A previous Vice President (Alan Watts) started a VP Blog providing some insight into the working's of the Board of Trustees. I've been asked if I will step into his shoes to continue the blog. It rather reminds me of the pictures you see of small children after getting into the dressing up box tottering around in high heel shoes way too big and since I normally wear a dainty size 5 this might be a good analogy! If you want to know what happened at the most recent Board of Trustees meeting held in February 2018 then ...
Before I blog about the most recent Board of Trustees meeting, a bit about me. I’ve been a volunteer since I was a YP (in the last millennium!) when I got involved in Solent Network, care of my Dad who was also a Fellow of the Institution. I’ve had roles both within Solent (Chair of both YP and Main Network) as well as Membership and Professional Development Board, Council and I was a Trustee when Alan was a VP and wrote this blog. If you want to see a video of my full volunteer career at the IET, as produced by the YP team, you can see it here).
As a VP I chair the Volunteer Engagement Board which was the new board set up as a result of Governance for the Future (G4F), which Alan blogged a lot about as a VP (something to do with being the author of it maybe?)
We haven’t met as a board since the November planning meeting which is when the budget for the next year is agreed and is therefore 1.5 days so there was a lot to catch up on. Combine that with our annual visit to IET Michael Faraday House in Stevenage and it was a long day with some pre-meetings, a host of stands to visit over lunch and then the 3 hour meeting. I always enjoy going to meet the team at Stevenage as it reminds me of the extent of what the IET does and I get the opportunity to meet up with some of the staff that I know from previous (volunteer) lives and to meet new members. Seeing the extent of the work that the IET does and meeting some of the staff I was really encouraged to see and hear their enthusiasm for their work.
To the main meeting, where as usual we had a full agenda. it was agreed to hold the Members Annual Information Event at Savoy Place on 17 May 2018 at 1830. This is when members can hear what the IET has been doing during the year. I would strongly encourage you to put the date in your diary and either join us in person or via the webcast.
The IET has had regular independent Governance Reviews, to review how the Governance is working and what improvements can be made. The last one was in 2015, before the most recent Governance changes. While the Trustees are really keen to have one, we are also concerned to ensure that the G4F changes really bed in and having consulted with Council, we agreed that the next one will be in 2019 to allow for 2 full years of operation under the new arrangements to get a better assessment of how it’s working.
Hope you enjoyed reading the blog and the next one will be after the March joint Council/Main boards followed by the Trustee meeting.
Kind regards
Virginia