Institution news
Dear Member,
When Charles Dickens wrote in 1859 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,” he wasn’t referring to COVID-19 of course, but his message about contrasts is one that is very relevant today. As we all sit in lockdown in the UK, we have seen many of our traditional activities close down and yet the ingenuity of our members and our staff has seen many others appear at the same time.
The key message is that we are still here and that the value of being in a professional engineering institution has never been greater. The network and support that comes from being amongst equals has contributed not only to the Nightingale hospitals in the UK but also to manufacture of ventilators in India. There will no doubt be many more great stories from our membership as we emerge from the lockdown.
The Institution is working hard to move our main services and benefits online to support our members and the wider engineering community in these challenging times. This includes an enhanced learned society and training webinar programme as well as information on local online activities and advice from our support services. We will be sending a bi-weekly newsletter to all members to keep you updated and check out our new online hub IMechE at Home.
In the meantime, there are some key operational adjustments we have had to make to keep people safe and to comply with the law. Hopefully you have already seen that we have had to delay our Annual General Meeting. We have chosen 22 September as the new target date for it eventually to happen, but of course that may move again if we are still not allowed to have public gatherings in the UK by that time.
We have also had to delay the publishing of our annual accounts. The Trustee Board is sending all of us who have provided email addresses, the reasons why associated with auditing rules. We have also put their letter up on the website. It would of course be wrong to say there is nothing to worry about, as clearly if this lockdown were to continue indefinitely your Institution would need to change substantially to survive. Overall however anything that starts to get back to normality by the end of 2020 is well within our resources and current plans.
Finally it is important to remind all 70,000 of you able to vote, that our elections to the Council and Trustee Board are going ahead on schedule. You will receive your individual voting codes together with profiles of the candidates in the coming days and you have until midnight on Monday 25 May for your vote to be received. The results will be published on the afternoon of Wednesday 27 May on our website and immediately afterwards the successful candidates will take up their new roles.
Democracy is a great strength of our Institution even in these difficult times. Please do remember to let us know your views through the ballot box.
Dr Colin Brown
Interim Chief Executive