It is with regret that the organising committee for this year’s BAA Annual Conference has made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s event in Manchester, 26-27th November 2020.

On top of the pressures faced by NHS departments, along with current government guidelines, the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic has significantly affected the industry. The European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association (EHIMA) has announced they will not be attending any exhibitions during 2020, which has a significant impact on any exhibition offered.  As destinations work to contain the spread of the virus, we feel it would be in everyone’s best interest to cancel this event.

The BAA Annual Conference will return to Manchester next year, 18-19th November 2021.

BAA Online

Whilst the ‘Annual Conference’ is no longer happening this year, that doesn’t mean all activity associated with the event is cancelled. The conference team are working on offering our members a range of activities to support them in their education, training, work and CPD needs. We may even be able to bring a little fun too. We just need to think about how we can do things a little differently…

Initial work has begun to bring you some of the planned speakers as live or recorded webinars, a virtual AGM, Board Elections, digital posters and we are still going to run our annual awards.

Rather than condense the webinars into a day or two in November, we will look to bring you a series of stimulating and useful webinars over the coming months. We might even be able to squeeze in a social event of some kind (anyone for zoom bingo or quiz?!)

The thinking caps are on, as we are not quite ready to let our Conference Board Lead go. After five years running superb conferences for us, we are sad Claire Benton won’t get a final year in Manchester. So, instead, we have challenged her and the team to #WorkDifferently and bring us BAA Online!

More information to follow…