Well this year started off with such tremendous potential, we were all looking forward to getting together in Delhi at the ASSR/ASPOA joint conference, Dr Buch had been doing training sessions in Asia with more planned and then along came COVID- 19 and everything collapsed and the world entered a huge time of global chaos with borders closed and huge numbers of people being infected and many dying. This whole thing is a tragedy not just for us now but for the foreseeable future.

However not all is doom and gloom as one piece of good news has come through and that is the fact that there is a new association being formed in Cape Town, South Africa and although strictly speaking this is not a part of the Asia and South Pacific Ostomy Associations area we have offered our assistance in helping them overcome many of the obstacles that all new associations face. Dr Buch, Barry Maughan and myself have had several video calls with them to encourage them in their efforts.

We are looking at ways that we can continue training sessions by video and although thi will take some time to work through and put in place and will not be a cheap exercise it is the safest way that we can continue training right now and more will come on this over the next year or so.

Barry Maughan and I have continued to send surplus ostomy product from New Zealand to Asia via our trust, the Friends of Ostomates World Wide Charitable Trust and this is an ongoing thing as the amount of product that we are sourcing so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sadly, we lost one of our most stalwart helpers in the wider ostomy world when Di Bracken who lived in Canada but who was a great supporter of our group passed away earlier this year.

I would like to think that we can have some new faces coming onto the executive as we always need to look to the future and we need to be able to provide for Ostomates in the ASPOA region for many years to come.

The 2020 House of Delegates meeting being held this year via Zoom Video conferencing is the first time that we have used this program for such an event so I am interested to see how it goes. I know that it will be difficult for some people however I am sure that we will
manage to make it work.

Regards,
Richard B. McNair
President ASPOA.