At the Silver Anniversary Conference in Oman, following the success of the one-day business conference held in 2006, it was decided that one-day Annual Development Conferences (ADC) would take place in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The first in this sequence was held at the same venue as last year’s one-day conference: the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai.

As was the case in 2006, the general feeling of delegates at the end of the day was of satisfied exhaustion!

The Conference was attended by thirty-nine delegates from thirty schools and took as its focus a detailed booklet that had been circulated before the Conference, which was called ‘The Future of BSME – Towards a Blueprint’.

The day began with Ed Goodwin, the Chairman of BSME, presenting the contents of the Blueprint and asking for comments from the floor. Following this, delegates were formed into four groups to look at:

1. Procedures and requirements to become a member of BSME
2. Ongoing requirements to continue as a member of BSME (Including a new, Accredited band of membership, the question of whether schools should be inspected or should self-evaluate and allied issues)
3. Continued Professional Development – how can BSME increase opportunities for CPD for all BSME schools and their staff?
4. Events for students (sporting, cultural, academic) – how can BSME offer more in this area, thus contributing to the wider educational opportunities of students in our schools

After an extended period of debate, the leaders of each group toured around the other groups to inform them of the way that thinking was going on their area of debate. In these ‘cross-fertilisation’ sessions, every delegate was able to hear about the direction in which each group was proceeding; to ask questions of the leaders and to make suggestions for change.

Leaders then returned to their own groups armed with feedback from the other groups. Each group then considered the feedback and whether or not to reconsider their own proposals.

Lastly, the whole conference came together to hear the final proposals and to vote on the general acceptability of a wide range of sub-proposals.

Subsequent to the ADC, the results of the votes were formulated into a new set of proposals which were sent by email to all members to consider and to vote upon. The results of this vote will determine much of the content of a BSME development and action plan.