Board

1 / Board Members 2 / Presidents blog 3 / Awards

The Board of Directors is responsible for the overall strategic and operational work of the BAA. Board Directors are both responsible for specific work areas and act as a liaison between a committee or work group. The current Board has 14 Directors, supported by our Marketing & Communications Manager and our PA. The Board meets quarterly and holds an annual strategy day to review the forward plan. Board minutes are published on the BAA website.

Executive Team

During the last eighteen months, we have developed a more active executive team to focus and maintain momentum between Board meetings. The President meets regularly with the Vice President, Past President, Treasurer and Marketing & Comms Manager. Each member of the executive team holds lead responsibilities for key objective areas and in supporting other Board Directors. These areas of responsibility are –

• President – Chairs the Board, is President and supports the Board Directors of Membership and Professional Development.
• Vice President – Supports the President and supports the Board Directors of Education, Early Professionals, and Professional and Workforce Support
• Past President – Supports the President and the Board Director of Service Quality Committee
• Treasurer – Supports the President and the Board Director for E-Learning
• Marketing & Comms Manager – Supports all Board and links with the Board Directors for Conference, Regional Groups and Promoting Audiology & Publications

2023/2024 Board Members

Immediate Past President

Keiran Joseph

Treasurer

Susannah Goggins

Board Director - Conference

Laura Finegold

Board Director - Regional Groups

Dawn Bramham

Board Director - Membership

Saira Hussain

Board Director - Early Professionals

Jason Smalley

Board Director - Service Quality Committee

Lauren Willis

Board Director - Promoting Audiology & Publications

Dr Saima Rajasingam

Board Director - Education, Accreditation and Registration

President's Blog 29th April 2024

Investing in membership

April is the start of our financial year for BAA, which means we start afresh with a new budget for the year ahead. We have planned some exciting improvements to several areas of our work. A successful conference in November 2023 means we have more income to invest in you, our members.

Work has started to improve our website for you. While we work on a new look and feel to the site, the main emphasis will be on the member experience, with the functionality improved when you login and access all the member benefits. Our volunteers on board and our various committees continue to work hard to provide resources and benefits to you, so we want to ensure they are easily accessible and joined up.

A new membership software will be integrated with the new website, which will offer us greater flexibility and booking capabilities. It should all seamlessly link together, including with the online Higher Training Scheme (HTS) logbook system.

And then there will be the new BAA e-learning platform, designed to give you much more structured Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities, whatever stage you are at in your career. We have a small committee forming to bring together all this content. While we have a plan of the initial content we want to offer, we would be delighted to hear from you if you have some requests for content.

Elsewhere, we have been out and about representing BAA and engaging with colleagues and peers. I particularly enjoyed spending the day with our Welsh members and colleagues last week at Audiology Cymru. It’s great to see the engagement they have with Welsh government representatives and the progress they are making with their quality assurance across all areas of audiology.

In a couple of weeks, we will be in Northern Ireland for a fully-booked day organised by our NI representative Mandy. It will be great to see you again. I look forward to joining RNID colleagues tomorrow for their deaf awareness event at the Houses of Parliament. Victoria and Laura Turton will also represent the BAA at the BCIG conference. Make sure to say hello to them if you are there, and find out about all the things we are working on for you.

And, finally, a huge congratulations to Board Director Laura Turton, and her fantastic team at NHS Tayside. They were successful at the AHA awards last week, winning the award for ‘Creative and Innovative Practice’ for their Group Hearing Aid Fittings work. Laura presented on this work at our 2023 conference, and we have asked her to talk about it again at our forthcoming heads of service events. See some of you online (9^th May) and in-person (12^th July) for those.

As ever, you can contact me or any of our board directors here: admin@baaudiology.org

Take care of yourselves,

Sam

President's Blog - 29th April 24

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President's Blog - 4th March 2024

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President's Blog - 20th February 2024

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President's Blog - 24th January 2024

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President's Blog - 1st December 2023

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Board Annual Awards

British Academy of Audiology Annual Awards

Every year at the BAA annual conference, we take the time to acknowledge those individuals and teams who have excelled or shown exceptional commitment to the Audiology profession over the past year.

