Calling all Young Members to get involved in the 2014 Elections!

Happy new year and I hope that you have exciting plans for both your engineering career and your volunteering roles in 2014. In this month's newsletter, I want to talk about the upcoming Institution elections.  

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is your professional body and as such it represents your voice as an engineer within society as well as administering the professional registration process and enabling your volunteering activities.  The upcoming elections are your chance to influence who represents your voice and who is deciding the strategic direction that the IMechE takes.  Therefore, if you are an Associate or full Member of the Institution, I urge you to read the candidate manifestos and to vote either online or by post. 

So what positions are you voting for?

The Trustee Board is responsible for the governance and control of the institution.  They ultimately decide the IMechE strategy and their responsibilities are legally laid down by the charities commission.  The Trustees make a huge commitment to the institution, meeting at least 9 times a year as well as sitting on a number of other boards and committees.  Of particular interest is the under 30 Trustee which is up for election this year and exists to represent younger members of the Institution.

The Council is a larger body of members which provides guidance and advice to the Trustee Board on matters related to strategy, the Institutions membership and other relevant issues. The YMB executive team sit on Council and represent the views of young members. However, any full member or fellow can stand to join Council and the time commitment is a more manageable two meetings a year, with the opportunity to join other boards and committees.   

More information about the governance of the institution and these roles can be found here. Finally, did you know that all full members are eligible to stand for the positions described above?  

Therefore, if you feel strongly about the direction of the institution and want to get involved in how it is decided, then you should consider standing in the 2014 elections.  The deadline for nominations is 19th March and the information about how to stand can be obtained from Joan (j_gibbins@imeche.org).

Best wishes, 
Ruth Shilston Chair of Young Member's Board

IMechE India organizes first ever Photograph Competition for Young Members

Two Young Members were proud to be selected as the winners of the IMechE India Photograph Competition 2014, by a panel of judges. The winners were invited on an all-expenses paid trip to attend the first ever IMechE India Volunteer Conference 2014 held in New Delhi on 1st-2nd February.

Patrick Kniveton, IMechE President in his Presidential Lecture delivered the message of being “Proud to be an Engineer”, which was also chosen as the theme for the competition. The competition was launched on 24th December, 2013, as a prelude to the IMechE India Volunteer Conference 2014, and was open to all India Young Members. The competition ran for four weeks with wide participation from all grades of membership and some interesting entries. The judges shortlisted two winners and two entries for appreciation. The shortlisted entries can be found here.  Both the winners were felicitated with certificates during the IMechE India branch Annual General Meeting on 1st February 2014 and attended the IMechE India Volunteer Conference.
Siddartha Khastgir, India Young Member said: “The idea of this competition was to increase the member engagement among our Young Members in India and increase our volunteer base. Fortunately, we have been successful in achieving this.” The two winning photographs are: 

Manasi Mone: AMIMechE
Caption: A young budding engineer excavating engineering field

Dilip Chawathe FIMechE, one of the judges and also an avid photographer himself said: “The caption highlighting a budding engineer illustrates the growing young engineering community in India and their inquisitiveness to explore the unknown”.  Manasi is an Associate Member, working with Tata Motors in Pune. This was her first involvement with the institution and has now become a part of the India volunteer network.

Hridyansh Aggarwal: Affiliate member
Caption: An interesting concept

What the judges said: “An extremely unique engineering concept forcing the viewer to visualize its working mechanism”. Hridyansh is a student studying at Chitkara University. Further details can be found via the IMechE NearYou website or by contacting Siddartha Khastgir at IndiaNewsletter@imechenetwork.org. 

EngNow- 360° Leadership Training

A new Asia Pacific-wide initiative entitled EngNow: 360 degree Leadership Training was held over four days in September 2013 at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU). This exciting event consisted of an inter-Region Speak Out for Engineering (SOFE) competition, a design competition and a Young Leadership Conference. 

