Young members
This year, has really started strongly for the YMB, with a great set of strategic objectives lined up and a restructured year. Every year, the YMB have a strategy weekend, bringing together our Young Member representatives for a weekend, to build working relationships, share best practices, and advance the YMBs strategy. Previously, the weekend has taken place in Q3, with a focus on exploring the potential strategic objectives for the following year.
This year, we are trying something different, with a new place in our calendar and purpose for the weekend. As such, the YMB met in February at the Aston Conference Centre in Birmingham for the 2016 strategy weekend. The focus for the weekend shifted to our 2016 objectives, and building the working groups that will be working with the executive team to develop and deliver those objectives.
We came into this year with strong and diverse set of proposed objectives, and I believe that the new format for the strategy weekend will best place the board to deliver on our targets. Through establishing working groups early, and starting off the year with high momentum, this change will allow the YMB to spend more of its contact time through the year on some of the more visionary topics, and will be exploring the 2017 strategy in a dedicated meeting later in the year.
On the topic of vision, the weekend also provided an opportunity for the YMB to move further towards closing out our response to the State of the Profession, with positive, action based recommendations to be made to the Trustee board in Q2. We were also very lucky to have Dr Colin Brown, Engineering Director at the IMechE, join us on the Sunday morning to discuss 'How do we make things happen' in the context of two more visionary topics, with constructive input provided by the YMB on behalf of Young Members.
Finally, over the weekend the YMB received updates on a number of other governance topics, including my final proposal for changes to our Terms of Reference, and board recruitment. Read on to see how you can get involved in the
Young Members Board.
Looking forward through 2016, the YMB has a busy, but very exciting year ahead. In addition to building upon previous experience with the Young Member Awards, and the Global Engineering Debate, this year see the board: launch a Global Photo Competition, engage existing and prospective Young Members at all four Divisional Competitions, issue a 'Great Event Ideas' booklet sharing best practice for Young Member Panels, shape our own Digital Strategy while feeding into the wider strategy of the IMechE, and run a TEDx event at One Birdcage Walk!
Please look out for more details for how you can get involved, either supporting standalone activities, or with the Board itself. Email
youngmembers@imeche.org if you have any questions.