On the weekend of November 9 - 10, the IET's Americas Communities Volunteer Conference 2019 was held at the Aloft Hotel Downtown in Houston, Texas, USA.Around thirty volunteers from across the Americas region converged in Houston in early November for networking, sharing best practices and ideas, learning about updated strategies and activities from the IET, the Communities Resourcing Committee (CRC), the Communities Committee - Americas (CC-A), the Communities Committee - Technical Networks (CC-TN), the Young Professionals Communities Committee (YPCC), and getting some hands-on experience with the DIY Faraday Challenge Day (DIY-FCD) and micro:bit STEM education activities that can be leverage by IET volunteers in the Americas.


After a fun "ice breaker!" led by two of our YP's, we covered the following in the day and half conference:

1. An overview of the Communities Resourcing Committee (CRC) strategy by Macauley Kenny, CRC Member-at-large

• A review of the CC-A regional three-year strategy and five strategic action plans from the CC-A Chair, David McQuiggan, namely:
  
  1. Engagement & Empowerment of members, volunteers and local communities to enable our Vision and deliver our Mission.
  
  
• Next Generation: Supporting and developing STEM students and early career professionals through PATW, Global Challenge, DIY-FCD, On-Campus, YPCC and other programs/events.

• Professional Development:  Providing development opportunities through events, tours, conferences, mentoring,  IPRAs, and promotion of IET programs, resources, volunteer opportunities, elections, awards and competitions.

• Public Outreach: Amplifying the promotion of The IET’s vision, mission, events and programs through social media and direct engagement at local, national and regional level.

• Working Across Boundaries: Partnering with TNs, sister PEIs, STEM advocates, industry academia to leverage each other’s strengths and resources aligned to our Mission & Values

• An overview of the new IET Technical Network strategy and TNs by Phoebe Houssein, IET Staff

• A workshop exercise centered around Local Network (LN) SWOT analysis and best practice sharing

• An overview of next-generation YP activities from our Americas region representative for the Young Professionals Communities Committee (YPCC), with an emphasis on how to engage with YPs led by Robert Mayall, CC-A YPCC rep

• A case-study for IET On Campus: Arts et Métiers Châlons, by Antoine Yazbeck, Past Chair, Arts et Métiers Châlons OnCampus group, France

• A contestants view of the IET Present Around the World (PATW) competition, by Pradesh Boodoosingh, a contetant from Trinidad & Tobago

• A brief about Fellowship at the IET by John Houldsworth, IET Fellowship Policy Committee who managed to deliver his presentation over Skype!

• An overview International Professional Registration Adviser (IPRA) role from Mariusz Baginski

• An introduction to a new brand called "Foothold," a re-branding of the IET Connect benevalent fund by Phoebe Houssein, IET Staff

• A train-the-trainer hands-on tutorial from Hal Speed, micro:bit Chief of Global Engagement Officer, where each volunteer was gifted a mirco:bit kit and downloadable software to play around and experiment with from their smartphones or laptops. Download Hal's micro:bit presentation materials from SlideShare here and code editor software here.

• An experiential and interactive workshop to play a shortened version of the DIY Faraday Challenge Day (DIY-FCD) James Webb Telescope game (download resources here) 

Presentation materials for each session have been shared with each local network committee via SharePoint and individual delegates via an email link. If other volunteers would like copies, please contact CC-A committee.