Conference Chair : Jenna Piercy

Thank you for attending the SASA 2012 congress in Cape Town. From the feedback we have received, the refresher course and congress appear to have been great successes – we hope you agree. The CTICC played host to over 600 delegates, 130 speakers and 48 trade sponsors.

The inspirational opening Weinbren memorial lecture, delivered by Professor Tim Noakes, will undoubtedly stay with you for a long time. His superb lecture, delivered to a packed auditorium, set the standard for the rest of the congress.

Our local and international speakers maintained the exceptional quality of the lectures throughout. To all our speakers, both local and international, thank you for all your time and effort; this has surely been one of the best SASA congresses ever. Many of the speakers have consented to their presentations being made available on the website for you to download at your leisure.

For the first time, a SASA congress has played host to sessions organised by the Special Interest Groups of SASA (namely, RAPSA, SOSPOSA, CASSA and the private practice business group). All of these sessions were well attended and were a resounding success. Thank you, and congratulations to the conveners of the special interest group sessions. Thanks also to Eric Hodgson and Justiaan Swanevelder for, once again, organising outstanding Airway and Echo workshops.

On behalf of the organising committee I would like to thank all the delegates who competed in the various SASA prize categories. Feedback from the judges is that the standards were very high and the battles hard fought. Congratulations to all our prizewinners in the various categories (Jonathan Kay, Owen Hodges, Nikolas Haus, Ian Findlay and Edwin Van Broekhoven) and also to our winners of the sporting events (Dean Gopalan, Byron Hickman, Dirk van Zijl and Tracy Jackson).

The congress also raised a substantial amount of money for the Homestead, the charity for the rehabilitation of street children. Please visit their website at www.homestead.org.za to pledge your financial support.

We hope you enjoyed your time in Cape Town and we hope to see you next year for SASA 2013 in Port Elizabeth.