Chairman's Letter

I am pleased to welcome you to the 2018-19 programme of events and activities of the Eastern YM Panel. The Eastern Region Young Members Panel (YMP) actively promotes Continued Professional Development (CPD) in the Eastern Region. The YMP is strongly focused on newly qualified Graduate or Early Career Engineers, and leading many of the STEM activities for the Eastern Region. 

The aim of the Eastern Region Young Members Panel is to work towards achieving the IMechE's objectives of growing the membership, building member engagement, raising its profile and providing thought leadership. To achieve this, we plan, organise and run social events, seminars, technical lectures and company visits. We try and focus on the IMechE 5 key themes of Energy, Environment, Transport, Manufacturing and Education.

The ERYMP is your panel, run by you, for you. To learn more about what we do and meet other young professionals in your field come along and attend one of our up and coming events. Finally, if you are interested in taking a more active role within the panel please get in touch.

Thank you for your ongoing support, and I look forward to meeting you at our upcoming events.

Tony Frater
Eastern Young Members Chair
easternymchair@imechenearyou.org

Competitions, Awards, and Activities

Creating Your Dream World - Social Artist Educational Activity

The IMechE constantly looks at how to engage young people in engineering, and how to increase their positive disposition towards engineering. In a report published called ‘Five Tribes: Personalising Engineering Education’, adolescents are shown to divide themselves broadly into 5 categories. One of these tribes ‘Social Artists’ has the lowest interest in STEM,  yet are one of the more focused in their goals. The YMB has been working on development of a new educational activity which focuses on this creative tribe between ages 11-14, to further improve interest in STEM, and to potentially improve diversity in the future.

 

A new event has been created and this is to be trialled this year at schools across the UK. We will be spearheading these activities in the Eastern Region, and we want to actively engage the community to volunteer to be engineering ambassadors in a non-traditional Life Skills/ STEM outreach activity. If you are interested in getting involved keep an eye on our Near You page, where we will display events when they have been confirmed. If you have contacts at schools who would be interested, please network with us to further increase these opportunities.

 

Photographer of the Year

Capture engineering in a photograph and win the Photographer of the Year competition. Members and non-members of the Institution are invited to submit up to three photographs on a set theme. This is a unique opportunity for anyone from across the world to share inspirational, striking images related to mechanical engineering. The judges will be looking for photographs that are ambitious, creative, thoughtful and representative of the Institution’s theme. A distinguished judging panel of leading industry professionals will select the winning images.

 

Details regarding this year’s theme will be ‘Engineering in Society’. Please keep an eye out on our Young Members Network page for more information.

 

https://www.imeche.org/get-involved/young-members-network

 

James Bates and Charity Grant

The James Bates Grant is an IMechE trust fund allocated to IMechE’s Young Members Board (YMB) and is administered by the YMB Executive Committee. Grants may be made by the YMB to promote mechanical engineering and the professional development of young members of the Institution. All grants must be made in line with the general strategy set by Trustee Board. A grant to cover 50% of the costs of travel, accommodation, meals and appropriate fees will be made by the YMB to those young members of the Institution who attend industrial visits arranged by Young Members Panels / Sections, or to assist Young Member Panels / Sections requiring additional funding. Young Members of the Institution attending industrial visits must contribute to the remaining 50% of the cost of their place.

 

The Charity Grant is up to £500 which is issued for a charitable activity. Charity Grants are issued on a quarterly basis by the YMB Executive Committee. The 2017 Charity Grants issued were:

Q1 - ‘I Love Wind Power’

Q2 - Robotic Rice planting

Q3 - National Mech Eng for the Future Workshop

 

If you are interested in visiting an industrial complex, and learning more about the industry around you, contact us or your local panel to discuss these opportunities. With enough interest we can visit and explore the industry around us, learning more about the processes in each industry. If you are interested in learning more about the Charity Grant please follow the link below:

 

http://www.imeche.org/careers-education/scholarships-and-awards/ymb-charity-grant-community-and-charity

 

 

Current and Future Events

Global Engineering Debate

The Global Engineering Debate (GED), is an initiative created and administered by the Young Members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The GED is a truly global initiative with young members from as far as Trinidad and Tobago, Hong Kong, and Singapore holding their own events. Its purpose is to create a platform where young engineers around the globe can debate the key issues that affect the current and future generations of engineering professionals. The event helps to publicise the voice of young engineers on topics of international importance and highlight the contribution of young professional engineers towards solving global problems. Each year the debate focusses on a different theme reflecting the diverse ways in which engineering impacts on society. Previous topics have included fields readily associated with engineering such as energy and transport.

 

If you are interested to debate the key issues that affect engineering, and want your voice to be heard on a global level please let us know. Please keep an eye out on our Young Members Network page, and our Near You page.

 

https://www.imeche.org/get-involved/young-members-network

 

Young Members Socials

Traditionally at the end of every month, we look to meet up with local young members for informal social networking events. Here we can chill out, discuss our interests with likeminded individuals, and learn more about the different engineers around you. We highly encourage you to come and join us, as you meet interesting people who you may not met otherwise, and increase your professional network. We look to have fun activities whilst networking such as target golf and arcade-athon so you will always have something to do.

 

Please contact us with your ideas for socials, and where best to hold them. We try to spread these activities across the region wherever possible for the hosts. March’s social was cancelled due to focus on the year strategy, however our Chair will be attending at NEC this Sunday 25^th March to visit: ‘PRACTICAL CLASSICS CLASSIC CAR & RESTORATION SHOW’. Tony will be wearing an IMechE Eastern Lanyard, so please feel free to say hello and enjoy the show with him.

 

Regional Web Lectures

The Eastern Region YMP is looking to host 3 regional web lectures this year. The topic for the first has been decided as: ‘How Sustainable are Electrified Vehicles?’. Please let us know what you would want the next topics to be on, your input is extremely important to us.

 

Local Young Members Panels

North Herts YMP