Abstract
One month into a new job is a good time to pause and take stock. Exactly what is the Institute of Measurement and Control? What difference does it make to the world? Why do people and companies join it? What are its values and objectives? Are they the right ones? How can we improve? Some answers are very obvious, others emerge gradually.
The first observation is that there are a very large number of balls to be juggled. The three primary objectives of the Institute as a registration authority, a learned society and a promotional body each break out into a dozen or more activities. We register several new professional engineers every week, each one requiring a rigorous appraisal process much of it conducted by volunteers. Similarly, we accredit university courses and company training schemes and we monitor engineers’ professional development. In all these activities, we are, quite properly, demandingly audited by the Engineering Council, our regulatory body.
As a learned society, we organise conferences, seminars, workshops and training courses both nationally and through local sections in the United Kingdom and overseas: 12% of our membership is international. We publish two sets of peer-reviewed transactions and this journal. We produce an online yearbook. We provide expert input into national debates through active participation in several dozen bodies concerned with our subject, and we disseminate the results to our members. We have a website which is still evolving that will eventually give us an online support facility and many other features. These various activities are overseen by a set of panels and boards that are once again largely composed of volunteers from our membership.
It is as a promotional body that we have the greatest opportunity to grow. Our social media presence and website news need to be updated daily and become compelling reading for every engineer wanting to be up to date. We need to make our presence felt by engaging more with decision makers in government, with the media and with the general public so that our name is recognised and respected. We need to increase our footprint in universities where hundreds of students graduate each year who could contribute to and benefit from membership of our Institute. We need to reach out to more industrial companies, offering tangible and compelling benefits through our companion company scheme, and we need to strengthen the collaboration between the Head Office and the vital local sections, who are so obviously the key resource for our future growth, attracting and supporting engineers all the way from student to retirement.
We are not a large fish in the national pond, but there are ways of making a bigger splash. One obvious approach is to collaborate with groups that have similar aims. We do this already with our trade association GAMBICA and with a number of our companion company scheme members. But we can do more, particularly by collaborating with other professional engineering institutes in jointly sponsoring events and campaigns. We will also benefit from a more positive marketing of who we are and what we do.
And we want to do all this with a full-time staff numbered in single figures, and a modest annual budget. As well as the commitment of our head office team, it is clear that this Institute survives and prospers through the dedication and enthusiasm of a great band of loyal members who give their time to supporting our work locally and nationally. So far, I have met a small subset, but I am hoping to visit each of the UK sections in the coming months, and the international sections before too long. I notice the motto on our coat of arms is divide et impera – divide and rule. But my own ambition is to achieve a different ethos for our Institute: iunctus et crescens – united and growing.