It is an absolute delight to host CFSGBI in Newcastle. Let me tell you what is in store over the next few days.

Our Academic Programme

Our opening keynote speaker is bioethicist and disability rights activist Professor Tom Shakespeare, once of this North East parish. He is an absolute polymath! He talks wisely and publishes widely bridging the arts and sciences with ease, stretching from the artist Brueghel to the complex biology of genetics. I am very much looking forward to hearing what he has created for us!

We have chosen a varied keynote programme, which I hope will appeal to all CLP specialities and anticipate their content will provoke much thought and discussion. We had a wonderful response to our abstract call, encompassing a great range of topics. Consequently, we have themed each session to reflect this and keep everyone fully engaged. A novelty this year is that our questions will be posed through the Conference App to a themed ‘panel’ of all speakers at the end of the session rather than after each speaker to broaden any discussions, which we hope will work well.

Our Patient and Public Involvement

We all strive to put our patients first and foremost and that is exactly what we hope we have done in the structure of this meeting. At my very first  CFSGBI conference was a presentation entitled “Do we do this to or for our patents?”. That thought has remained with me ever since. The Newcastle Organising Team felt likewise, and this was key to our programme’s structure. So, patients are involved throughout this meeting. Over the last year our Nurses and Psychologists have run PPI focus groups discovering what ‘we’ should be talking about and what ‘we’ need to hear from ‘them’. So, taking note, from hereon in, I will use their preferred term of ‘service user’. Our local service users are the experts and they will share those expert views with us all over the next few days.  From further afield we are showcasing exciting collaborations between service users, clinicians, researchers and artists! Their final work is visible on the Conference App and some within a bijou, specially created art gallery adjacent to our many scientific posters! Innovatively, service users are Co-Chairing every session. This year all questions from the floor will be taken solely through the App. New territory indeed, so get your App downloaded now! This means the Chairs choose which questions to pose to our speakers relevant to service users as well as to service providers. In addition, each of the four judging panels contain a member with lived experience of cleft and their contribution will bring a welcome insight.

Our Social Events

All work and no play would make for a dull meeting and we have fully embraced CFSGBI’s 40th birthday! 

As well as our serious annual awards, throughout the meeting there will be party bags to be won! First day prizes go to the first person to ask a question through the App (could it be you?) and for the delegate who registers with the oldest re-used conference lanyard! The Newcastle team will be sporting gold lanyards so you can ask for local advice and help easily. Lanyards for everyone else will be a CFSGBI 2024 lanyard, washed and laundered personally by your President! 

Our CEN Reception is at the dramatic ABOVE rooftop bar atop a splendid Art Deco hotel overlooking the medieval New Castle  as well as the iconic bridges of the Tyne. It is a short walk from the Conference Venue. Don’t follow Google (really, don’t, its wrong!) but do follow our entertaining 7 piece band as they serenade you along a route lined by our Newcastle Organising Team brandishing CFSGBI purple brollies to ‘keep ya reet, pet!’. ABOVE is a favourite haunt of footballers and WAGs but we have it to ourselves for a couple of hours for a convivial drink and a nibble taking in the magnificent views. Afterwards, take the lift 12 floors ‘doon’ to the Quayside, the hub of our party city, sporting a myriad of restaurants and bars to suit every taste. Make your dining easier by checking out our Team’s Restaurant Guide on the App!

Our 40th Birthday Gala Dinner is at the Crowne Plaza, where the drinks reception has a magician to entertain and a caricaturist to capture your best features! Our Birthday Dinner opens with a talented Newcastle service user presenting a short, exciting dance performance for your delight! Charlotte is studying professional dance at the London Dance Studio.  She may inspire you to strut your stuff ‘til late to the  fabulous ‘Honey Fungus Band’. If dancing is not your thing, enjoy our homemade photobooth, making a comeback after CFSGBI 2017! A party is not complete without a party hat and each dinner table sports a box of crafty delights for your table team to create a unique and flamboyant party hat. Any left-over craft material will go to our Newcastle Cleft Service Playgroup – so dig deep for your inner child and win a party prize for the best bonnet!

I really hope that after this meeting everyone feels enlightened, inspired and entertained and following all this canny fun in wa bonnie Toon yee’ll be gannin hyem reet happy!

Your President

Rye Mattick
Lead Orthodontist
Newcastle Site, Northern and Yorkshire Cleft Lip and Palate Service