Welcome to this bumper edition of NewsBoard!

We have been very busy developing our Corporate Plan, which outlines the way ahead for ABRSM over the next five years. This involves careful review and analysis of our work particularly over the last year and then forming sensible and workable exams as we take things forward into 2010.

There are changes to Aural tests and Syllabuses, a new online Professional Development course, more supporting materials being developed by our Marketing Team and many other plans for you, our Representatives, to become even more effective in your own particular region on behalf of ABRSM.

Travel plans for staff in the London office are now being agreed and we will be in touch with those of you who will be affected by these plans well before the end of this year. Also, if you haven’t already, you will shortly be hearing from your Tours Coordinator about the 2010 Tactical Plan for your region.

I do hope you will find this edition of NewsBoard informative and helpful.

Contents From the international department

Staff changes Re-entry vouchers Representative changes 2009 International scholars

From the marketing department Libretto needs you New guidance for High Scorers’ Concerts Promotional materials and support One name. One image. One ABRSM Representatives as retailers

Syllabus and publishing news Syllabus updates New materials for Aural Tests ABRSM Song book wins MIA Award

Professional development news New online course CT ABRSM fast track course Centenary travel grant Professional development programme report

Events and news ABRSM international young composer competition 120th anniversary celebrations Representative conferences High Scorers’ Concerts around the world

And Finally …..

No.27 2009-3

From the international department

Staff changes

We have had a few more staff changes since the last edition of NewsBoard so would like to update you and introduce some new faces.

We’re delighted to have Heather Walker back in the department full time now following a period away from the office whilst she was unwell.

Tours Coordinator Sarah Berman moved on from her position here in the International department in September. We wish her all the best with her new company.

Nick Smith has been promoted permanently to the role of Tours Coordinator he was previously covering on a temporary basis, looking after the Middle East, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, and Greece

We are pleased to welcome James Welburn to the department. James is filling the Admin Assistant post left vacant by Nick, and will be handling the Malaysia and Hong Kong help desks as well as offering support on practical and theory exam administration.

James recently graduated from City University with a BSc (hons) in Music, during which his focuses included sound recording and production, music business and electroacoustic composition. He studied piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and also plays guitar, recently achieving a top 25

finish worldwide in Guitar Idol 2009. His interests include songwriting, composing, tennis, football and snooker. He is looking forward to developing his role within the department and learning more about how ABRSM functions on a global scale.

Jay Geraghty also departed for pastures new at the end of September. We wish her all the best for her new life in Manchester. Replacing Jay, we’re delighted to introduce Charlotte Letchford.

Charlotte graduated in July this year from Royal Holloway University of London with a BA Honours degree in Music. Charlotte has always been heavily involved with the music and drama scene and is a keen flautist and singer. She is extremely happy to have joined the ABRSM and looks forward to maintaining a connection with the world of music through her work, as well as continuing to perform and attend concerts in her spare time.

Finally, our Allocation Coordinator, Dom Williams, has also moved. Dom worked for us on a part time basis whilst also running his own business, which now requires more of his time.

So, a very warm welcome goes to our new Allocation Coordinator, Olivia Pisani. Olivia has previously spent many years as a sound artist, undertaking artist residencies in Europe, and performing at venues such as Tate Britain and

No.27 2009-3

Notting Hill Arts club. Olivia is with us 2 days a week and in addition works at a live Gypsy Jazz venue in London, is responsible for publicity and marketing for a music collective, The Arctic Circle and is also currently training to be a mediator for Tower Hamlets Mediation Service. Olivia's passion lies in contemporary music and arts and spends any free time traversing the underground contemporary scene in London.

Re-entry vouchers

We are about to produce the individually numbered re-entry vouchers ready for 2010 and so need to know how many to print. Please contact Charlotte Letchford (cletchford@abrsm.ac.uk) and let her know how many you expect to need for 2010 by 30 November. Don’t forget to make sure you send your completed re-entry voucher record sheet back to your Tours Coordinator too as these are vital for our auditors.