Following the last report on the introduction of Asia Pacific Initiative (API) in the June 2013 issue of the Young Member Newsletter, the “API New Identity and Visual Image Design Competition” was successfully held to invite members to submit ideas about what API should be re-branded as and should look like.  “EngNow – 360° Leadership Training” is then selected to re-brand API to duly reflect the nature of multi-national platform of leadership development for the young members. All EngNow events in Hong Kong from 13th-17th  September 2013  were duly delivered as scheduled, and EngNow was indeed the platform for the young members in Hong Kong and the participating regions to show-case their commitment, vigour and enthusiasm in bringing this mega-event for young members by young members great success.

Same as the API Launching Ceremony in British Consulate-General in Hong Kong (BCG) on 7 May, the EngNow Reception was also held in BCG on 13 September. With the tremendous inputs of the Reception team, over 150 overseas delegations, International Strategy Board (ISB) members and local guests joined the Deputy Head of Mission at BCG, Mr. Paul Lynch to remark the start of EngNow. All the guests were amazed and impressed by the outstanding capability of the involving young members in delivering every details of the Reception in high quality, from decoration, programme and arrangement of food and beverages.
 
The next day of the EngNow - SOFE was conducted in an outdoor environment for the first time ever. The contestants delivered their presentation under the heat of over 30 degree Centigrade with many people walked-by inside The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPolyU) in the heart of the territory. Such environment had posted great challenges to both the contestants and judges. Notwithstanding, they all delivered an extraordinary high quality of presentation with a perfect handling of questions from the panel of judges. Panel of judges had a hard time to decide the winners and finally announced for two champions and one second runner-up. All the judges, contestants and audiences had a great time in this meaningful competition.



The Design Competition for the Visually Impaired (DCVI) was held at the CLP Centenary Building on the following day, where the competition’s ten  finalist teams from seven  different cities across Asia presented their ideas to an international judging panel, and participated in an exhibition showcasing their design solutions aimed at “transforming lives” of the visually impaired. Throughout the day, the collection of prototypes ranging from redesigned utensils to sophisticated transport and navigation systems helped the DCVI to attract over 100 guests, including many visually impaired persons, who voted for their favourite designs and gave valuable user feedback to the participating teams. The EngNow Organising Committee was delighted that the guest of honour, Mr Chan-Yau Chong, President of the Hong Kong Blind Union, helped to reveal the competition’s winners and shared his views on recent innovations for the visually impaired at the end of the well-received event.

The two-day Young Leadership Conference (YLC) also in HKPolyU saw 35 profound local and foreign top managers of multi-national engineering companies, successful entrepreneurs, professional communicator and the Young Member Representatives of the international regions in four forums and five lectures shared with over 300 delegates their insights and invaluable experiences of becoming a future leader.  Worth to note that the international young volunteers had formulated and conducted a first ever attempt on leadership survey from three distinctive groups (young members, industry captains and corporations) and fed those findings to the YLC forum panellists for their preparation of the respective forum discussions and sharing. YLC organising committee members played a key role of ensuring such a huge piece of operation and logistic task ran smoothly. Venue set-up, registration, floor manager, master of ceremony and co-ordination were all done by young members, so was the YLC abstract booklet, which graphic was comparable with the professional production houses.

The Gala Dinner was held in the evening of 17/9 to celebrate the completion of the entire EngNow programme and to express our sincere gratitude to all the EngNow sponsors, invited guests and competition judges. The dinner was started with the march-in of the High Table guests led by the Scottish pipers. Followed was the Chinese lion dance and Chinese orchestra performance. Over 350 guests and IMechE delegates, together with the Gala Dinner‘s Guest of Honour, the Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong SAR government, Mrs. Carrie Lam-Cheng, shared the success and jubilation of the completion of EngNow. 

The sponsorship team shall never be forgotten. The fund-raising campaign was led by a small team of young members, who earnestly follow-up sponsorship matters with a wide range of corporations. The achievement of raising such a sum of sponsorship with limited resources was unprecedentedly remarkable.

