Readers of Optician will no doubt appreciate the careful blend of features published each issue; a delicate balance of the clinical and the topical, the far-reaching and the fashionable. Such perfection does not come easily and the consistently high standard achieved over the past year or two can be credited to one woman: Shannon McKenzie. Unfortunately for you, the reader, Shannon has returned to the sunny land down-under, where she is no doubt throwing another shrimp on the barbie, drinking Fosters, wrestling crocs and participating in untold other activities that we insist on stereotyping our antipodeans cousins with. So you are now stuck with me, Mike Hale, the new Features Editor. Seriously though, I would like to wish Shannon well with her continuing career as a journalist and thank her for leaving the features list packed with interesting and informative pieces for the coming months. I’ll be doing my very best to continue her good work. Over the next couple of months I’ll be blogging on my thoughts and first impressions of the optical industry, hopefully with the sort of insight exclusive to the naïve and innocent. At the awards last week I was impressed by the glamorous representatives of the trade (confounding mine and host Ardal O'Hanlon’s preconceptions) and was pleased many of the people I spoke to expressed a genuine affection for my new publication. If any one has any thoughts or suggestions on the features in the magazine please get in touch via mike.hale@rbi.co.uk and anyone who still misses Shannon may well get the chance to move to Australia in the near future with Specsaver’s planned expansion - more on that in the magazine soon.
Opinion