IET BRUNEI NETWORK ATTENDED IET VOLUNTEERS' CONFERENCE 2009 AT THE IET BUILDING, SAVOY PLACE, LONDON, UK, - 25th & 26th

 APRIL 2009

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The IET Building, Savoy Place, London, UK	Opening of Volunteer Conference by Paul Streeter
IET President, Chris Earnshaw giving his presentation Title - The IET as a Community of Communities	Cdre Barry Brooks, IET Vice President giving his presentation Title - Introduction - How did we get here?
Dr. N F Chin, IET Vice President giving his presentation Title - Realising the IET's Global aspirations	Sam McLaughin, Chairman Young Professionals' Board giving his presentation Title - Young Professional 'Shaping the future direction of the IET'
Alan Watts, IET Vice President giving his presentation Title - How Communities will benefit from the new structure	Alison Hardy, Manager, Community Development giving her presentation Title - Virtual Communities

Two delegates from IET Brunei Network attended the IET Volunteers' Conference 2009 on 25^th & 26^th April 2009 that was held at the IET Building, Savoy Place, London, UK.  The delegates were Pg Hj Zain Pg Hj Abd Razak (Chairman of IET Brunei Network) and William Voon (Committee Member of IET Brunei Network).

The theme of the conference was BUILDING COMMUNITIES.  The aim of the Conference is to help IET members make maximum impact on behalf of the IET whatever their specialism, or wherever their geographical location.  IET UK would like the week-end conference to be an enjoyable and satisfying experience, enabling IET member to establish new relationships, both with other volunteers and IET staff, so that the IET members can all work together in productive partnerships to achieve the common goals.

The 2 days event started on 25^th April 2009 at 9.30 am with registration at the Common and Lancaster room.  Refreshment was served at Common room.  Exhibitions were set up by IET staff at Lancaster, Maxell and Siemens rooms that displayed the various activities and services that are available from IET, UK.  The IET staff briefed and demonstrated on how to navigate on the IET website to source for valuable information that are accessible to IET members.  As more IET delegates arrived and started introducing among themselves and networking with various IET members cross the globe.  The IET members come from various local networks within UK and across the world such Brunei, Canada, China, France, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, and many more.

The conference started officially at the Lecture Theatre at 10.00 am with welcoming address by the IET President, Chris Earnshaw, follow by presentations and workshops.  The conference was facilitated by the conference chair, Paul Streeter.

The following presentations were presented and cascaded to the IET members.

• Introduction and Ice Breaker - by Tom Hlaing and James Sheppard, Young Professional's board.
   
• The IET as a Community of Communities - by Chris Earnshaw, IET President
   
• Empowering the Organisation
  - Introduction - how did we get there? - by Cdre Barry Brooks, IET Vice President
  - How communities will benefit from the new structure - by Alan Watt, IET Vice
     President
  - Realising the IET's Global aspirations - by DR. N F Chin, IET Vice President
  - Young Professional "Shaping the future direction of the IET' - by Sam McLaughlin
     & Young Professionals Board
     and follow by Q&A session
   
• Exploiting Advances in Communication Technology - Hold a teleconference/WebEx meeting connecting up the different break-out groups  - by
     Bruce McLelland, Partnership Business Development Manager, Communities
     Simon Yarwood, Community Development Manager, Communities
     Janine Mitchell, Community Development Manager, Communities
   
• Virtual Communities - The different ways in which communities can exist - face to face and virtual Web functionality that can be used to support communal activity - for example: forums, blogs, wikis etc - by Alison Hardy, Manager, Community Development
   
• Workshops:-
  • Using the Web - An introduction to 'technology for the terrified' - by David Rossall, Manager, Internet Service Group
  • Ethnics and Professionalism - Your chance to comment on a new web resource designed to bring the IET Rules of Conduct to life - by Jim Baxter and Alex Buckley, IDEA University of Leeds
  • Using IET Discover - An introduction to discover and social bookmarking - by Jakub Uradnik, Web Producer, Digital Business Unit
  • PR, Media and Communications - How to communicate effectively with your target audience and promote your IET activities - by Mary Donovan, Head of Communications
  • Writing for the Web - An introduction on how to promote your activities on the web, improve your Google search rating and write effective copy - by Stewardt Love, Web Analyst, Digital Business Unit
     
     
• The Responsibility of Communities to Recruit and Retain Members - by Alex Taylor, Local Networks Communication Manager
   
• IET Strategy Programme - by Dr. Dolores Byrne, IET Vice President & Sarah Jenkins, Strategy & Planning Development Manager
   
• Q&A on Issues Raised by Volunteers - facilitated by Conference Chair, Paul Streeter
   
• Conference Summary and Action Points - by IET President, Chris Earnshaw
   

The IET President presented - 'The IET as a Community of Communities' that is connecting with the wider world, where he reviewed and highlighted on the previous IET Corporate Objective 2008 and its achievement and progression.  Some of the points captured were as follow.

• Raise the profile/awareness of IET with industries, government and quality (business) media
• Agree strategies for 2 regions outside UK, i.e. China & India
• Implementing 2 partnership agreements
• Implementing 2008 local network support programme
• Arrest decline in memberships
• Complete consultation/planning for realignment of knowledge management activities
• Reverse decline in registration across CEng, Eng Tech & IEng
• Improve on budgeted financial performance through both operating efficiencies and other measures
• IEE Wiring Regulations, 17th Edition was a success

He also presented the current IET Corporate Objective 2009 and IET Personal Objective 2009 where few of the points were captured as follow:-

IET Corporate Objective 2009

• Agree the IET Strategy and Implementation plan
• Increase the number of active and engaged members
• Refine the quality and value of existing knowledge management activities
• Reinvigorate EC^uk registration
• Improve financial performance, productivity and efficiency
• Deliver the global strategy
• Partnering outcomes

IET Corporate Objective 2009

• A better understanding of our strategy and plan
• A clear understanding of the role we all need to play
• Expanded our personal network
• Generate new ideas and share nest practices among members and staff
• Identified potential partners for future collaboration

The presentation entitle Empowering the Organization send a powerful message in regards to the IET organization on how IET achieve and get to its present status, how IET will benefit from the new structure, realizing the IET's Global aspiration and the need of young professionals for the future.

For the workshop session on day 1, the IET Brunei Network attended on two of the subjects

• Ethnics and Professionalism
• PR, Media and Communications

which were interesting, fruitful and useful knowledge for cascade and disseminate to the IET members.

IET Brunei Network finds the conference very interesting and useful for knowledge sharing and networking with others local network.  IET Brunei Network provided feedback and proposed the following subjects to IET UK for consideration to be included in the future conference.

• IET accreditation on educational institution
• IET global recognitions in comparison with other institutions
• IET knowledge sharings and contributions to society
• IET technical knowhow raise living standards of mankinds

The Volunteer conference ended on mid-day of 26^th April 2009. 

The local network of the FERN (Far East Regional Network) congregated to held the first meeting 2009 during the lunch break and into the afternoon on 26^th April 2009.