The Society EXCO has chosen the Spier wine estate in Stellenbosch as the Congress venue and we have decided to bring a mixed international and local content congress to our membership this year. We have invited two international speakers to fit into our expanded and busy congress schedule this year.

In conjunction with the ITI in Europe, we have invited Prof Nils von Gellrich from Germany to bring us one day of clinical international flavor to this year’s local content congress. Prof. von Gellrich is one of the leading surgeons in the field of Navigational Orbital Surgery and one of Europe's eminent AO Faculty members. He is currently Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Germany and his interests include implantology, tissue engineering and Computer assisted planning using virtual models in cranio-facial surgery.

Prof von Gellrich will share his experience with us and will include the ITI philosophy with implantology. Our second international speaker is well known practice management specialist, Dr. Martin Wucher, who practices and lives in Namibia. Dr Wucher has been invited to share his expertise and knowledge with us in field of practice management. He will give us a short symposium and with the ever rising cost of having to run a private practice, this knowledge is going to be invaluable to our members and well worth listening to.

This is also, however, a local content Congress and we invite all our members to participate. The Walter Lorenz and Stryker/Liebinger prizes will again be contested this year and there are prizes for the best presentations. We ask our colleagues and registrars to put pen to paper and start preparing their abstracts as the closing date for abstract submission is the end of June 2008. A point for the registrars to note is that in order to be eligible to present for the Leibinger prize, you have to be a registered SASMFOS registrar member and application  forms can be obtained from Johnnie Fisher (drjfisher@telkomsa.net). This year’s Congress committee consists of:
Johann Ackerman and Tom Cason(Traders), Johnnie Fisher (Venue and social), Mike Ostrofsky (Sport), Greg Boyes-Varley and Tom Cason(Treasurer) and Carlo Ferretti and Jean Morkel(Scientific programme).

The Spier wine estate can be sourced via the internet and we urge our congress delegates to book their accommodation timeously directly with the hotel via their website at www.spier.co.za. The annual golf competition will take place on Sunday 5th October 2008.

Greg Boyes-Varley
Congress Convener