1. The Society has three classes of membership.

• a. Ordinary Members. Any radiologist who has an interest in paediatric radiology and has paid the full membership fee. Ordinary members have full rights and privileges.
• b. Retired Members. Radiologists as in section 1a, but who are no longer in practice but have chosen to continue to pay a reduced fee, the amount being set by the Executive committee from time to time. Retired membership is equal to ordinary membership in all ways apart from the reduced fee.
• c. Associate Members. All members of the Association of Paediatric Radiographers are associate members of the BSPR and are entitled to attend the society’s meetings upon payment of an appropriate fee to be set by the meeting organiser. Associate membership carries no other rights or privileges. The secretary shall include the secretary of the APR in all BSPR correspondence unless he/she feels it would be inappropriate to do so.

2. Joining the Society

• a. Any radiologist wishing to join the Society should be advised to contact the secretary.
• b. Any Consultant practising in the UK NHS or equivalent in Ireland who expresses an interest has been admitted without further enquiry.
• c. Any trainee or non-consultant is asked to provide a note of support from an existing member to ensure good standing. The practice is not specified in the constitution and should it provide a problem to any prospective member the secretary and/or chairman should be able to consider the application for membership.
• d. Non-medical members of the public, non-radiologists, and persons not fitting into the descriptions in 1 or 2 above have not to-date been admitted.
• e olicy towards foreign radiologists joining BSPR. There is no ban on radiologists outside the UK joining whether they hold a UK fellowship or not, but this is in general discouraged. If approached, the secretary should point out that there are other societies which may be more appropriate, point out the limited benefits to an overseas radiologist and consider the applicant’s motives for joining.

3. Payment of Fees

• a. Fees will be paid on the first working day of January annually. It is our policy to collect fees by direct debit except where a member specifically wishes to pay by some other means.
• b. On joining the society during the year, the new member is asked to pay a fee at the time of joining to represent that year’s fee and to set up a direct debit to take effect the next January and all subsequent years until cancelled.

4. Non-payment of Fees.

• a. At the discretion of the Treasurer, any member who has failed to pay the annual subscription fee despite a warning shall be removed from the BSPR members list and will immediately on removal cease to have any membership rights. They will not be eligible to attend the AGM, shall not be entitled to vote, and shall not receive mailings from the society.

5. Academic Meetings

• a. The BSPR has its annual academic meeting in the Autumn. This is arranged by the Executive committee and is usually selected from members who volunteer to host the meeting. The Executive try to achieve a balance of geographical location of successive meetings.
• b. Once selected, the format and organisation of the meeting are left to the discretion of the local organising team. BSPR and its Executive carry no legal or financial responsibility for the meeting. The executive is however happy to offer advice should it be requested.
• c. Notwithstanding 3b above, the Treasurer is at liberty to advance a sum to the local meeting organiser to assist with initial costs.
• d. Surplus from the meeting is expected to be returned to the BSPR. Some arrangement with local organisers is possible if they wish to return some profit to local funds, but the basic principle remains.

6. Prizes at the Annual Meeting

• a. Prizes are available to be awarded at the annual scientific meeting. The Claire Dicks-Mireaux Prize is awarded for presentation of a paper by a non-consultant radiologist, usually an SpR although radiologists acting-up or in temporary locum posts have been considered. The Poster Prize is awarded without restriction to the best poster at the annual meeting. The prizes for these are fixed at an amount considered occasionally by the executive committee, currently devolved to the local organising committee.
• b. The method of judging and selection of judges for the prizes shall be the responsibility of the Chairman.
• c. It is the intention that monetary prizes will be paid to assist with expenses to attend a Paediatric Radiology Meeting, usually ESPR. Whether a meeting qualifies is at the discretion of the Treasurer and/or Chairman.
• d. Payment will usually be made subject only to the production of some proof of attendance.

7. Annual General Meeting.

• a. The AGM is usually held during the annual autumn academic meeting. The meeting organiser is requested to make space or at least one hour during the day for the AGM to take place.
• b. The secretary usually circulates and agenda and minutes of the previous meeting to all members in advance such that members not able to be present may write to the committee to express their views should they so wish. Contact between the meeting organiser and the Secretary may decide that the meeting organiser will send the AGM documents to members if he plans to mail all members of the society with an invitation to the meeting.
• c. The Secretary shall arrange for the attendance of members at the AGM to be recorded and shall ensure that the presence of a quorum (or the failure to achieve a quorum) at the meeting is brought to the chairman’s attention. The attendance is usually recorded by members signing as to their presence on an attendance sheet. At the meeting, a headcount and ‘guesstimate’ of the presence of a quorum would usually be satisfactory for the meeting to go ahead.
• d. The Chairman shall expect to chair the AGM. In cases of the chairman’s unavoidable absence, the Secretary will deputise.

