Progress report from Consumers' Transitional Executive in Keystone, October 2010
1. Establishing a Consumers’ Transitional Executive
A Consumers’ Transitional Executive (CTE) for the Cochrane Consumer Network (CCNet) was established in May 2010, following the strategic planning session in Auckland in March 2010, and a number of subsequent email and Skype discussions. It was decided that the current CTE should include the two CCNet representatives on the Steering Group (Liz Whamond and Mingming Zhang) and four former Steering Group members (Godwin Aja, Gill Gyte, Silvana Simi and Janet Wale [also CCNet Convenor]). Janet declined to be on the CTE but remains on the CCNet Geographical Advisory Group.
2. Cochrane Consumer Co-ordinator position
Catherine McIlwain has been appointed to the recently established position of Consumer Co-ordinator, following interviews in London, England, in early September 2010. The members of the interview panel were Lorne Becker, Gill Gyte, Nick Royle and Liz Whamond. Catherine is from Washington, DC (USA), and started work on 22nd September 2010. She has worked as a research field officer in Tanzania, and with migrant non-English-speaking Hispanic women in North Carolina. She has a Masters Degree in Public Health from Tulane University, New Orleans, and more recently has worked in website communication and as a Senior Advisor for The Campbell Collaboration. The CTE is excited about working with Catherine. Gill Gyte went to Oxford on 23 September to meet Catherine and discuss initial ideas; further discussions will take place in Keystone.
3. Determining function and activities of CTE and of CCNet
The first CTE teleconference was held on 27 July 2010, at which the following decisions were made:
a) The CTE has set up an email ‘Decision-making process’ that is transparent to the Collaboration and the CCNet membership.
b) The work done in Pisa, Italy, in 2004 (by Gill Gyte, Silvana Simi and Janet Wale) to restructure the Cochrane Consumer Network (after it was withdrawn from being an Association in Australia), and the subsequent structure diagram, will be used as the basis for drafting a new document on ‘Roles and responsibilities’ and a new ‘Structure diagram’. It was agreed that the primary core function of CCNet should be ‘Empowerment and support for consumers’.
c) The CTE will propose core functions for CCNet following a request from the Collaboration’s Monitoring and Registration Committee (MaRC). These functions will flow from the Steering Group’s decision in Auckland. The CTE agreed that for each CCNet core function/activity, a small working group be set up comprising a member of the CTE, the Consumer Co-ordinator, the CCNet Convenor, a member of the Geographical Advisory Group (GAG), and possibly a member of CCNet.
d) Agenda for Keystone will include:
Reports: 1) Liz as chair; 2) Mingming as SG rep; 3) Janet as convenor; 4) Gill on training; 5) Godwin on Making Cochrane Information Accessible to Nigerian Consumers project; 6) Thoughts from the new Consumer Co-ordinator
Discussions: 1) Structure, roles and responsibilities; 2) PLSs; 3) The way CRGs involve consumers (Andrew Herxheimer’s email); 4) Checklists for protocols//reviews; 5) Proposed plans for next year.
Liz Whamond (Chair), Godwin Aja, Gill Gyte, Silvana Simi and Mingming Zhang
Consumers’ Transitional Executive (CTE)
21 September 2010