From Birdcage Walk

The latest in our ongoing series of updates about activities at the Institution.

Dear Member,

It is always with sadness that we lose any of our members, but this Wednesday saw the passing of one of our Honorary Fellows, Sir SY Chung.  He had just celebrated his 101^st birthday earlier this month, and died unexpectedly but peacefully in hospital in Kowloon.  Sir SY had been a senior figure in Hong Kong politics both during British and Chinese rule.  His most senior role was as Convenor of the Executive Council between 1997 and 1999.  An engineering graduate from around the time of the Second World War, as well as being a Fellow or ours he was also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.  Nicknamed the ‘Great Sir” and also “Godfather of Local Politics” he will be sadly missed by all who knew him.

Meanwhile, the work of our Institution continues.  Indeed the Trustee Board coming up on 5 December represents an important step in the creation of the ‘new IMechE’ based on the output from our Governance and Finance Reviews.  Not only will it discuss and respond to the first interim report from the Finance team, it will also approve the Institution’s operating plan for 2019.  These are both great opportunities to see the member empowerment and member focus which have been the watchwords both from Council and from Trustee Board of late.  It will also give us an insight into the latest investment plan for digital communication which is a key enabler in Member engagement worldwide.  Look out for the word ‘team’ appearing more often as we seek to exploit the synergy possible between employees and active members.

Importantly, as we come to the end of 2018, there are also a number of celebrations of the good work that is already going on.  The President was in Liverpool on Thursday at the TMMX Awards dinner to recognise the achievements of some of our more innovative and successful manufacturing organisations.  He also took on the challenge of a short call to action to ‘enthuse the next generation’ to 600 enthusiastic and apparently vociferous manufacturers.  Watch out for pictures emerging soon, but for the moment here are the list of winners, and the chance to register your interest for next year.

Your CEO in the meantime had the rather easier task of a short speech on Friday in Derby for the East Midlands Region Annual Dinner.  A delightful experience that once again shows the value of our Institution in the local community with many local employers taking tables and the unique opportunity to network on engineering issues.  For the UK, the Institution’s Annual Dinner will attempt to do that sabook to come along to Aerospace Bristol to join us and see not only many familiar faces, but also to meet and recognise the achievements of our Prestige Award winners in 2018. It would be great to see you there and to celebrate all that is good about our profession.

Colin Brown

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