Representative changes

Sweden

Vivianne Vikersjö, previously our Rep in Sweden, has retired from her post at Nacka Music School after 8 years as our Representative. Vivianne has been a wonderful supporter of ABRSM and has promoted our exams extensively throughout Sweden. Vivianne even translated Music Theory in Practice Gd1 and 2 into Swedish (Musikteori i Praktiken). Vivianne's successor is Gun-Marie Engström who teaches singing at Nacka Music School. Gun-Marie has entered candidates for exams so is familiar with ABRSM and our administrative systems. Canberra

We have a new Representative in Canberra, Australia, after Jessica Stewart decided to stand down. Our new Representative is Elizabeth Pulsford, a piano teacher who runs a home studio as well as teaching part-time at a school in Canberra. Germany Following reorganization within CF Peters, our Representation for Germany has moved from Frankfurt to Edition Hinrichsen GmbH in Leipzig. Under the management of Thomas Stein, Edition Hinrichsen will now look after our work in the whole of Germany as Kate Beatty has also decided to step down from her position as Representative for Oberbayern and Augsburg. Huston, USA We are delighted to announce the appointment of Ruth Mack as our new Representative for Houston. Ruth is replacing Paula Collins who has moved away from Houston due to work commitments. Previously, Ruth Mack was the ABRSM Regional Coordinator for the Transvaal, Botswana and Swaziland regions in South Africa (1993-1997) before emigrating to Houston in 1999. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all the Representatives who have recently stood down for all their hard work and support over the years and welcome the successors. We look forward to working with you all!

2009 international scholars

As you know, each year ABRSM funds scholarships for International students at each of the four Royal Schools. An undergraduate and a postgraduate scholarship is awarded for each of the schools and we’re pleased to announce the Scholars who have recently taken up their places for 2009:

Royal Academy of Music

Undergraduate Zoya Vyazovskya Flute Russia Postgraduate Runette Botha Voice South Africa

Royal College of Music

Undergraduate Kenny Salazar Piano Venezuela Postgraduate Sergey Basukinsky Piano Russia

Royal Northern College of Music

Undergraduate Ignatius Kim Violin South Korea Postgraduate Bo Wang Voice China

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

Undergraduate Jiang Gongbo Violin China Postgraduate Stephen Chambers Voice New Zealand

Each scholar receives a substantial grant towards living costs plus payment of their tuition fees each year for the duration of their course. Places are highly sort after and we continue to receive applications from a wide range of countries, instruments and see an extremely high standard from applicants.

Applications for the 2010 academic year are now arriving. The deadline for applications is 31 January 2010. If you receive enquiries please guide people to the information on our web site at www.abrsm.ac.uk/students.

From the marketing department

Libretto needs you

We hope you are all enjoying your new look Libretto. As we look to future editions, we are keen to ensure the magazine includes a wide range of international content that reflects our global activities. If you know of a potential story or have an idea for a feature, do get in touch. We’d also love to hear if you know of someone who we can contact to comment on a particular topic. In addition, we will be publishing an expert ‘opinion piece’ in most editions of the magazine and would very much like to feature professionals from outside the UK. Again, if you know of someone who might like to write such an article, please contact Tony Pinkham, our Communications Manager: tpinkham@abrsm.ac.uk

New guidance for High Scorers’ Concerts

Organising a High Scorers’ Concert takes effort but can also be a very rewarding experience, offering opportunities to develop relationships with musicians, schools, teachers and parents.

We are very keen to assist you in any way we can to organise High Scorers’ Concerts and have developed a few hints and tips to help. These provide five easy steps for planning and running a concert and can be found on the Rep area of the web site

www.abrsm.org/repsdownload

Username: abrsm

Password: repsarea.

For more information or advice on High Scorers’ Concerts, please contact Claire Milner, International Marketing Executive: cmilner@abrsm.ac.uk.

We also like to hear all about the concert and see photos of the event, so we can include details in Libretto, NewsBoard and our Annual Review when possible.

Promotional materials and support

The marketing department have been working hard on increasing the supplies and support materials available to Representatives. We have a large range of promotional materials available for activities and events.

For more information and advice please visit please visit: www.abrsm.org/repsdownload or contact Claire Milner, cmilner@abrsm.ac.uk

One name. One image. One ABRSM

To fully implement our new brand identity and to ensure it is effective in achieving one strong image, it is important that we develop consistency and continuity across all of our publications, products, communications, events and exam centres. Please update Claire Milner with any marketing activity you are undertaking, whether that be communications, posters or signage etc, so that we can help you ensure the new brand is being consistency applied. If you want help or advice on applying the new brand, you can contact brand@abrsm.ac.uk.

