The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7295 p486
17 April 2004

Society summary

An observer's view of the Council

Each month, representatives of some of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's branches and regions are invited as observers to either the meeting of the Council or meetings of major Council committees. Malcolm Goldie describes his recent experience as an observer

Malcolm Goldie, from Gosforth, is regional communications officer for the Society's Border region

The Society’s Border region was invited to send a representative to Lambeth as an observer at the Society’s April Council meeting. As a member who had never attended such a meeting I was asked if I would like to go and I gladly seized the opportunity.

Council meetings are normally held in the week containing the first Wednesday of the month. This year, to avoid Easter, the April meeting actually took place on the last two days of March. I thus presented myself at 2.24pm on Tuesday 30 March at 1 Lambeth High Street, where I met my two fellow observers from the Society’s local network — Philip Rogers (Bath branch) and Brian Wells (Hull branch). Sally Holden from the Society’s membership unit escorted us to be introduced to Robert Darracott, the Society’s director of corporate and strategic development.

At this stage we were each presented with a large bundle of papers, held together with a treasury tag. We were told that the papers were confidential and would have to be returned to the office before we finally left the building on Wednesday. We could, however, take them away overnight. The papers consisted of the agenda for the meeting and various documents giving background details and other information on the various agenda items.

We were taken into a small committee room to be given a brief explanation of the meeting and its procedures. We heard that the meeting is split into distinct parts — an open session to which the press are admitted, a closed session with entry allowed only to relevant Society staff and the observers, and a confidential session for Council members only.

Just before 3.30pm we were ushered into the Council Chamber and directed to comfortable seats along two sides of the room. At the appointed hour all present stood in silence to greet the President, Gill Hawksworth, wearing her chain of office. She took her chair, greeted Council members and welcomed the observers and the meeting then proceeded.

There is no need for me to offer a word-by-word account of the meeting, since the main items have already been reported in The Pharmaceutical Journal and, under a scheme introduced this year, a detailed transcript of Council business held in open session is due to appear on the Society’s website shortly. I shall therefore content myself by recording some personal observations by which I hope to convey an impression of the spirit of the meeting and the atmosphere at Lambeth.

The business of the meeting took its flavour from the participants’ sober dress — lounge suits for the men and correspondingly smart dress for the women. A certain dignity was added by the fact that the President’s chain of office, all 16 ounces of it, remained round her neck throughout the meeting.

Council members who wished to speak had to catch the eye of the President or Vice-President Alison Ewing. Members were then called upon by forename to add their contribution. (We had been informed that the meetings used to be much more formal, with surnames being the order of the day and Council members having to stand to speak.)

One unusual procedure was the process whereby, during the open part of the meeting, a member might request that something he or she was about to say should not be reported. The procedure was to ask to speak “under the flag”. The “flag” in question is a black metal stand topped by a metal plate inscribed “Committee”. The Treasurer, Linda Stone, placed the flag on the Officers’ table, where it remained as a reminder until the Council decided to return to reportable discussion.

The President, ably assisted by the Secretary and Registrar Ann Lewis, controlled the meeting in a firm manner that was willingly accepted by the Council members. Except for the occasional whispered exchange between members seated in adjacent seats, all communication was through the chair, and discipline was exemplary.

Readers may infer from this description that Council meetings are sombre and humourless, but this is not so, for there were occasional elements of levity during the sessions. But there was always a predominant air of respect for the President and Officers and those members of the Society’s staff who were called upon to address the meeting. And there was also respect for the actual proceedings, perhaps engendered by an awareness of the potential importance of some of the decisions the Council is called upon to make.

The first day’s work ended at 6pm and, as there was no formal Council dinner on this occasion, the guests were taken to dinner at a local restaurant by Jean-Pierre Moser, the Society’s head of public relations and membership. After an enjoyable evening, we returned to our hotel to ready ourselves for the next day’s business.

The Wednesday session began promptly at 9am. The procedure was the same as on the previous day and we were just getting the hang of it when the closed session ended and we were ushered from the Council chamber before the confidential session started.

My overriding impression of the Council meeting is one of correctness, bordering on formality, with a strong suggestion of sincerity and objectiveness. As guests we were treated with the utmost respect and kindness. Council members and staff were without exception welcoming, friendly and only too willing to answer all our questions.

My previous impressions of the Society were to a large extent rewritten by my visit. I left Lambeth with the distinct image of a professional group dedicated, as the Society’s notepaper states, to “helping pharmacists achieve excellence”.