Make your vote count

April will be a crucial month for IMechE’s Young Member Board (YMB) as every seat is up for election. With over 30 panels across the world, the Young Members network is continually gaining profile – providing enjoyable support, events and opportunities for young engineers.

For those of you unaware of what the YMB’s role is, its responsibility is to represent this whole network to the Institution whatever the industry, area, project or target. The board ensures that the voices of IMechE Young Members, who are the future of mechanical engineering, are heard, listened to and acted upon.

To achieve this YMB delivers a business plan that offers value to Young Members by supporting, developing and promoting knowledge, understanding and professionalism. This is often achieved by providing tools and support to Young Member Panels to help them to interact with their local membership.

So what vacancies are up for grabs?

The YMB executive team is currently up for election. All 45 YMB members are able to vote for their chosen executive member. Your relevant YMB representative will be voting for the chosen Executive members on 17 April.

There are many ways in which you can get involved. There are currently several vacancies on the YMB which you can see by clicking here. If the vacancies highlighted on the YMB are not for you then have a look at the other opportunities up for grabs in our volunteer vacancy section.

We want to get you involved and active in your time at IMechE so we’ve made the application process really simple. You will pick up an array of benefits from volunteering including gaining new skills and opportunities to meet others in the profession outside your immediate network. You can find out more about the benefits by looking at our Ambassador Gold case studies or watching Chris Cox's presentation on the benefits of volunteering.

Chris Cox is the YMB Environment Representative, who has been heavily involved with Cooling the Planet, a pilot event at IMechE on 6 March. Chris was project co-ordinator for the event which drew in teams of young IMechE members from as far afield as Malaysia, focusing on approaches to reverse the effects of global warming. The competition focused on two areas – Mitigation (preventing/reducing the future release of green house gases (GHGs) and Geo-engineering (counteracting the effects of climate change which are already being seen by methods such as reflecting the sun’s rays or removing GHGs are already in our atmosphere).

Chris said: “I have learned so much from just getting involved. As well as giving engineers a much needed profile, it shows the rest of the world that we are actively doing projects that will benefit the whole of mankind.”

Stephen Tetlow, IMechE CEO, says: “I am impressed by what I have seen from IMechE so far. It is clear we have an exciting breadth of talent in our Young Members. They can really make a difference.”

Deadlines for applications for all of the above roles (except YMB exec.) is 15 May. All YM’s (Affiliates, Associates and those Members who have been professionally registered for 10 years or less) are encouraged to apply for vacancies. This is your chance to make a difference and have a say in the future of your profession.