Fragility Fracture Network

Dear Colleagues,

The Fragility Fracture Network of the Bone and Joint Decade
I am writing to brief you on a successful year of activity for the FFN (Fragility Fracture Network) and to look forward to the coming year. I would refer you to our website: http://www.ff-network.org and will relate the story below to its pages.

The Berlin Experts Meeting
If you click on Meetings, you will find a full report of the Experts Meeting and almost all the presentations. About 100 people, from all relevant disciplines and all global regions, attended. The presentations were uniformly excellent, the discussion was lively and nobody was left in any doubt that a multidisciplinary network like the FFN has tremendous power to change things for the better.

Reconstitution of the FFN
The last session of the Experts Meeting was devoted to the General Assembly of the new FFN. This meeting was held under the new Articles of Association adopted in August 2011, which assert the importance of disciplinary and geographical balance in the organisation; these can be viewed by clicking on Structure – Articles. The General Assembly elected a Board and an Executive, listed in Structure – Board.
Following the General Assembly, the Board held its first meeting. The Mission of the FFN was clarified:

To promote globally the optimal multidisciplinary management of the patient with a fragility fracture including secondary prevention

In pursuit of that Mission, the FFN has three primary goals:

• to disseminate globally the best multidisciplinary practice in preventing and managing fragility fractures

• to promote research aimed at better treatments for osteoporosis, sarcopenia and fracture
  

• to drive policy change that will raise fragility fractures higher up the healthcare agenda in all countries

The Board is holding teleconference meetings every 3 months; the Board is doing the same each month.

Membership
As you will see from the Articles, membership of the FFN involves an annual fee of 50 Euros. The reason for this is two-fold: first we do need a baseline income to run and develop the Network. We are actively seeking sponsorship from industrial partners to support this as well. Secondly, the laws in Switzerland, where the Network is registered, require that there is a membership fee in order for the Officers not to be personally liable for the organisation’s debts.

This letter is going to around 450 people on our contacts list, of whom around 100 are signed-up members at the moment. If you are not yet a signed-up member and would like to become one, please click on Membership and then on Subscription Form to submit your details. In January we will be contacting everyone to ask for their €50 subscription for 2012.

Next steps
The next 12 months will determine whether the FFN flies or dies.

First Global Congress
We need at least 500 participants at this meeting in Berlin, 6th-8th Sep 2012. The Scientific Committee, which is designing the Congress, is headed by Maria Crotty, rehabilitationist from Australia. The Local Organising Committee is headed by Karsten Dreinhöfer, orthopaedic surgeon and rehabilitationists from Berlin. We have several companies sponsoring generously as strategic partners but, given the early stage of our fund-raising, we will be asking speakers to find their own funding for travel and accommodation wherever possible.

National and Regional meetings
The key to making the Congress a success is for the FFN to be promoted at as many meetings as possible, preferably before July 2012, to give people time to make plans to come to Berlin in September 2012. The ideal is to aim for the magic tripod of orthopaedics – geriatrics – osteoporosis. Perhaps seek a session at an orthopaedic meeting and have geriatric and osteoporosis speakers. In Cairo in April, there is already a meeting between geriatrics and osteoporosis arranged; so we will take along some orthopods. If you can see an opportunity in the next 6 months and want some heavyweight support, get in touch with me (d.marsh@ucl.ac.uk) or ff-network@mci-group.com and we will come up with a plan.

Newsletter
Executive teleconferences have demonstrated that a lot of exciting things are happening in all regions. To spread the news about these, we will launch a newsletter. We already have items to report from the Middle East, China, India, Latin America, Australia / New Zealand and the US. In March, the IOF will launch its Capture the Fracture campaign on secondary prevention, which we wholeheartedly support. If you are in a position to report encouraging developments in your region, please let us know and we will include them in the newsletter.
Please respond to this letter and the forthcoming newsletter if you have ideas or comments that can help the Fragility Fracture Network to grow. I look forward to seeing you at the Global Congress, if not before.

Best wishes

President, FFN (Fragility Fracture Network)