Not sure who had more fun

The children at Handale were incredibly interested to find out all about engineering. After an assembly with some great questions the younger students really got involved with reading of the Lottie Books and were excited to be left with copies for their classrooms.

Tree planting on LeapDay

It was an absolute pleasure to plant trees with students from Fairfield Primary School alongside our climate champion Julie Harrison.

These 120 tree whips symbolised the end of the planting scheme in Stockton. The students also helped plant more mature fruit trees which will provide residents with free food in the future.

The Stockton Council representatives John, Nigel and Colin told the 9 students all about habitats (for animals, flora and fauna), educated them on the role of sap and helped them identify the different types of trees.

The students now have the skills and ability to plant whip of different sizes with of course the very special task at the end to compact the soils with the ‘penguin walk’.

A great way to spend my extra LeapDay!

Thank you Cleveland Scientific Institution

Cleveland Scientific Institution funded the printing of the Lottie books which have enabled our EngTog Ambassadors to see 870 students in 36 classrooms across every Tees Valley Borough. In addition this has also enabled 610 extra students to be seen in assemblies plus the books have been used at others events such as Eid Festival and Stockton’s first Youth COP.

As an added bonus these visits have helped facilitate some really great Primary Voice discussions and has today pushed the number of PV students to over 19,000 – quite an achievement!

This work will continue due to the kind donation for a second lot of printing of 700 more books; many thanks.

Read about some of the book reading visits and their impact at

My 2023 round up

It is always good to reflect and at the end of the year always seems a good excuse….

We started the year shouting about Civil Engineers working together – not only was this a great event showing the power of Engineering Together is also saw my personal milestone of reaching 10,000 students.

February of course brought National Apprenticeship Week where some of our members were out and about the region promoting this great route into engineering (and other) careers.

In March we marked International Women’s Day with a variety of events and we celebrated with not just one but two members being awarded prestigious titles. Our influential group have won many more awards throughout the year including Jo receiving the Isabel Hardwick Medal.

Our close working with WES Tyne and Tees strengthened with our Mentioning the Unmentionable event on NeuroDiversity and featuring at the WES annual conference. The collaboration with WES on the Lottie Books continues with some welcomed funding from the Cleveland Scientific Institution for book printing.

The summer brought outside events and we had some fun on the water and got out to a local market; this outreach is one of the reasons Julie was selected by the Stockton for the Mayors Green Award.

We have continued to be involved in organising the Transporter Bridge Award which consolidates our collaborations with the CIHT and Teesside University. Our collaborations continue with STEMettes, Climate Action North and many others.

We have made some new partners with Engineering & Manufacturing Network and had the pleasure of helping organise their first ever fringe event on diversity and our first fringe. We were instrumental in the early stages of the Stockton Climate Coalitions and we now chair both the business and community groups. We also attended the first ever Stockton Youth COP.

Our new friends include those at the Norton Men’s Shed, Materials Processing Institute and the wonderful 4WardFutures who’s virtual exhibition features us. Our reach is definitely now global and we share our unique ONE VOICE philosophy to help others together.

This year we launched a whole new series Sustainably Engineering Together which links in with our work and really adds value to our series. We have looked back every now and then to some of the great work done and COP28 gave us such an opportunity, but we have lots of things on our YouTube channel as well – check some of it out!

We have a new Eco Education page and continue to get interest in STEM, Primary Voices, TheLine and Lottie. We are always delighted to get ideas to improve the website far and wide.

As Chair I simple cannot believe how much great work we still do after more than 5 years.

Thank you everyone – bring on 2024!

Delighted EngTog part of the first Stockton Youth COP

Our very own Julie Harrison featured a s key part of Stockton-on-Tees’ very first “Youth COP” event.

Bright Minds Big Futures said ‘It was a wonderful day of informative and interactive workshops that helped inspire our Borough’s young people into looking after our planet. We covered some hard-hitting stuff, like the negative effects of climate change and diseases that pose harm to our crops. A huge thank you to Julie Harrison for their fantastic workshops and presentations!’

More relevant than ever

As I look towards COP28 I have reflected on the Together we have one voice series which gave the youth a voice.

Time has passed but these concerns from our young people remain.

Please watch, listen and think….

Going in circles – Frustrations about wasteful past generations.  Waste prevention through the circular economy.

City Design for tomorrow – How can cities be more inclusive to communities? What the future holds?

What future will you leave for me? – Concerns of young people. What changes are needed in your town?

Are we training for a greener future? – What skills are needed to enable action? Is my education fit for the future?

Coalition Collaboration for the planet

The Engineering Together links have strengthened locally since 2 of our members started Working in our local area – Engineering Together. Myself and Julie now each chair one of the four groups.

You can probably spot us at the very first Chairs meeting where we talked strategy. Our aims is to ensure each of the groups enable everyone to work towards local Climate Ambitions – Environmental Sustainability and Carbon Reduction Strategy 2022 – 2032 (stockton.gov.uk).

Doing, Being and Belonging in Norton

I was very lucky to be invited to the Norton Man Shed at the weekend.

I was inspired to see all the things the NORMENS team are doing and how this is helping many in the community by providing an outlet for creativity and support. The work they are doing to ease loneliness is fantastic which aides the mental well-being of men and women.

Read all about in on the NORMANS Blog.

Time flies!

It seems like only yesterday I arranged the first ever meeting of the Tees Valley North East Community of Engineers. However since last night marked our fifth AGM it clearly wasn’t!

I was delighted shortly after inception to be voted in as Chair and I am proud to say that the group has moved on leaps and bounds since the first meeting.

We quickly identified that we wanted to do things differently and our name change to Engineering Together really reinforced this. Today we remain very collaborative and live and breath our ONE VOICE culture.

Outcomes not ownership

Nurturing networks

Enabling efficiency

Value one vision

Operating openness

Influencing with integrity

Collaboration with compromise

Emphasis on equality

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our successes over the past 5+ years.

Global influence

I am delighted to announce that our Engineering Together philosophies are going global.

I am helping the Women’s Engineering Society’s Climate Emergency Group work with ONE VOICE globally as their Chair.

Outcomes not ownership

Nurturing networks

Enabling efficiency

Value one vision

Operating openness

Influencing with integrity

Collaboration with compromise

Emphasis on equality

I truly believe WESCEG can make a real and significant difference by utilising our collective potential, we exceed what each person can do on their own. We have created an Open Letter idea to encourage a top-down approach from the UK Government and policy makers.

All WES Members and passionate Disruptors, Influencers and Educators are welcome to join the diverse and passionate group, feel free to get in touch with me via CEGChair@wes.org.uk to find out what you can do to help.

And of course if you are local to the Tees Valley remember you can join contact us at EngTog 🙂