8. Executive Committee Meetings

• a. Two meetings per years are usual, together with any extraordinary meetings as the Chairman might agree are necessary. One of these meetings is normally held immediately prior to the AGM, while the second is usually held in the spring and normally at the Royal College of Radiologists. The Secretary is responsible to arranging the meeting day and circulating the committee members with appropriate documents in advance of the meeting.
• b. Attendance record of Executive members
  It is expected that members shall arrange matters in order to attend Executive meetings. Failure to attend at least 4 out of the 6 possible meetings of an executive officer’s term should lead the member to consider whether he/she is able to serve. The chairman shall formally discuss this with the member after 2 apologies in one term have been noted, and having regard the particular circumstances, may request the member’s resignation.

9. Term of office of Executive Members.

This is considered to run from the first meeting after their election. A member elected prior to the November AGM would be in office at that AGM and would expect to attend their last Exec meeting in April of the 3rd year of office. Each member would expect to attend 3 November and 3 April/May meetings. Sometime between the last meeting of an outgoing member and the first meeting of an incoming member, duties are transferred. This should be a matter of arrangement between the parties concerned, if necessary with the help of the Executive committee. Transfer clarity is clearly most important for the offices of Chairman, Secretary/Treasurer, and RCPCH Convener. The Chairman and RCPCH Convener continue to hold these offices until the Executive Committee elects new officers, usually at the Spring meeting of the Executive Committee. The retiring Chairman attends this meeting to introduce the agenda and manage the election by the Executive of a new Chairman. After this last official duty is completed, he may be invited by the new Chairman to assist in the smooth handover of the Society’s business.

10. Election Statements

It was agreed at the 2007 AGM that as candidates are often not known to all members, and as such voting can be arbitrary. It was therefore agreed that a short statement from candidates about who they are and where they are from would be helpful. It might be that a photo would also be useful, and might be best placed on the society’s web site. (full name, age, degrees, place of birth, university education, radiology training establishment, current base hospital and any special area of interest and/or responsibility. Perhaps 100 words max. plus a small passport type photo as jpeg)

11. Meeting expenses for attending BSPR committee meetings

• a. The principal shall be that members serving on the BSPR Executive committee should not personally be out of pocket from having to attend a meeting. It is expected that where possible expenses are claimed from members employers. It is however recognised that this is becoming more difficult. All reasonable travel expenses will be reimbursed. Executive members attending the annual meeting would expect to travel the previous day to attend an Exec meeting and therefore reasonable accommodation expenses will be paid where they cannot be recovered from local sources. Expenses which could reasonably be said to have been incurred by attendance at the society’s academic meeting or annual dinner would not be paid.

12. Meeting Agenda

• a. Each secretary and chairman will establish a method of agreeing on an agenda which suits their working relationship. The usual model is that the Secretary arranges a draft agenda constructed from issues raised at previous meetings, society business, other correspondence, or any other manner, which is then submitted to the Chairman for approval and amendment. Final agenda is distributed with minutes and attachments as the secretary deems fit.

13. Newsletters

• a. The secretary shall arrange at least two newsletters in the year. These would contain any material deemed appropriate and would usually be in early spring and late summer. They may usefully be combined with minutes of meetings, an announcement of elections and other notices.
• b. Newsletters would be sent to the full membership (ie both postal and email lists).

14. Mailing of non-BSPR material.

• a. Members and individuals of other bodies and societies periodically approach the Society to circulate material the members of many types. The policy of BSPR is currently that we do not allow access to our members contact details. Following discussion at the 2006 AGM, it was agreed that the Executive could screen applications for distribution and where appropriate would undertake to pass on to members. This would be done only to those on the email directory, and usually only for ‘official’ material from eg the Royal College, NICE, National Screening Committee or equivalent bodies.
• b. Surveys etc from individuals and departments would not usually be sanctioned.
• c. Members would be able to ‘Opt-out’ of these additional emails by informing the Secretary.

15. Clinical Excellence Awards

• a. BSPR is recognised as a specialist society for the purposes of recommending members for National Clinical Excellence awards to the National CEA committee. This recognition operates in E&W and recently in Northern Ireland. Similar arrangements in Scotland are being explored.
• b. The process is coordinated by the Chairman who is responsible for submitting citations and ranking to the national committee.
• c. Members of the scoring panel are drawn from the executive committee with additions of senior, and junior members of the society together with a lay representative.
• d. Any member submitting an application is excluded from the scoring process.
• e. Scoring is performed according to a system notified to the panel by the chairman, with results returned to him.
• f. No more than one senior member from any hospital/trust may serve on the panel, although the panel may contain senior and junior members from any hospital/trust.
• g. The panel will be constituted fresh each year, although members may have served in previous years.

16. Academic Travel Sponsorship for trainees

• a. BSPR will pay a contribution towards the expenses of any trainee who is unable to achieve full local funding to attend a scientific meeting where he/she is to present a paper or poster. The amount will be set by the Executive committee from time to time but is currently £100 (2007).
• b. This would be subject to support from a local consultant sponsor and paid upon provision of a short report after the meeting.

17. Tax Status

• a. In theory, the Society is liable for tax on bank interest earned at the corporate rate (20% at the time of writing –Nov 07). In practice, the Inland Revenue (Brighton Corporation Tax Office) have confirmed that they do not need to see a return until the amount of Tax due approximates to £100. This equates to an earned income of £500 and is well in excess of current interest levels.