New AOP council announced

The names of the practitioners who form the AOP’s new Council have been named following an election.

The new streamlined AOP Council consists of 33 members and aims to better reflect the profession, drawing on the wide range of experience from all ages and backgrounds within the Association’s membership.

Two councillors were elected in each of the AOP’s nine English constituencies, with three representatives elected each for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Elected councillors representing geographical areas across the UK include: Emma Spofforth and Martin Sweeney for the East of England; Tushar Majithia and Bhavik Parmar for East Midlands; Jugjeet Singh Bansal and Gordon Ilett for London; for North East England is Jane Ranns and Kevin Thompson; for North West England is Andrea Kay and Ian White; in South East England is Anne Freeman and Valarie Jerome; for South West England is Ed Bickerstaffe and Keith Pearce; for the West Midlands is Susan Bowers and Francesca Marchetti; and for Yorkshire & the Humber it is William Ean Blair and Stewart Mitchell.

Elected in Northern Ireland is Dr Julie-Anne Little and Brian McKeown, for Scotland is Alison McClune, Sohaib Shafiq and Kevin Wallace; and for Wales is Annette Dobbs and Mike George.

Eight further positions, which are designed to represent core areas of the AOP’s membership, were appointed. Fatima Nawaz is appointed as an early-career optometrist, Jonathan Bennett as a franchisee/joint venture partner optometrist, Fawzia Mohamad as an undergraduate student optometrist, Karan Vyas as a pre-reg optometrist and Sana Asif as a newly-qualified optometrist.

AOP chief executive, Henrietta Alderman, commented: “I would like to congratulate all the successful candidates and thank everyone who took part in the AOP Council elections and appointment process. Our new look Council forms part of a wider drive for member engagement with a focus on increasing interaction between Councillors and members. We are committed to better represent and serve our members and I look forward to working with our new Councillors to achieve this.”