Representatives as retailers

We know that many of you are keen to act on our behalf as retailers of our publications in your area. We also know that the procedure for how to go about doing this and what, as one of our reps, you are entitled to receive as terms and conditions of sale is unclear. We have now worked with our worldwide distributor, Oxford University Press (OUP), to agree a procedure for how you can act as a retailer

High Scorers Concert: Programme Covers

Certificates

Tickets

Badges

Promotional Material: Pens, Pencils

Notepads

Folders

Blank posters

Publication Posters

Syllabus guides

Libretto

on our behalf, receiving special discount terms on our publications. The various procedures for how this will work are set out below:

Option 1

All ABRSM International Reps are entitled to receive a standard 20% discount on all ABRSM publications. In order to receive this discount, we would have to provide OUP with your details to set up your pro-forma (payable in advance by credit card or bank transfer) account. Please contact our International Sales Executive, David Curran, to set up this discount: dcurran@abrsm.ac.uk. You will then be able to place your order with OUP by email, fax or telephone. We will provide you with these contact details once your discount has been set up.

Option 2

ABRSM is committed to supporting the work of music retailers worldwide; they provide us with retail space to showcase all our publications and are a key source of music information for all of our applicants, candidates, reps and parents. They also have specialist knowledge, not only of ABRSM titles but also of other publishers’ editions and of the music industry more widely.

We do understand that, in certain areas, there are no music retailers or that those there are do not keep the supply of ABRSM music you might hope for. In such cases, we will consider offering regular trade discount terms to our Reps to allow them to perform this service in the area. This would involve setting up a trading account with OUP, on a pro-forma basis, which would be the Reps’ responsibility to manage.

If you are interested in setting up a trade account with OUP please contact us so we can give you further advice and information about how to go about doing this.

Option 3

Some Reps regularly act as retailers, owning or running their own retail outlet. That being the case, you will continue to receive your agreed trade discount and manage this account as before.

Please note that all orders will incur a freight charge – charges differ based on the method of carriage you select, your location and the weight of your order. OUP are able to provide you with details of these costs when you place your orders.

If you require any further information about how to purchase ABRSM titles direct from us or would like any advice about opening a trading account with OUP please feel free to contact us:

E dcurran@abrsm.ac.uk

T +44 (0)20 7467 8286

Syllabus and publishing news

Syllabus updates

At the end of July, we published new syllabus booklets for woodwind, brass and bowed strings. Please note that the woodwind and brass syllabuses are now published as two separate booklets and they also have longer durations -- woodwind 4 years and brass 3 years.

Within the new booklets, the following repertoire lists have been revised (NB no changes for woodwind):

Cello Double Bass Trumpet/Cornet/Flugelhorn Trombone Bass Trombone

These revised lists take effect from January next year, and the normal overlap of one year applies to the old lists. All other requirements for graded exams remain the same.

New materials for Aural Tests

Over the course of this year we have reviewed our support materials for Aural Tests and commissioned a new suite of publications, including Specimen Aural Tests (to be published in July 2010), a complete revision of Aural Training in Practice, and a new set of tests for examiners to use in the actual exams.

For some time teachers had been telling us that they needed more examples, especially of the D tests, and that it would be useful to have all the examples recorded. As well as responding to these points, we have also made some minor modifications to the tests, which will be introduced from January 2011. These have come about through the experience of examining and the feedback we have had from teachers and learners. We went through all examiner ‘rubrics’ (the form of words they use to present the tests) with a fine toothcomb, and made sure that everything was entirely consistent across the various publications. The new Specimen Aural Tests include these rubrics, so teachers will be able to present the tests to their students in a way that mirrors the exam experience for candidates.

Full details about the new publications and the few modifications will be included in the May 2010 Libretto.

ABRSM Songbook wins MIA award

The ABRSM Songbook has been awarded Best Classical Publication at the Music Industries Association (MIA) Awards 2009. The awards ceremony was held on Wednesday 7 October 2009 at The Park Lane Hotel, London.

The ABRSM Songbook (in five volumes) offers an unrivalled choice of core repertoire for singers and teachers. The series includes over 100 art songs, drawn from Grades 1--5 of ABRSM’s new Singing syllabus, and a rich collection of 60 authentic

unaccompanied traditional songs, sourced from around the world and also suitable for ABRSM Singing exams.

