Our first convention of 2021 took place last week, fully online, over 10 sessions spread across the week. The theme, “Shaping the Future”, was an honest appraisal of where BCS sits in the strange world of the present, and where we want to be in the future, given your support.
Three working groups will take forward the key themes from New Beginnings: Member Groups Review, Leveraging Expertise and Communications, and will deliver recommendations to the Programme, Practice and Policy (PPP) committee for adoption. The working groups comprise people from all corners of the Member Group world and will, we hope, capture the ideas and imagination you have for a future BCS. You can contribute ideas via the Community Forum Basecamp.
The feedback from the Convention has been overwhelmingly positive, and the online process worked very well - my thanks to Kerry Wear and Jon Jeffery for their hard work in making sure everything was ready.
The success does, of course, raise questions about future conventions once we return to the world we miss so much. I would not like to lose the lessons we’ve learned during 3 lockdowns, and I hope we will see more such events in the future.
However, I really look forward to the next time we can all gather in one place and share our ideas and friendship, as we have traditionally done, maybe with a remote option for those who might not be able to attend in person. One for the Communications Working Group maybe.
Best wishes, Stay Safe.
Prof. Garfield Southall
Chair
Programme, Practice and Policy (PPP) Committee
Shaping The Future Convention YouTube Playlist
Let’s shape the future together
It was a great pleasure to share the new positioning and campaign for membership with everyone who attended the convention. It’s taken a lot of planning to ensure this is pitched correctly and will resonate with different audiences and their needs from a professional body. Our aim is to bring a clearer focus to BCS membership and of course to grow our community. We’ll be sharing some useful assets as a next step with you such as a basic slide deck, video and virtual zoom/teams backgrounds, but in the meantime we would love you to share the campaign on social media. This is so much more powerful if it comes from you as members telling others what you get from BCS and urging them to get involved. We’ve even drafted some posts that you can adapt for your platform of choice with the relevant links to include along with the hashtags #WeAreBCS #shapethefuture.
PPP Working Groups Updates
Communications
The Communications Working Group held it's inaugural meeting in January and is looking at three areas, mapping the communication channels in use and performing discover with the owners of the channels, investigating use of real-time chat, and looking at how information about member groups is provided to members (and other member groups). WG members also participated in two convention meetings to get more feedback, and is expecting to make some initial recommendations in the next week. The Chair will be posting a summary of these on the Community Basecamp shortly after.
Member Groups Review
At the recent “Shaping the Future” convention held in the last week of January 2021, the working group held its first member consultations after being formed earlier that month. A ‘map’ of the issues raised at previous conventions was presented and was updated with the feedback received. Specific examples of what those member groups attending felt currently impeded to be able to do were captured. This excellent engagement during the convention will now be used by specific working group committee members to prepare recommendations for change to the wider BCS community.
This consultation closes at 11:45 pm on 16 March 2021 and we are keen to consult with relevant specialist member groups and members with expertise in this area.
We will be setting up some calls to gather information and expertise so could you please express any interest in contributing to the BCS response by email to daniel.aldridge@bcs.uk by Friday 12 February 2021.
Please do share with your contacts.
New Student Chapters
BCS have recently successfully set up two International Student Chapters which include Middle East College, Oman and Kotelawala Defence University, Sri Lanka. Both universities are excited to be affiliated with BCS and are looking forward to putting on some events later this year with help from us. Middle East College and Kotelawala Defence University are equally passionate about sharing expertise for their students which ties in well with some of BCS’s five strategic pillars. To find out more information about the Universities please click the link and proceed to the drop down International menu https://www.bcs.org/membership/member-communities/student-chapters/.
In Memorium
Denis Edgar-Nevill
He had been such a great supporter of the BCS, starting and as chair of the BCS Cybercrime Forensic SG for many years, as well as being active on other BCS and international committees, in addition to his role as leading the computing and security as Head, at Canterbury Christ Church University. He was such an inspiration.
Anthony Parker
Much of what the Berkshire Branch Committee have done for their members in the last 10 years has been Anthony's initiative. Above all, his was a generous, loyal, fun-loving, hard-working spirit.
He will be deeply missed at BCS Berkshire.
Community Forum Basecamp
Come and join the Community on Basecamp. It's a great place to chat with like-minded individuals, share best practice and engage with the BCS Swindon Team.
We currently have 10% of the community represented. However, we want to see an increase in the community's representation, so please encourage at least one of your committee members to sign up.
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