This report will, of necessity, be fairly brief because it seems to follow hot on t he heels of the Plymouth conference and, writing it in early September, means that summer has been a relatively quiet period for the Society. More importantly though, there are also many more interesting and exciting things for members to read about in this, our promised 40th anniversary edition of Generations Review.

First then, let me just update you on some of the developments mentioned in my July report:

BSG Strategy and partnerships - On July 18th we co-hosted a celebratory event at the House of Lords to launch the first BSG/ILC-UK ‘think piece’ written by Simon Evans and entitled Climate Change and Public Services. Sheila Peace writes about this event in more detail elsewhere in GR and we hope it will encourage more of you to come forward with ideas for future ‘Think Pieces’.

Each working/strategy group has, as BSG members know, been planning their proposed activities for Years Three and Four of the strategy. The revised and updated strategy document will be available on our website after the November Executive Committee Meeting.

Awards – This year’s nomination process for anyone wanting to be considered to become an Academician of the Council of the Academy of Social Sciences is open again. Details/forms are on the website and Rachel will be sending out reminders/updates as usual.

It’s also never too early to ask you all to think about potential nominees for next year’s BSG Outstanding Achievement Award. Again, details can be found on the website. In 2011, our 40th anniversary year, the award was shared by three key figures in British gerontology: Professors Sara Arber, Chris Phillipson and Tony Warnes and, for those of you who missed the presentations at Plymouth, do read the report and look at the photographs in this issue of GR.

Finally, we look forward to welcoming three new members of the BSG Executive when we next meet on November 8th. Joining us will be Dr Debbie Cairns (Brunel University) and Naomi Woodspring (University of the West England) who will be post-doc and post-grad Co-Chairs respectively of ERA; and Cassie Phoenix from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in Cornwall. The Executive meeting will be held at Keele University this time in order to give members an opportunity to meet the BSG2012 Conference Organising Team, to see the Keele accommodation and facilities and hear about our planned programme. If you’ve not already done so, please note the dates of next year’s Annual Conference in your diary. They are: Wednesday July 11th-Friday July 13th, 2012.

As always, thank you to everyone for your continuing support of the Society.