Each volume comes complete with CD recordings of piano accompaniments for rehearsal purposes, as well as recordings of the text to every song, narrated by native speakers. The ABRSM Songbook provides the bedrock for many years of rewarding and enjoyable vocal study and performance.

Professional development news

Exciting new online course

We all know who vital professional development is and ABRSM are keen to extend the availability of our professional development courses whenever possible. We have now developed an exciting new online course, which will allow teachers from right across the globe to access first class professional development delivered by ABRSM. Our new online course, Being an Effective Teacher, launches worldwide in October 2010. The course is designed to explore good practice and to develop confident, reflective teachers. We will be opening the course to a limited number of students at a special discounted rate from February 2010, before the official launch in November next year. Numbers are already very positive and we look forward to this exciting new venture for ABRSM.

For more information please visit www.abrsm.org/ecourse

CT ABRSM fast-track course now enrolling

The CT ABRSM fast-track is a part-time, residential course, held in the UK and open to teachers worldwide. Designed to fit around a busy teaching schedule the course draws on a highly skilled panel of Course Leaders and Mentors to deliver a programme of study that is of direct relevance to teachers, giving them an opportunity to: • Refresh their teaching • Learn new skills • Find imaginative ways to help students improve • Network with like-minded teachers The CT fast-track residential course will be held at The Beeches Training Centre, Bournville, UK. The location right in the centre of the UK, just 15 minutes from Birmingham airport, ensures convenient transport links from all over the world. If teachers contact you for further information or to enroll, please direct them Colleen Sainlo: E profdev@abrsm.ac.uk T +44 (0) 20 7467 8226 www.abrsm.org/teachers

The closing date for the 2009 CT ABRSM fast-track course is Monday 7 December 2009.

Centenary travel grant

In spring, Nigel Mainard and Ian Lowes offered a two day programme of study for all piano, instrumental and singing teachers as part of ABRSM’s Centenary Travel Grant programme to New Delhi, Kolkata, Goa, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Mumbai.

The course was a huge success with over 273 teachers participating, a positive increase on our initial target figures. Feedback response from the teachers was very encouraging, 97% said that the seminar helped improve their knowledge and understanding of teaching.

The seminar was delivered as a workshop, teachers were asked to bring their instruments with them so that they could improvise and compose in small groups together. After the event, we asked teachers what they personally feel is the most useful type of seminar delivery and over 75% said that they prefer interactive workshops.

‘The seminar was excellent, a very enjoyable experience’ Teacher, CTG India 2009

The presenters were excellent, very enthusiastic, knowledgeable and passionate about music’ Teacher, CTG India 2009

This Autumn, the Centenary Travel Grant will be delivered by Penny Stirling and Brian Ley in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados. The course is designed to bring teachers up-to-date with the best of current thinking in music education and ABRSM activities. The two-day course will include understanding teaching and learning, improvising, improving performance, developing students aural and sight-reading skills, developing new repertoire and music technology.

Professional development programme report

In August I conducted our Professional Development Programme in Malaysia,

Singapore and Indonesia along with my co-presenter, Loo Bang Hean. Presenting the seminar myself this year gave me the opportunity to gather a huge amount of feed back from discussions with attending teachers and as a result I will now be working closely with colleagues to look at refreshing the format of this programme ready for 2010.

The series of seminars in August focused on offering further insight into the 2009 – 10 Piano syllabus, providing essential exam tips to not only help teachers to encourage students to reach for those extra marks, but also inspire independent and accomplished music making.

We asked teachers who attended CTG in India, which other seminar topics were of most interest and the most popular choice was learning how teachers and parents can work together. Recognising that developing successful relationships with students can also involve building relationships with their parents, we were very keen to include this angle to the PDP seminars so also offered advice for developing teacher-parent relationships. Allowing parents to be involved in the musical education of their children is vital for successful practice and achieving great exam results.

The seminars were all extremely well received and although the trip was exhausting with 7 seminars and various meetings in 9 days, it was hugely rewarding. It is always exciting to be able to meet so many people who are using ABRSM products in their daily lives and see the far-reaching impacts of our work.

