Verum writes

This time of the year is traditionally when annual general meetings are held and the time for chairmen to make key note addresses about the state of the nation and their organisation. Their review of the year looks back with rose-tinted reflection on what has been achieved with the view forward setting ambitions for the organisation and for the next chairman. The theme emerging from this year's round of optical AGMs is a call for the various optical bodies to work closer together, and potentially some merging, to realise the undoubted advantages that will bring.

At the recent Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians'AGM the chairman noted the success of the Eye Health Alliance, a key player in the UK Vision Strategy, working on behalf of all the optical organisations. It has raised the profile of eye health with other professions, MPs and the NHS and will be the chair and leader of the whole health community at the party political conferences in 2009. The chairman proposed closer union between the optical bodies 'along the lines of a Confederation of British Optics'.