The great city of Berlin hosted once again the ECVO Congress that took place in May 19-22 and focused on the topic of ‘Glaucoma’. The two-day scientific meeting included stellar presentations from Dick Dubielzig, Gill McLellan and Bjorn Ekesten as well as Professor Detlev Spiegel's unique angle on the disease in humans in his State of the Art Lecture on medical and surgical therapies for people. The well known hereditary eye diseases session with Ellen Bjerkas and Frans Stades counted on a full house and an animated interactive discussion opened to everyone. The presentations and interactive session were followed by an exhibition of posters from all over the world including the 2011 ECVO poster winner, who came all the way from Iran University. Finally, the abstract presentations covered the captivating aspects of the latest clinical and investigative research and were followed by the Master Class sessions with Gill McLellan and Dick Dubielzig, which ended the congress on a high note. During the course of the meeting the industrial exhibition from the meeting's sponsors drew a great deal of interest, offering a large array of state of the art equipment and instruments for everyone to experience first hand, a learning experience on its own.

Social events included the fun cocktail drinks evening at the Hippo enclosure of the Berlin Zoo, with its large glass windows that offered a view into the graceful underwater world of these fascinating animals, and the gala dinner at the restaurant atop the Reichstag and overlooking the Berlin's skyline against Foster's famous Reichstag dome. All in all, an unforgettable scientific and social experience that brought together several hundred professionals and friends from all over the world including the EU, Asia, the US and Australia.

Lastly, this year's ECVO AGM meeting gave all the diplomates present the opportunity to welcome into the college seven new Diplomates after which the location and dates of the next three ECVO meetings were announced.

We hope to see you there!

Rick F Sanchez DipECVO

Chair ECVO Communication Committee