EngNow walked the talk by letting the young members to play the principle role in the entire multi-day international programme, the first of its kind in IMechE. With the guidance from the EngNow Steering Committee, supervision from the EngNow Organising Committee plus the support from seasoned volunteers (most were young members), all Event Champions, who were also young members themselves, were empowered to run the show of five different events, covering more than 1,000 man-times in high quality and standard. The EngNow Steering Committee cum ISB Chairman, Prof. Stuart Cameron, praised the dedication, commitment and self-less contribution of the volunteering young members, who volunteered months of their free time to EngNow, that even the professional event organisers would not have delivered the same level of great success. In parallel the EngNow Programme has received compliments from the local engineering community, sponsors, speakers, participants and ISB members, the volunteering  members in Hong Kong and Asia Pacific can be so proud of their excellence has set the top standard of IMechE volunteering. EngNow is reported in World Bulletin October 2013. The complete EngNow footage is due to be upload onto the North East Asia Region (NEAR) NearYou Site by March 2014.

Derby & Notts Area Panel host Film Night at Nottingham University

On January 21st Derby & Notts Area Panel hosted a free Film Night, screening Secret Mission Azorian - Raising the K-129 in connection with Nottingham University’s Mechanical Engineering Student Society (MechSoc). 

The film tells how, in 1974, the CIA crafted a secret programme to salvage a sunken Soviet nuclear ballistic missile submarine, lying under 16,000 feet of water. The film explains the ground breaking engineering challenges through recently declassified original film footage, computer animation and interviews with the team that made it happen. 

According to Gary Mahon, Publicity Officer on the Derby & Nottingham Area Committee, the programme cost as much as an Apollo moon mission and the story “would be utterly unbelievable if it weren't true.” For Gary, “the story doesn’t appear to be widely known, even in the submarine industry and attracted many attendees from the Rolls-Royce Submarine division. Highly recommended as a very accessible case study on engineering and project management challenges or just as a good watch”. 
​​
The Film Night was a great success with over 150 attendees, many of whom were IMechE members... though the Committee were delighted to welcome a number of member’s partners and a small number of children- hopefully helping to inspire the next generation of engineers!

For a summary of the event, please visit the event booking page at the Derby & Notts NearYou site and also key in promoting this event was the Derby & Notts Young Member Panel. Talking about the use of university venues to screen Engineering-related films, Young Member Panel member, Hannah Latham, says: “this is a really good opportunity and way to link up with a university or student society as universities can get a film license (and often have them already) at much cheaper cost and films are popular with students. Also universities have nice auditorium lecture theatres to do it in. When Derby& Notts did the first film night last year we found there aren’t many venues where you are actually allowed to do it (due to the film licensing rules) and it cost us a lot to run something at our local arts theatre”. 

The Derby & Notts Young Member Panel are always looking for volunteers to help organise all kinds of events. As an example, their next event is a pub quiz on Wednesday 12th February, and then after that they hope to run a soft skills seminary in March in conjunction with the Derby & Notts Area Panel. They meet every first Tuesday of the month and are always keen to welcome new volunteers. 

If you live in the Derby & Notts area and you are interested in getting involved with Derby & Notts Young Member Panel then please get in contact with the panel chair, Ben Mills at derbynottsymchair@imechenetwork.org. Nottingham University’s MechSoc are also keen to welcome more IMechE members, so if you are looking to book rooms and organise events at the university then please email nottingham.mechsoc@gmail.com, as is a lot easier if you have someone who knows the place and the people involved.

Visit of the Thameswey Young Member Panel to CERN

Ben Nichol, committee member on the Thameswey Regional Young Member Panel, explains how he and 11 of his fellow panel members made good use of a James Bates Grant awarded to them for a two-day group visit to CERN, Geneva. 

