This year is the 20th anniversary of the Association of Traditional Chinese medicine and Acupuncture UK (ATCM). The ATCM council held a celebration ceremony in the evening of 27th November 2014 at the Royal Medical Society in London.
At 6 pm of the evening, invited guests started to arrive at the society. Among them, Lord Cotter, Mr. Minggeng Ma the first secretary of the Chinese embassy, Michael McIntyre the chair of the European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association (EHTPA) and Nick Pahl CEO of British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) attended the celebration ceremony. The guests attended the celebration ceremony also include the department heads and programme leaders of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine courses from Middlesex, Westminster and South Bank universities, professors and researchers involved in Chinese medicine researches from London University and Kew Gardens as well as the leaders from Chinese medicine industries and the board members of Traditional Chinese Medicine Accreditation Board. In the evening, the invited guests joined together with the advisors, fellow members and council members of ATCM to celebrate the organization’s 20th birthday.
The celebration ceremony was chaired by Dr. Mingzhao Cheng. ATCM president Dr. Kaicun Zhao gave the warmest welcome on behalf of the council to all the guests attending the event. He looked into the past history and summarized the development and achievements of ATCM over the past 20 years. During the past decades, Chinese medicine has experienced the developmental process from rarely known to known to everybody. At the same time, ATCM also has grown from small and weak to a well-organized professional body with over 700 members today. In his speech, Dr. Zhao expressed sincere thanks to all members and all those who supported and continue to support the organization in various ways. He gave special thanks to Middlesex University for its long term and consistent supports to ATCM and to the statutory regulation of herbal medicine and Chinese medicine practitioners.
During the event, Mr. Minggeng Ma from the Chinese embassy, Mr. Michael McIntyre from EHTPA, Mr. Nick Pahl and Charles Buck from BAcC also gave warm speeches to congratulate the anniversary of ATCM. They also wish to maintain close communications and co-operations with ATCM in the future to further improve and promote the development of Chinese medicine and acupuncture in the UK.
Following the speeches, the council member Dr. Liqin Zhao read the congratulation letter from the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS) and the inscriptions from Ms. She Jing, the president of WFCMS and Mr. Zhenji Li, the vice president and general secretary of WFCMS. The honorary president Dr. Dinghui Luo also sent her congratulation inscription to ATCM. Congratulation letters were also received from Pan European Traditional Chinese Medicine Societies, Dutch Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Guangzho University of Chinese Medicine.
About 60 guests and ATCM members attended the evening celebration event. All people are proud of what ATCM has achieved. They talked each other, discussed concerns and development of Chinese medicine in the future in the UK. There were full of happiness and friendliness in the evening. The event closed following Dr. Fanyi Meng giving sincere thanks again on behalf ATCM council to all people for their attendance to the evening celebration.