Since the Club rules stipulate that papers from the floor should not have been presented previously at national or international meetings, this has meant that it is an ideal forum for junior speakers and postgraduate students to hone their presentation skills- it also means that talks heard are “hot off the bench” and provides a test-drive for talks that will be presented later at national and international meetings.
The club meetings have always been close and convivial, which owes something to the average turnout being around 40 members and a commitment to informality. Given the meeting registration includes a leisurely lunch and 3 p.m. finish, this provides opportunities for networking and consulting with colleagues, which leads to fruitful collaborations.
The spring meetings provide a welcome break away from the lab to blow off the winter cobwebs in travelling to the locations. On the other hand, the November meetings have occasionally required heroic and epic journeys on the account of early snow. Thus, there has now been a tendency to oscillate between Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, for ease of travel and currently this is where several larger groups are based. However, the SSBC is anything but parochial- recently, with speakers not just from England, but also Europe e.g. Leiden and Amsterdam. The SSBC has also held joint meetings with the Photo immunology and Structural Biology group and with the Scottish Society for Dermatology, to help foster a “cross-pollination” of clinical and scientific interests.
Please follow the link below for a interesting review on the history of the club by Roddie McKenzie and David McEwan Jenkinson:
A Ruby (rubor!) Anniversary: the Scottish Skin Biology Club 1969-2009