A James Bates Memorial Grant of £900 was awarded to allow Thomas Dee, Sunit Mistry, Jenny Stroud, Richard Sewell, Duncan Brownlee, Sonia Chapman, Peter Davies, Jamie Cole, Luke Harrison, Robert Carr, Ben Nichol and Matthew Ma to visit CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose of the trip was to allow the participants to improve their knowledge of particle physics and learn about the advances in many fields of science and engineering made by researchers at CERN.   We arrived in Geneva on 14th December and after dropping off our bags at the youth hostel, we took a tram to CERN. On arrival, we went inside the Globe of Science and Innovation. This is a large spherical building clad in wood which houses a fascinating variety of exhibits featuring the history of CERN and the key questions in fundamental physics that the researchers at CERN are trying to answer. Inside the ‘globe’ are a series of spheres which are used as display cabinets or have information projected on them. One of the most interesting exhibits was the earliest circular particle accelerator designed by Ernest Lawrence in 1929. The device was approximately 12cm across compared to the 9km diameter of the Large Hadron Collider!
 We crossed the road to the CERN staff canteen for lunch. We passed an array of old scientific equipment on display in the grounds as we walked through the site for our lunch. As our tour was not scheduled to begin until 2.30pm we also had time to view the CERN Microcosm museum located next to the reception area. This museum chronicles the history of CERN from its foundation in 1954 to the present day. The main areas of research in particle physics are explained by a series of exhibits. The museum also featured some of the technical advances in areas including computing, notably the development of the world-wide web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. 

The tour began with a talk from an engineer working at CERN about the purpose of the organisation and the research currently taking place. We then took a coach with our guide over the French border to the facility where the super-conducting magnets which make up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are built and tested. 

The LHC is a 27km long circular particle collider housed in a tunnel underneath France and Switzerland. It is said to be the most complex piece of scientific equipment ever built. It is designed to accelerate bunches of protons to 99.9999991% of the speed of light at energy levels of up to 14TeV. The beams collide in detectors at various points around the ring. The particles produced as the protons collide allow physicists to explore the fundamental structure of matter and to re-create conditions not seen since the Big Bang.

Our guide explained the engineering challenges involved in containing and guiding two opposing beams of protons to achieve collisions. The 27km ring of the LHC is made up of 1,232 dipole magnet assembly which steer the proton beams around the circle. There are also quadrupole magnets used to maintain the focus of the proton beam. The magnet coils are made from 7000km of super-conducting niobium-titanium alloy wire (manufactured in the UK!). These are cooled to -271°C using liquid helium to make the material super-conducting and able to carry the 12,000V DC used to create the magnetic field. The tubes along which the protons pass are maintained at a near perfect vacuum. Each magnet has a flexible connection with the next unit as the entire LHC ring shrinks by 10 metres when cooled down to its operating temperature. Maintaining the joint between the magnet coils has proven to be one of the most difficult engineering challenges. Microscopic cracks in the welded joints led to the meltdown of several magnets in 2008. These connections are currently being replaced as part of a planned upgrade scheduled to complete in 2015 which will enable the LHC to accelerate proton beams to the design energy of 14TeV.
 
We then took a coach back into Switzerland and visited the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) experiment. This is one of four points around the LHC where collisions take place. The scale of the apparatus is vast- the entire detector is around half the size of the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral. The equipment consists of concentric rings of detectors to track and measure the energy of the sub-atomic particles produced by collisions in the centre of ATLAS. Collisions occur around every 25 nanoseconds and produce extremely intense radiation which makes the design of the detectors extremely challenging. Around 60 petabytes of data are produced every second by the detector. The data acquisition software selects around 200 events per second that are deemed of interest and discards the rest. This results in around 3200 terabytes of data being recorded every year and processed around the world by the 38 countries involved in the ATLAS experiment.
 
