Chair's welcome: Lydia Amarquaye reflects on 2017

As we round up for the year, we have been trying to close out some of the projects we have been involved in.

Hopefully you would have heard or been personally involved in what we have been doing. If not, and you would like to be involved, I would encourage you to message to find out more.

As a YM community, we base our projects around supporting the strategic objectives set out by the Trustee Board. We primarily support making links to industry, providing events and a digital programme of engineering content, recognising personal achievement and raising profile of engineers/engineering, and promoting professional development. We try to think of new initiatives as well supporting long standing activities.

I was pleased to announce Stephen Welsh as The Young Member Visionary for 2017. He is a wonderful example of a young engineering professional who is putting a lot of care into developing in his field, as well as supporting others and raising the profile of engineering in his community.

We were present at The Home Automation Challenge and the Design Challenge, which will both be running a bigger programme next year, and we hope to be present at The Railway Challenge, UAS Challenge and Formula Student next. These challenges and competitions are designed to get young graduates and apprentices engaged in fun problems, and allows them to link with industry.

2018 has been declared the Year of Engineering by the UK government, which gives us new opportunities to inspire the next generation into considering engineering as a career for their future. Look out for local and nationwide events, and I would encourage you to get involved wherever you can.

I look forward to sharing more about our projects with you in the New Year.

On behalf of the Institution, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year.