Previous award winners can be found here.

This award will recognise an Audiology clinician who has gone above and beyond to improve the experience for a patient. The award is focused on patient care, and we particularly welcome testimonials and case studies from patients or colleagues, highlighting the reasons they should be nominated.

This award is presented in honour of Peggy Chalmers. She contributed immeasurably to Audiology, improving professional standards and training, and supporting hundreds of students from the UK and overseas. Her hard work and enthusiasm inspired many professionals in Audiology. With this award, we hope each winner will continue to inspire with their excellent work.

The prize is awarded to a team that has worked together to improve the quality of service in their area, in particular showing innovative and original ideas. Teams that work within an audiology department, in education, in research, or in an organisational capacity, are all eligible.

The BAA Team of the Year Award was created in 2004 to celebrate the coming together of different professions within Audiology.

This award will recognise a clinician who has gone above and beyond to provide a supportive learning environment for students in placement, providing leadership, guidance and inspiration. The award is focused on the mentoring of students, and we particularly welcome testimonials and case studies from students, colleagues and university placement teams highlighting the reason a particular person should be nominated.

The award is presented in honour of Paul Doody, an extraordinary Audiologist committed to training. He made a huge difference to the lives of numerous Audiologists.

This award is given to the student who performs well during their clinical placement. Nominations are welcomed from departments to highlight exceptional students who have had a positive impact on the service during their placement.

This award is presented in honour of Lisa Bayliss, a 20-year-old student Audiologist who worked at the Royal Liverpool Hospital. Sadly, Lisa’s life was tragically taken on her way home from work in 1992. Lisa is greatly missed by all who met her, but especially her family, colleagues, and her patients. Lisa was kind, caring, and worked well with everyone she met. She was described as a great people person.

This award is for Audiology clinicians working in paediatrics. It is aimed at those in any area of paediatrics who, it is felt, have influenced the field. We welcome nominations from colleagues, patients, and families, highlighting why this person stands out from the crowd.

The nominated person should have worked in their current position for at least 6 months.

This award is open to students on all Audiology courses, leading to qualification or registration. We invite Higher Education Institutes to nominate a student you consider an outstanding Early Audiology Professional. Whether Foundation degree, undergraduate or post-graduate (for undergraduate students, consider those in the second year and above).

The student may have made significant contributions to their group, mentored other students, experience hearing loss themselves, and overcome barriers to communication to work in the profession, be studying against the odds, or have developed innovative practice or project work. Equally, the student you choose may have achieved a high academic standard that you wish to celebrate and recognise.

The award is given for the best contribution to a BAA publication. The recipient is chosen from all articles printed in the previous year’s publications, and is chosen by the BAA publicity and communications team.

This award is presented in honour of Jos Millar, who showed a long-standing dedication to Audiology. He started his career in audiology at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, and later in his career, he embarked on a challenge to set up a paediatric service in his hometown of Ballymena.

This award is given to the person who has exceptional feedback during the examination process of the Higher Training Scheme. The HTS committee selects the winner based on examination feedback.

This award is presented in honour of Richard May, who loved Audiology. He was a student in the first intake of the MSc Audiology course in ISVR in 1972, and was the first Audiological Scientist in the country, at the Sussex Throat and Ear Hospital in Brighton. He died suddenly in 1982, aged 32, and was described by his family as a wonderful, kind and clever man.

This award is presented for outstanding research by a student or early professional. The award winner will be selected from all free papers presenting at the BAA conference, delivered by a student or early professional. A student is classed as anyone training and not yet qualified in Audiology, e.g. PTP, STP students, those doing apprenticeships, and an Early Professional is classed as those up to 5 years post-qualified.

This award is presented in honour of David Baguley, who loved to share knowledge. He was a prolific publisher of his research, and he spoke at conferences for professionals and the public to share that knowledge for the benefit of those with Hearing Loss and Tinnitus.

One of David’s passions was to encourage and support trainees and young professionals. He gave freely of his time to support others in their research, and this award, aimed at early professionals, is a fitting tribute to a man who will live on through the impact his writing and research has on the audiology community.