We saw the control room for the ATLAS detector. Our guide explained the workings of the experiment and we then saw a 3D film which demonstrated how the different detector layers track the various particles produced from collisions.
Data from the ATLAS experiment was able to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson in 2012. This particle is a manifestation of the Higgs field. This was originally proposed by a team of researchers including Sir Peter Higgs to explain why quarks, electrons, Z and W bosons have mass. Previous theory did not explain why these particles should have mass and also why the weak force has a shorter range than the electromagnetic force. Interaction with the Higgs field gives potential energy to the particles causing them to have mass. An extremely unstable particle with the characteristics predicted by the Standard Model was finally detected in the ATLAS and CMS experiments.

CERN is a model of international scientific collaboration. Scientists and engineers from around 113 countries visit and work there. The research being carried out involves 608 universities and research organisations around the world. The organisation is very open about the work being undertaken there. I had never been on a visit to a technical facility where photographs were permitted everywhere. The staff were very forthcoming with answers to our questions and their enthusiasm for the work of CERN was clear. 

The trip was a brilliant introduction to the complexities of particle physics and the challenges in designing equipment to achieve the demanding levels of accuracy in extreme conditions of temperature and radiation. We were very fortunate to have such an informative guide who was also an electrical engineer involved in working on the control circuitry for the radio-frequency accelerators that begin the acceleration of the proton bunches before they are injected into the main ring. To read more about the Thameswey Young Member Panel, please visit their NearYou site. 

To find out more about the James Bates Grant, including eligibility criteria and how you can apply please see the Young Members Grant section of the IMechE website. 

Bath & Bristol Young Member Panel’s inaugural cardboard boat race

Small boats and big boats took to the water to open the Bristol Harbour Festival on 27th July 2013. They attracted the attention of over 4000 onlookers across the harbour.  They weren’t ordinary boats as they were made entirely from cardboard.

The Bath and Bristol Young Member’s Committee was delighted to work with the Young Shipwrights project run annually by the charity My Future My Choice to encourage young people to explore engineering when planning their future.

The morning activities started with the launch of over one hundred small yachts made by young children aged 7 to 11. An admirable standard was set by the children who had built their boats with the support of business sponsors and volunteers including IMechE members. In the afternoon, members of the IMechE unveiled their racing cardboard boats which were made in advance of the event. Each boat was capable of carrying two people a distance of 250m. The first boat to complete the circuit would win the race. 

The stage was set, TV cameras recording, and the crowd were counting down from 10. Eight boats made by members of the IMechE entered the water. Within seconds the Titanic award was claimed and two of the boats were stricken and the crew thrown overboard. Four boats finished the race intact but there was only one clear winner, a team called the Double Daves. However the winner's canoe sank on the victory lap. 

One of the participants said after the event  “I think that there was a great atmosphere and there was a great team sprit between teams”.  Vice Chair of the Young Member's Committee and one of the organisers, Patrick O’Hanrahan, said “The event was a tremendous success, hopefully we’ll be able to hold an even better one next year”

Hugh Thomas the Director of My Future My Choice added that, " IMechE  have been a great boost to the Young Shipwrights project. By  sponsoring workshops, supplying  volunteers and finally providing a fantastic event to inspire children to think of engineering as a future career.

To see the ITV coverage of the boat race then please visit the following link.  You can also look at a variety of photos from the event on the Bath & Bristol YM Facebook Page. 

The Verena Winifred Holmes Award (formerly the Equality and Diversity Award)

The deadline for the £1500 The Verena Winifred Holmes Award is fast approaching on 31st March 2014- apply now for your chance to be considered. 

What is the Verena Winifred Holmes Award?

Verena Holmes joined the Institution as the first female Member in 1924 representing a welcome breakthrough for equal rights in early 20th century Britain, and a significant moment in the Institution’s history. Previously known as the Equality and Diversity Award, it is intended to recognise those individuals who have achieved by undertaking a unique challenge or experience, perhaps to benefit people from groups with different needs, or with a past record of disadvantage or low participation.  They have stretched the normal boundaries of expectation for the benefit of the wider society.   The fundamental attribute for this award is that candidates have demonstrated that they 'value difference'.  They recognise that innovation is stimulated by embracing diversity, by listening to and respecting the perspective of others, and by constructive engagement and dialogue.

