Page 36 - Gi August 2020

igem news

CEO’S UPDATE attracting 70-100 participants, some
even more! We continue to announce
new and varied topics, so watch out for
these in our e-newsletter, Flame.
A WORD FROM OUR CEO opportunity to collaborate with each
Our Sections, too, are seizing the
other and we have already run several
Section-led webinars accessible to our
whole membership. Such sessions are
being coordinated and run routinely as
You may be a great way to build and share learning
interested to across our membership.
In July, we ran an ‘Innovation
hear that we Tuesdays’ series and you can catch up
are routinely on any content you missed via IGEMtv,
attracting our online video platform. The material
70-100 to available on all our platforms continues
these weekly to grow, with tons of rich technical,
safety and other content now available
webinars for your enjoyment.
We’ve been planning this year’s
Annual Conference, which will link
strongly to the energy transition and
will highlight many of the activities
underway to make a hydrogen network a
reality. The conference will be delivered
online in a bite-sized format across
the week commencing 21 September,
so mark this in your calendars now.
Chris Stark’s Sir Denis Rooke Memorial
Lecture will feature and will livestream
at 6.30pm on the Wednesday.
Regarding training, I am delighted
that our course providers have been
redeveloping their programmes for
modular e-delivery. We are very excited
about this and already have four major
courses developed, with some August
enrolments already fully booked.
NEIL ATKINSON
We will be running more courses in
As the UK continues to feel the effects of the pandemic, IGEM the coming months and hope that we
can engage even more participants with
CEO Neil Atkinson provides an update on how the institution has CPD opportunities through this means,
responded to the Covid-19 crisis with a fresh programme of activities to the benefit of all.
and some ambitious plans for the future We’ve taken a decision to bring some
editions of Gi to you digitally, beginning
THE FIRST WEEK of June was the changes, accessing our meetings with this edition. This is helping us to
Volunteers’ Week, a celebration of the virtually with good attendance levels. save on production and mailing costs
contribution millions of people make Consequently, the technical programme with the added bonus of helping the
across the UK through volunteering, has not been impacted at all, with environment too.
so the first thing I would like to say is a several standards out for consultation. I previously mentioned in Flame
big thank you to the 400-plus members The institution’s AGM, during which we that our dedicated staff team
who give their time and expertise welcomed our new President Duncan members are all working from home
to contribute to our work. Without Wong from his location in Hong Kong, and that several staff members have
volunteers, IGEM simply could not run. was a particular success and a great been furloughed. That situation is
As we continue to navigate the improvement in transparency. Do take improving and while we are doing
challenge of this pandemic, IGEM has a look at our progress in the Annual everything we can to achieve ‘normal
been working hard to maintain its Review, available on the IGEM website. service’, this is a challenge. The team
programmes. Indeed, we are seizing Our webinar programme is running has delivered a fantastic response
the opportunities to develop our ways well and has already included some and, as always, we are endeavouring
of operating, such as how we approach excellent high profile events, such to support you and our institution, so
technical standards development and as on the critical Gas Goes Green please bear with us.
how we share expertise across our programme, a webinar led by IGEM We’re attracting new members, so
member community. Fellow Chris Train. please spread the word and IGEM will
It has been a privilege to see how You may be interested to hear that emerge even stronger in 2021. This is
members have reacted positively to these weekly webinars are routinely an exciting and challenging time!

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