November Update
It seems like only yesterday I was writing Octobers Blog and here we are the End of November with Christmas rapidly approaching.
It’s been another full and hectic month
This year HEA conference was a great event once again a very different format to our own Summit but again very well attended a huge congratulations to all the winners of the respective awards on the night not least our own Alistair Scott (Past President) who won the Service to Industry Award.
Thank you to Gareth, Sue and the HEA team for a great event and looking after me on the night. I wish Jerome and Karen well in their forthcoming year as Chair of HEA and HEA / HEMSA respectively
The HEA event was quickly followed by Luxlive, another tremendously well attended and successful event. From the Institution’s perspective this year was our best year at the event. The team managed to sign up over 40 new members a welcome boost to the regional membership. The stand was busy both days and the HQ team were willingly assisted buy Guy Harding, Elizabeth Thomas and Jon Hall. Both seminars hosted by the ILP on day two were extremely well attend (approx 30 in each) This year the Best Practice in Competency Award was awarded to Elizabeth Thomas from Walsall MBC, as I’m sure you are all aware the Engineering Council require us to audit 1% of our members CPD and as a way of re cognition and encouragement we now have this award. CPD submissions are mandatory requirement for all members and our EC registrants be you an Eng Tech IEng or CEng.
Our congratulations must go to Philip Avery who was the winner of this year’s written paper submission for Young Lighter of the Year (as voted by the ILP). My thanks go to Jon Hall and Graham Festenstein for judging the four papers. My congratulations must also go to David Kretzer who won best Paper Presentation (on the day) and finally to Rachael Nicholls who won the Young Lighter of the Year at the evening award dinner and indeed to all the other award winners on the night.
The YLP also held their AGM this month where Chairman James Wright handed over to Fiona Horgan for the forthcoming year. Well done to James who had a fantastic year as Chairman and good luck to Fiona for the year ahead. Following the Executive Board Strategy meeting changes were made with regard to the YLP and how they will integrate within the ILP. The YLP now report to the Immediate Past President and have a direct link to the Executive Board where their thoughts ideas and visions will be fed into. This is in recognition of the importance the Board places on the YLP, after all they are the future of the Institution and they need a voice.
Finally I attended the ELD module 3 and spent some time with this year’s students. I wish them all well in completing their project and look forward to seeing who the Student of the Year will be at the September 2014 summit.
My thanks must go to my employer Skanska (IS) for supporting me with the time required to fulfil the duties as your President. Without this full support it would be extremely difficult.
You can also now follow me @mjrugby1968Until next time
Mark