What is the Eligibility criteria and Award Value?

The award is open to IMechE members of all grades, all of whom have the chance to be awarded £1500 plus a certificate.

How do I nominate someone?

Download the Nomination form [Word 559 Kb or pdf] and send with any supporting documentation to:

Karen Frost 
ASK House 
IMechE Prizes and Awards Department 
Northgate Avenue 
Bury St Edmunds 
Suffolk 
IP32 6BB 
United Kingdom 

What is the Nominations Process? 

The Closing Date for nominations for the next Verena Winifred Holmes Award is 31 March 2014.

Nominations are considered by the Trustee Board Awards Committee in May and recommendations for awards are forwarded to the Trustee Board for approval in June.  Successful recipients are notified by the President at the end of June and invited with a guest of their choice to a celebration of their success in London in the Autumn. 

How do I find out more information?

Please email awards@imeche.org or call +44 (0) 1284 717887 if you have any queries or want to know more about how to apply for the Verena Winifred Holmes Award. 

Upcoming Volunteering Opportunities

 

Primary Engineer Training Courses and Judging Opportunities

Could you inspire the next generation as a Primary Engineer STEM Ambassador or Judge?

Primary Engineer is looking for Engineers from the IMechE who are interested in attending their free training events in the Yorkshire, Scottish, and South Eastern Regions. 

Primary Engineer’s aim is to link primary schools with engineers/STEM professionals who can bring a real engineering context to the programme via the delivery of ‘design and make’ activities to primary students (past activities have include designing, and building model cars to be used in the classroom, for example). As such, Primary Engineer is inviting IMechE Members to work with schools and students in the classroom - with dates and times to suit both parties. The initial training will be delivered to engineers wishing to support schools in the following areas: 

Yorkshire 
• 28th February- Boston Spa, Leeds​

South East
• 3rd March - Reeds School, Cobham, Surrey 

Scotland
• 23rd April – Dundee 
• 25th April – Falkirk 
• 2nd May – North Ayrshire 
• Aberdeen – Date to be confirmed 

Primary Engineer is also holding Celebration Events in the Scottish and North Western Regions where students compete against each other with their finished models. For this activity Primary Engineer requires engineers who have not worked with schools to act as judges for the day. The dates are as follows:

Scotland
• 11th March – South Ayrshire
• 12th March – East Ayrshire
• 19th March – Glasgow

North West
• 14th March- Manchester
• 20th March – Oldham

For more information about Primary Engineer’s celebration events, please visit http://www.leadersaward.com/.

Your presence at one or more of these events would be a great chance to represent the IMechE and may lead on to further volunteering opportunities in your area. Primary Engineer’s training and celebration events are also classed as a STEM activity and would contribute towards your Continuing Professional Development. 

If you would like to take this fantastic opportunity to either be trained as a STEM Ambassador or support the Celebration Events as a judge at one or more of the above events then please contact ambassadors@imeche.org or on 0121 7973 1252 at your earliest convenience. 
Should you require specific details of what is involved, please contact Sarah Mather at engineers@primaryengineer.com or on 01204 465 561.  For more information on Primary Engineer’s programme, please visit www.primaryengineer.com or have a look at their latest magazine.

Mentoring with the Social Mobility Foundation

The Social Mobility Foundation is looking for mentors to inspire potential Engineering students from low income backgrounds to make informed decisions about their careers.

The Social Mobility Foundation is a charity which exists to support high achieving students from low income backgrounds into the top universities and professions. The Social Mobility Foundation have a large number of students who aspire to study and work within the field of Engineering, so they are greatly in need of more mentors to begin in March 2014 in the target cities of Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Glasgow.

As a mentor, you will support a 16-17 year old aspiring professional through a key transitional year in their life. Mentors are a valuable resource for students to help them make informed decisions about their future, including career and university choices. 

