President’s Message By Ali Badreddine, RO I would like to begin by wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year. Welcome our new Office Administrator I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our new office administrator, Karin Sheppard. Karin comes to us with a wealth of experience in a variety of fields, and over the last few months she has proven to be a great asset to the association. Inside Optics hosts most ever registrants 2007 was also the last year of the 3 year con-ed cycle and the OOA responded by organizing two Inside Optics weekends. The first one was held at the end of April and over 1000 Ontario Opticians attended the two-day event. The Saturday night dinner dance was also well attended and over 200 people participated in honoring the Optician of the Year alumni. Inside Optics “last call” held November 11th, was the most successful Inside Optics to date. In one day over 550 members and 84 non-members were in attendance to make this the largest Ontario Opticians’ gathering ever. It’s rewarding that Ontario Opticians are starting to come out to educational events even when they don’t need to collect credits.  I believe this is a sign of positive commitment to the profession and to personal growth. OOA puts your membership dollars to work for YOU Our membership is growing faster than ever and we expect this trend to continue. Most Ontario Opticians now recognize the value in being a member of their provincial and national associations. For those few who have not yet made a commitment, I realize at this time of year you have to make choices about where to spend your money and your energy. I urge you to judge the Ontario Opticians Association on its record as a non-profit organization working exclusively for you.   • There are many special interest groups within the optical community but none aside from the OOA that dedicate their funds, their energies and their goals only to Opticians.   • The OOA does not invite membership from other practitioners in the vision care field as some do. Although there are overlaps in scope of practice and education, Optometrists and Ophthalmologists have a different political agenda than Opticians. As an organization that lobbies intensely for your best interest we would be severely compromised if we had a mixed membership. We believe in YOU. • The OOA Board of Directors volunteer their time at some personal cost because they believe in the future of the profession and they want Opticians to prosper. Any funds collected by the OOA through membership or sale of product goes directly to our legislative and continuing education efforts. You don’t have to guess how your membership dollars are used. The results are transparent. • Our goal of providing free continuing education has started to be realized. We continue to work with our OAC partner to innovate new ways of providing continuing education for those of you who are unable to attend our Inside Optics events. Look for news of more online opportunities in this New Year.   • The OOA continues to meet with and monitor the activities of the College of Opticians of Ontario. We respond to and comment on every draft policy and Standard of Practice the College circulates. Our submissions are frequently critical but we believe the best way to get things changed is to work with people constructively. I urge you to read all of our submission to the College which appear on our website. Standard of Practice for Refracting Handicaps Refracting Opticians With great pressure from the Ontario Opticians Association (OOA) the College of Opticians of Ontario (COO) lifted the ban that was placed on opticians being able to refract. This was a move the OOA has been urging the College to make for many years. Although establishing a Standard of Practice for Refracting is a step forward, we feel it still doesn’t do enough to enable Ontario Opticians to be where they need to be. In fact in some significant ways the Standard places unreasonable handicaps on Refracting Opticians. An analysis of those issues is outlined elsewhere in this newsletter.   The OOA’s push toward a more sensible standard continues. Public Relations Last year was a provincial election year in Ontario. The OOA board members worked on a campaign to try and meet with every candidate that was running for election and to lobby their support for the Ontario Opticians goal of performing stand alone refraction. We were gratified to receive letters of support from several candidates including the former Minister of Health who instructed the College to impose the ban – Elizabeth Witmer. All the letters can be seen on our website www.ontario-opticians.com.   We are not finished with this campaign; we are still meeting with newly elected MPPs and trying to convince the government that expanding the scope of practice for Ontario Opticians to include stand alone refraction is beneficial to all Ontario residents.