This year, 2020, has been a challenging year for many people, for many organisations. SIOG, unfortunately, also had many challenges. As soon as the pandemic struck many of our activities had to be put on hold. Initially SIOG was part of an ESMO working group, there was a preceptorship that was due some time in February when all this happened that had to be postponed. Subsequently we had our signature advanced course in Treviso that had to be postponed as well until next year. Then came our Annual Meeting of the General Assembly. This was going to happen in Geneva in October, however unfortunately because of the pandemic we had to pivot and make it into a virtual meeting. Even though it was a virtual meeting, a short three-hour meeting, it was a really meaningful effort. There were many delegates who submitted abstracts so we had an abstract session, we had educational sessions, all combined into one with also an element of how COVID-19 has impacted us and the workgroup recommendations on how to help oncologists and their patients overcome this pandemic.

Now, looking forward we hope things will be better next year so we’re going to start the year with a bang with a virtual meeting, albeit in Canberra. So this was initially planned as an advanced course this year in 2020 but it got postponed to January 12th and 13th next year. I would encourage all of you who are interested to learn more about geriatric oncology to sign up for this course. Initially it was meant to be a very small course that had more face-to-face interaction. However, now that it’s virtual it’s open to everyone so please feel free to get on the SIOG website to sign up for it. There are still ample seats available for people to sign up virtually.

After this we hope to still conduct the Treviso course which is usually in the middle of the year and, last but not least, we hope to have a face-to-face usual General Assembly in Geneva in November next year. The dates are all fixed, you can get on to the SIOG website, www.siog.org, and you can get all the information there. There are many, many resources there as well so I hope you can get on the site and enrich yourself with as much knowledge in this rapidly developing but very important field of geriatric oncology. Thank you.