Chair's welcome: Lydia Amarquaye looks ahead to 2018

Looking forward to 2018, a year full of Young Members' events and activities aimed at YOU!

I hope you have had a great start to 2018 and you look to this this year with anticipation and excitement.

As a Young Members Board, we are looking forward to our Strategy Weekend at the end of the month, which will not only provide a great platform for networking, but is mainly a really good opportunity for us to plan our projects for the year, and think of ways to keep members engaged in the life of the Institution. We hope by the end of the weekend to have some plans in place, with timeframes, to deliver projects which will have a global impact.

We will be continuing our regular events - SOfE, Young Member of the Year, Photographer of the Year Competition and the Charity Grant, but we hope to add new things to our portfolio which will engage a wider audience, not necessarily just those already involved in engineering.

2018, The Year of Engineering in the UK, is an exciting opportunity for us to showcase talent, and show how engineers are solving problems in so many aspects of society. It is a great time to celebrate and inspire people to think about engineering in a wider context, not just 'fixing cars and planes' as I have had many young people say to me in the past. We can show that engineering doesn’t have to be dirty, doesn't have to be boring, but it is relevant, exciting and often life changing. Although this is a UK initiative and we will be supporting any activities we can get involved in, I believe the vision and the pride of place of Engineers in Society is a worldwide thing.

Two of my key themes for my time as Chair are Ownership and Responsibility. This was primarily to do with how members of the YMB operate, but this has challenged me to think about my career and targets in life. I'd like to take this wider to say we all have a responsibility to inspire in order to address the skills shortage in engineering.  We all have to take ownership of our paths in order to get where we want to in our careers.

• What are your plans for Continued Professional Development this year?
• What resources of the Institution can you use to support that?
• Get behind YOUR institution and make it relevant for YOU.