From Birdcage Walk

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

Dear Member,

You would need to be of a certain age to remember a song called ‘It’s Good News Week’ by Hedgehoppers Anonymous that reached number five in the UK charts in 1965. You however would only have needed to be around and experiencing our Institution’s activities over the last few days to want to say the same words.

Our website homepage has been running the successful start of our ‘Summer of Challenges’ portfolio which has just got off to a flying start in Wales. Thirty two teams from Canada, Denmark, Holland, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and of course the UK registered to take part in beautiful flying conditions in Snowdonia. The event was sponsored by Gwynedd Council and the Welsh Assembly, as well as support from Minister for the Economy & Transport Ken Skates AM and Chair of the Snowdonia Enterprise Zone Advisory Board, John Idris Jones. Many thanks too to our other sponsors, GKN Aerospace, Bombardier, QinetiQ, Raytheon and Frazer-Nash Consultancy. There were seven sub-category awards as well as overall winner and two runners up. The top trophy was taken by the National University of Sciences and Technology from Islamabad with their team ‘AirWorks Beta’. Next week it’s off to Stapleford in the East Midlands to experience the locomotive specialists in the Railway Challenge. 

Back here in the Napier Room, we welcomed the new Trustees to their first meeting of the new season. The agenda focused on the need for excellent governance and as well as a lengthy induction by an external specialist in charity trusteeship, there was extensive time devoted to the first run-through of the Governance report from Mike Howse on behalf of his Review team. This is the last of our three major reviews. At 124 pages long and with 171 recommendations it needed all the time on Tuesday and more. The Trustees have therefore already agreed to meet again on 1 July to complete their preliminary assessment.  It will then go on to Council for their review, most likely in August. It has clearly been a huge and meticulous effort by the Review team and many thanks go to the team who have put in long hours and much thought to create what will be an important guide to our work in the coming months.

Rather easier to digest however were the management accounts. A sea of black ink, they show each and every one of the operating businesses ahead of both budget and last year in their performance to end May. Everyone is contributing to an overall profit that is now a heartwarming £507k ahead of the corresponding situation last May. The key factor is that they are all doing this through growth in their ‘top lines’, up an average of 47.6% on 2018.  The Learned Society however is not one to be left behind. Through control of its costs, it too is showing a £278k improvement in ‘bottom line’ outturn over 2018.

Whilst ‘one swallow does not a summer make’ it is important to recognise that we are now nearly half way through the year as we post these encouraging numbers. There is much good work that is being done across our membership and staff to create great events and help achieve these welcome figures. Taking nothing for granted, let’s enjoy it while we can.

Colin Brown

Chief Executive

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