Events and news

ABRSM international young composers’ competition

Our competition, to mark ABRSM’s 120th anniversary, was truly international! Of the 274 entries around 45% came from countries outside the UK, with entries from young composers living in 27 different countries. We were delighted to see that alongside those from ABRSM’s well-established territories such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Cyprus, South Africa, Taiwan, Australia and the USA, entries were also received from places where ABRSM’s presence is either less established or more recent. Submissions from Vietnam, Trinidad, Zambia, Dubai, Qatar, Mauritius, Belgium, Mexico, Bangladesh, Oman, Turkey, Serbia, Germany, Canada and the Republic of China testify to the truly international reach of ABRSM and its influence around the world.

The judges, Thalia Myers (pianist, teacher and creator of the ABRSM Spectrum series), Michael Omer (composer, ABRSM examiner and instigator of the Competition idea) and Leslie East (ABRSM Executive Director, Syllabus and Publishing), had a difficult task. Each had to read 91 scores (and Leslie got the 274th!) and that took a bit of time. Then narrowing it down to potential winners was also a hard job. When the day came to make the final decision, the lively debate, with each judge trying to play the shortlisted pieces on the piano, turned up clear winners.

It’s worth remembering what the criteria were. Firstly, originality and technical ability. Less importantly, but still an issue, the length (no more than 5 minutes) and suitability for a graded music exam were considerations. Finally, had the composer taken an ABRSM exam? Now, some entrants didn’t read the rules! However, we were very lenient and, if a piece showed talent and facility, then it was given full consideration.

It’s important to say that where a piece came from didn’t figure in our decision-making. It was only after we narrowed the list down to the final four that we realised that they were all from UK composers. These four were the most original, the most accomplished and came close enough to other criteria. However, we had several others that merited reward. And so, two more prizes were created and these have been awarded to entries from composers in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Huge thanks go to all the Representatives who encouraged students to enter the competition and we ask you to pass on our thanks to the students who took part.

The full results were:

Up to 14 years

Winner: Daniel Evans (14) of Wells for ‘‘Appearances’’ for solo piano

Runner-up: Sarah Gait (14) of Wigton, Cumbria for ‘‘Satellite 2: Activity on a Distant Moon’’ for cello and piano

Highly-commended: Wang Yi Fei (7) of Singapore for ‘‘The Little Green Bunny’’ for solo piano

15-18 years

Winner: Toby Young (18) of Cambridge for ‘‘Jubilate’’ for solo piano

Runner-up: Christopher Gough (18) of London for ‘‘Pour La Perte d’un Frére’’ for French horn and piano

Highly-commended: Leung Hok Kiu Johnson (16) of Hong Kong for ‘‘Colour 2nds’’ for solo piano

120th anniversary celebrations

In July we celebrated our 120th anniversary in a fitting style with a wonderful concert held at the Cadogan Hall in London. The programme included the whole range of music making ABRSM is involved in. Performers included high scorers from across the grades right up to diploma level, with a number of UK and International Scholars from the Royal schools performing. We also saw how our syllabuses have developed from 120 years ago with the first two items being a piano study from the very first syllabus, followed by ‘Consider Yourself’ from ‘Oliver!’ from our latest singing syllabus. The concert featured addresses from our Chairman, Lord Sutherland, Chief Executive, Richard Morris and other senior staff. We enjoyed extremely musical performances from string players from Northamptonshire Music Services using the music medals series and a steel pan band and jazz ensemble, both affiliated to Music for Youth, a UK charity regularly supported by ABRSM. It was also exciting to hear both the wining compositions from our young Composer Competition performed.

The concert was a fantastic opportunity to really witness the power of music and a truly fitting way of celebrating 120 years of ABRSM!

Continuing our celebrations the following day we enjoyed our Annual Lunch, with a record number of attendees and around 20 international Representatives. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet those who were able to be with us and exciting to have a demonstration of the new IT systems currently being developed for International exam administration which, in time, will be rolled out to Representatives.

Representative conferences

We have now reached the end of our series of four international Representative Conference for this anniversary year, meeting with around 60 Representatives. Since our first conference held here in London for European Representatives, staff have visited South Africa, Indonesia and Dubai (and some of us are now looking forward to a bit more time in the office before it all starts again next year!).

