From Birdcage Walk

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

Dear Member,

The record doesn’t show whether he took the high road or took the low road but the President was in Scotland two days ‘afore’ the Chief Executive this week.  Visiting Dundee to meet students at the University and then going over to Dover Pumps to see its £14 million investment, with a general theme of innovation at both, left him with great feeling of success.  It certainly reminded us that Dundee is not just the centre for video game development, but much other engineering besides.

Two days later, the CEO was at the Scottish Region Annual Dinner in Glasgow.  A joyous occasion with over 300 attendees and much skirling of the pipes.  It was also great to see the contributions of two very active members being publicly recognised.  Jessica Birtley was the Junior Member Volunteer Award winner and John Blacklock the Senior one.  If ever you feel that our Institution is not alive and well then a trip to Scotland has much to recommend it.  It reveals for example that Strathclyde University now has 30% female participation in its undergraduate mechanical engineering degree.  They attribute their success partly to the creation of female only open days for schools when students can share their ideas and aspirations away from the male dominance of our profession.  Haste ye back indeed.

Meanwhile back in Birdcage Walk, preparations have been taking place for our new invigorated Council meeting this coming Thursday.  The agenda includes updates on our general health as well as progress statements from the Governance and Finance Reviews now underway.  The main session however is an in-depth look at how our Trustee Board strategy (due to be updated of course at their meeting on 5 December) relates to the strategies of the main member engagement boards (Regions, Technical, International and Young Members).  The feeling seems to be that the central vision currently translates poorly and hence much better alignment and thereby commitment is possible.  This is particularly true with regard to the Uff ‘unification’ agenda where ultimately of course it is the respective memberships that will decide what can be shared across the profession. Please take the chance to contact members of Council if you feel there are ideas that you want to ensure will be part the debate.  Find out who all 76 Council Members are. If you don’t know any of them well enough to make direct contact, then please use the general contact details on that page instead.    

Finally, do take a look at what you might be doing on Thursday 15 November.  If you are anywhere near Liverpool Docks, it is a great opportunity to join us for a celebration of UK manufacturing.  Working with "The Manufacturer" magazine, we have taken our robust business audit tool developed over many years in our MX Programme, to a much wider audience with their network and marketing support through the TMMX Awards.  Effectively a free health check for all manufacturing businesses, it is an ideal platform to showcase those that we find performing at the very highest levels.  Our President will be there of course, and tickets to attend the dinner are available through "The Manufacturer" website.

Colin Brown

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