This is the President’s annual report presented to the society’s Annual General Meeting on 8 March 1999. It can also serve as editorial comment.
I feel the society is now at a turning point in its development. For years it was virtually the sole source of homœopathic education through talks, and tapes, and study circles and seminars and the sale of books.Now books are more easily obtained, all sorts of courses are being run by individuals and organisations, and people are relying more and more on professional prescribers for help (help is sought, too, of course from people with little or no training in homoeopathy who serve in pharmacies and health food shops). The growth of the sale of proprietary mixtures of medicines making, or implying, help with specific problems also turns people away from the do-it-yourself prescribing of yesteryear.
These are among the reasons the society is not the force it was. We cannot turn back the calendar to the society’s golden age so we must develop a strategy that best serves the changed mixture of our clientele.
I hope the incoming executive focuses on these issues, particularly the problem of the continuing demands on a small number of volunteer workers who are not getting any younger.
I thank all those good souls who work for the society both in this building, its grounds, and in their own homes. This reminds me of two people who have done a lot for the society. Doug King is no longer with us, he died on December the 6th. Doug and Dawn and members of the King family have been generous and helpful to the society for some 30 years and we do appreciate Doug’s contributions and regret his passing.
Eileen Boghurst is still very much alive but is singled out for mention here because an era has closed now that the society is no longer supporting its own register of practitioners. From its inception in 1983 Eileen has been secretary and organiser for the exams and other business connected with the register. We are very grateful for all the work she has done.
The content of the Homœopathica has attracted some critics who describe it as too “technical”; on the other hand the editor has received a few letters full of praise. The librarians of both the Glasgow Homœopathic Library and the Deutsche Homoopathic Union have written asking for a set of new-format back issues. It is hoped to have more hints applicable to domestic medicine in 1999.
Bruce Barwell
President