Κυριακή 3 Νοεμβρίου 2013

Greetings from the President of IABSE

Dear Friends

Today marks the start of my 3-year term as your President, a role to which I am looking forward immensely. Of course, I appreciate the challenges involved, the time and thought that will be required and the opportunities to move our Association forward that come with the job. I also appreciate that to make our Association more vibrant, relevant, visible and successful needs a team effort. The strength of an organisation such as IABSE resides in its members, in their individual and collective efforts and in making the whole so much more than the sum of the parts.

The recently produced Strategy and our initial work to implement parts of it - whilst proceeding more slowly than I would have wished - is, in several areas, demonstrating how the provision of more opportunity, encouragement and support can release all manner of latent ideas and energy. Thus we see several examples of new activities, enthusiastic groups and successful events. I regard a major task for me to be to stimulate and facilitate more of this. Young people clearly appreciate opportunities to present their work, to hear from the more experienced and to network amongst their peers; more experienced members value the renewing of established friendships, learning of new developments and seeing how the next generation is developing. And, of course, the work of our various groups in ensuring that the benefits of technical advances are properly communicated so that Structural Engineering continues to more than meet the challenges presented to it is a vital component of our Association.

I propose to circulate an email communication containing various messages on a regular basis. Next time I expect to be able to inform you about our proposals for a new style September Conference in 2015 - aligned, very much, with the Strategy aim of reaching a wider audience and addressing issues of global importance - as well as news of IT developments destined to facilitate easier and more flexible contact between individuals, National Groups, Working Groups, our Secretariat etc.

Regards

David A Nethercot

Professor D A Nethercot OBE, FREng, FTSE Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering Imperial College London, UK.