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 4 years.
Thank you everyone – bring on 2024!