It has been truly wonderful meeting with so many Representatives face to face, but more importantly, seeing the huge benefits of Representatives getting together to share experiences and ideas. We have used the conferences as a platform to educate all attendees, staff included, in our new brand. Everyone got involved in workshops and

discussions to practice using elements of the brand, activities very much based on the training all Portland Place staff went through too. We have also been able to update Representatives on the latest developments from the office and hear from each of the Reps about operations in their own areas. The evident dedication of our Representatives has been hugely gratifying to witness. It has been interesting to see some common themes coming out of discussions at each of the conferences, as well as new ideas which were more regional specific.

Although we have been working Reps hard at the conferences, they have also proved to be very sociable events. Since we also wanted to make the conferences celebratory, each included it’s own musical entertainment. These ranged from a cappella African singing from a township group in Cape Town, to the first ever High Scorers’ concert in Dubai, through to London staff themselves entertaining the Reps in Bali with a range of syllabus pieces, and a few more light hearted items.

We’re now looking ahead to 2010 when we will continue with our rolling cycle of conferences for Representatives, holding one for North America, and one for the West Indies. In addition next year will see the biannual HLR conference in New Zealand and Desk Officers’ Conference in Malaysia (though Alison is thankful that next year it’s just two rather then four events to organise from the London office!).

High Scorers’ Concerts around the world

Jamaica

A High Scorers' Concert celebrating outstanding musical achievement took place at St. Andrew High School in Kingston on Saturday 6th June. 54 candidates who received distinctions in recent ABRSM exams were invited to perform in front of special guest The Most Honourable Lady Rheima Hall. Special prizes were awarded to Donimic Chen for achieving the overall

highest mark, Sydnae Taylor for obtaining the highest mark in a violin exam and Gervase Prescod for acquiring the highest marks for both clarinet and alto saxophone.

Indonesia

Between March and May, six High Scorers' Concerts were held across Indonesia, featuring the top performers in the exams held in August-November 2008. The first, in Jakarta, was held just

before the first ever March-April exam session started and was attended by examiner Frederick Stocken. Frederick gave a short address and presenter certificates and badges to the performers. This was the eighth HSC to be held in Jakarta and the performers were 36 of the highest Distinction students from Lampung and Palembang as well as Jakarta. The second concert, in Bali, was attended by Bill Thomson, who kindly agreed to perform as there were no Grade 8 Distinction candidates. The Medan HSC was the tenth to be held in the city; to celebrate this anniversary, ABRSM donated some books to be given as prizes to the 31 performers and Richard Morris and Tim Arnold sent special messages to be printed in the programme. The other concerts were held in Surabaya, Bandung and Semarang. In total over 1200 teachers and parents attended the concerts and 182 students had the opportunity to perform. Our thanks go to Denis and Ine Umar for all of their work in organising and promoting the six concerts.

Paris

Musicians of the highest calibre were invited to participate in this event organised by the recently appointed Representative for Paris, Lyon and Normandy, Steven Calvert. Hosted by Sr. Anne Marie Hill at Marymount International School this concert attracted performers from the entire Paris region and from as far afield as Bordeaux, with ages ranging from eight to sixty!

The many International Schools in Paris were represented with teachers and students from the British School, the American School and the International Lycee alongside many French institutions; there was plenty of "Entente Cordiale" with presentations and awards in both English and French. With ever increasing candidate numbers and lots of interest created by the new syllabuses we look forward to hosting another High Scorers' Concert in 2010.

And finally… If you have managed to read this far, my congratulations, it has certainly been a long edition!

I can’t end without mentioning the significant changes that ABRSM will be facing at the end of this year. As you know by now, after 17 years as Chief Executive, Richard Morris will be retiring. A difficult act to follow and there will be many events during December for us to celebrate his many achievements. You will have already received notification about Richard’s successor, Guy Perricone, and, although Guy’s official is 1st January, he will be spending quite a lot of time at Portland Place during December and already I have managed to discuss our International work with him.

The other huge change in the senior team here at ABRSM, is as a result of Clara’s decision to retire as Chief Examiner. Clara has revolutionised the Examining Panel over the years in her role as Chief Examiner. Her successor will take up their position in July, when Clara will step down. The process of recruiting her successor is already underway and we will of course let you know any further news as soon as we have it.

Finally, I would like to say a tremendous thank you to all Representatives. During 2009, we have met a significant number of Representatives in our Conferences, which has highlighted yet again how vital you are to the continuing development of our work in over 90 countries. The future looks extremely exciting and it is a tremendous pleasure to know that we have your support at the heart of all that we plan to do.

With my best wishes,

Tim Arnold