Platelet Society AGM

Monday 12th October saw the Platelet Society hold its 2020 AGM.

In a year where Covid-19 has caused widespread disruption to all aspects of our lives, the Society reflected on how this has affected our members and their research.

The cancellation of the Birmingham Velo, a major fundraiser for the Society, means that we, like all small charities have lost important income for the year and fundraising continues to be a challenge.

The closure of universities and research labs severely impacted our ability to do research, and although a lot of reviews have been written, it is only recently that students and post-docs have been able to restart experiments and return to their projects. In addition, the wide range of scientific meetings and conferences we attend was decimated by lockdowns and  travel restrictions, depriving us of the networking and discussions that form an important aspect of our community.

Despite this, we have seen Platelet Society members find innovative ways to work and keep research moving forward. From our fantastic virtual ECR meeting run by Paul, Kirk and Carly, the establishment of ECR working groups to address specific questions for the society, to our members being involved in important research into Covid-19 and thrombosis.

The AGM also saw the launch of our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion survey and our statement of intent for how the Society will ensure that EDI is core to everything it does. Members are encouraged to complete the survey which can be found here, and to visit our EDI webpages to findout more.

Finally, we showed an outreach video, created by Amanda Unsworth, to highlight the importance of the work that our members do. The video can be seen below.