The mentoring takes place mostly by email, and only requires around 15-30 minutes of your time per week for a year. Despite the small time commitment, your support could make a huge difference to one of our students. 

Ideally they are looking for people who have been in their careers for at least a year, but you would also be welcome to apply if this is not the case with you, as long as you have some workplace experience

If you would like to volunteer to be a mentor, please complete the sign-up form on the Social Mobility Foundation website or contact Zoe Plant at zoe.plant@socialmobility.org.uk or 0207 183 1189  for more information.

Support work-related learning events in Cambridge schools with CAP

Members living in the Cambridge area are being offered many opportunities to talk to 14-19 year olds about careers and employability in the field of Engineering. 

Cambridge Area Partnership (CAP) is a partnership of all the state-funded providers of education and training for. The partnership supports all the state secondary schools and sixth-form colleges across the Cambridge region (representing 23,000 students) to build links with local employers to help students consider the wide range of opportunities out there, and to inspire them to continue their learning. 

CAP is particularly interested in building stronger links IMechE members in and around Cambridge and they have several upcoming events for which they need volunteers to work with and inspire students: 

5th March- Bottisham Village College

Year 9 PSHE day – exploring careers

14-23rd March - Coleridge Community College 

Coleridge will celebrate National Science and Engineering Week with a series of activities at school, site visits and talks all about how science, technology, and maths are useful at work. The school particularly wants to build links with local employers. Here, you will have the opportunity to help with any of these activities:

- 50 minute demonstration of science/engineering in action for groups of 25 – 30 students
- 20 minute presentation that promotes why science / engineering is exciting
- Panel discussion about routes to employment
- Stories about people who work in this area
- Artefacts – large/small to display around the school

27th March- Swavesey Village College

Extended curriculum day on careers and employability including skills 

27th March- Long Road Sixth Form College

Careers fair – looking for exhibitors from a range of businesses
Any IMechE member who could visit any of the above schools either to exhibit, to run an activity or just to talk to students about their job and their career journey would be most welcome to attend.    Should you wish to find out more about these events (or any other CAP events planned for later on in the year) please contact Anne Bailey: abailey@cap14-19.org.uk or or tel. no. 07545 696547. You can read more about CAP at http://www.cambridgeareapartnership.org.uk/

The Big Bang Fair 2014

Volunteer Registration for The Big Bang Fair - the largest celebration of science and engineering for young people in the UK- is now open!

IMechE Young Members are encouraged to put their registration in soon, in order to volunteer at the national Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair (13th - 16th March 2014, NEC, Birmingham) and also in any The Big Bang Near Me Fairs (June/ July 2014) in their local area, if they are able.

There are ten fantastic volunteering roles on offer, half of which they are looking for volunteers from Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) backgrounds  specifically to help inspire young people into STEM subjects. 

The roles for The National Fair at the NEC which could really benefit from IMechE Young Member support are the 'Careers Cabin' roles and the 'Activity Demonstrator' roles.

*         The Careers Cabin area will feature lots of careers activities such as the 'Whose Crew Are You' activities and 'Meet the Future You' - an activity involving STEM professionals and young people, giving the visitors a chance to meet and speak to volunteers working in STEM fields, through a series of games and  discussions. The Big Bang Fair will also have 'Careers Captains' speaking to young people about their experiences and answering questions as part of a competition young people will be involved in at The Fair. 

*         The Activity Demonstrator roles will involve either helping an exhibitor as a 'Stand Assistant' working with an organisation related to a volunteers STEM background to help explain and demonstrate the activities on their stand, or volunteering as an 'Activity Demonstrator' running small activities on a small stand with another volunteer and working with the young people visiting The Fair.

More information about all the roles and various fairs that young members can assist with can be found on The Big Bang Fair website. If you have any questions about volunteering at a Big Bang Fair in 2014, please email Volunteer Coordinator, Katharine Montgomery, on volunteers@thebigbangfair.co.uk. Click here to also watch 2013’s The Big Bang Fair 2013 on video.