Following my election to Branch Chairman last year, I am delighted to have been elected to serve another term leading one of the most successful Branch’s in the Institute. The success of Southern Branch has been recognised by a Profile of the Branch which can be seen on the Institute’s main web site which can be accessed through our Links page and it was also reproduced in Highways magazine.

The hard work put in by our Committee to organise informative and educational events cannot be under estimated and we remain on target to achieve our own objectives of providing six CPD accredited events plus our Annual Seminar each year. With increasing demands on the time of our Committee and, indeed our members, this remains a challenge and we shall welcome any suggestions for such events. All you have to do is advise our Branch Secretary and we will do the rest.

Hopefully you continue to receive our twice annual Branch Newsletters that are posted direct to member’s home addresses. The Newsletter is reproduced on the site if you follow the Newsletter link.

Another recent event we have held is a Career Development ‘mini’ Seminar for engineers within Surrey County Council which have been valuable and will hopefully further the development of the delegates towards achieving a professional qualification – CEng., IEng. and EngTech. We also hope to hold Preparing for Your Professional Review workshops later in the year. The industry and profession is concerned at the lack of younger people entering the engineering world and hopefully these events will encourage this.

As ever, we welcome new members and we will do all we can to help you pursue your qualifications and we are fortunate that Southern Branch has members who are able to guide and advise as well as being members of the various review boards. There is no shortage of help; all you have to do is ask!

I look forward to another successful year for the Branch and very much hope to see you at one of our events in the future.

Alison Coffey. CEng. FIHIE Branch Chairman