The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held on Wednesday 4th April 2007. The President Mr Gordon Masson was in the chair.

Before proceeding to the AGM he introduced the evening’s speaker Mr Arthur Dunkley, FRCS, Consultant in Emergency Surgery to the Musgrave Park Hospital, Taunton, who spoke to the title African Diaspora.

In a wide ranging review of the history of the African Continent from the origins of man to the development of the tribal systems he went on to describe the history of his own country, Zimbabwe. He described the traditional tribal medical care which is still very much a feature and then the government medical services and the founding of the then Salisbury Medical School [now Harare] in 1960, which was affiliated to Birmingham. There is now no medical infrastructure and no facilities within the state medical system. Aids has killed a quarter of the population, mainly in the young to middle aged grouping, leaving the very young and the very old. He reminded us that disease and starvation has always been present in a continent that can’t sustain a large population. He described the political situation with its thuggery, nepotism, corruption, and total failure of law and order and democracy. The catastrophic inflation was driving the middle class and educated to leave resulting in this African Diaspora. There are 3 million Zimbabweans living in South Africa and Botswana. Few go back. He said the concept of Individual Rights was beginning to develop in Africa to the detriment of the tribal system of leader ship and justice from the tribal chief-a great loss he considered. He ended by describing his own personal life in Zimbabwe and the sadness of his enforced departure.

The President then thanked the speaker and the meeting proceeded to the AGM.