Delegates at the conference were treated to a piece of the BPOS Birthday Cake which was ceremoniously cut by Maggie Watson (Founder), Nick Hulbert-Williams (Current Chair), and Claire Foster (Conference Host). Those who came to the conference dinner were not only served excellent food, but were entertained by a local ukulele band. In spirit of healthy competition, delegates were also invited to compete in our gingerbread house decoration competition; the judges were incredibly surprised by the level of creativity displayed – there are clearly some home bakers in the BPOS membership!

Student Conference 2013 : Making a difference

3rd July, Oxford

Building on the success of our 2012 student conference, we were delighted that our 2nd annual event drew an even bigger audience of PhD students. In keeping with our aims of facilitating networking, there was plenty of opportunity for students to discuss the progress that they were making with their PhDs and to provide peer support to each other when things had (occasionally) not gone quite to plan!

The focus of this year’s event was on making a difference and so we welcome two inspiring keynote speakers. First, Eila Watson (also the co-organiser and host of the event) talked about publishing and disseminating research, and Dr Andy Turner (Coventry University) talked about the development and success of their HOPE intervention.