March 2019
Women's Engineering Society eNewsletter
Welcome to the March edition of the WES newsletter.
 
In this month's newsletter we have the latest on all that is happening with WES this month and all the celebrations that have happened or are happening for our Centenary year. 
We'll also bring you updates from other organisations, upcoming events, job vacancies and all other news. 

Eager to get to a specific section of the newsletter? Click on the heading below:

The Women's Engineering Society is committed to supporting women in engineering. Click through the following link for more information on  being a WES memberIt costs just one pound per week and helps us to do our work to inspire and support women to achieve their potential as engineers, applied scientists and technical leaders.
 
If you have any news you would like to share with WES, please email us on news@1919.wes.org.uk

Visit the WES website  and follow WES on twitter @WES1919
Follow  MentorSET  on twitter  @mentorset  or visit the  website.
WESUpdatesWES Update and Events
INWED 2019

The Top 50 Women in Engineering Awards  have now been launched for 2019, The theme this year is Current and Former Apprentices. If you know an apprentice (current or former) who should be nominated for this award, please  visit the WE50 nominations page now  and make sure you submit your nomination  by 8 April 2019 .
 
The excitement is growing for this years exciting #INWED19 campaign! We are enjoying hearing about the different ways people are celebrating this year. If you are planning to hold an event or activity for INWED & help #TransformTheFuture please register  your INWED event here  www.inwed.org.uk/events-2019  if you have any questions please contact  inwed@wes.org.uk
Gala Dinner 

The WES Centenary Fundraising Dinner will be an evening celebrating 100 years of the Women's Engineering Society and a fundraising event to support mentoring for women engineering apprentices. 

It will be held on the evening of  21 June 2019 at the Waldorf Hilton, London.   Tickets are now available  here  
WES Centenary Conference
Dawn Childs, WES President
The WES Centenary Conference took place at the RAF Museum London on 15th March. Nearly 200 delegates gathered, "Celebrating The Past and Transforming The Future". Speakers included Mandy Hickson, John Edmonds, Emma Howard Boyd, Jan Peters, Sophie Hutchins, Rachel Higham, Air Marshal Sue Gray, WES's President Dawn Childs and our CEO Elizabeth Donnelly. The conference was chaired by Sally Sudworth, and was sponsored by Royal Academy of Engineering.

The exhibition hall hosted 21 high quality entries in the WES Young Members Board early career engineer Poster Competition, organised by Jo Douglas-Harris. Winner of the Judges prize was Pauline Dumont of Delta Motorsport and Tymèle Deydier of Loughborough University won the Audience Choice prize. 

The day ended with a drinks reception overlooking the RAF at 100 exhibition and a toast was raised by Dawn Childs to the next one hundred years of the Women's Engineering Society.

Our keynote speaker Mandy Hickson tweeted us after the event to say "What a wonderful celebration. Thank you so much to everybody that has posted such wonderful comments. I would love to thank you personally but there are too many!! It was my absolute pleasure. The one thing that stood out for me was your passion"
Wales WES Centenary Conference
Save the date! 

Join us for an evening of celebration, reflection and networking at the Wales Centenary Conference on 15 May at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay.  We have some interesting speakers lined up, and will be opening up the floor to women engineers to talk about their work, share their passion and gain some experience in public speaking in a supportive environment. Apply here. 

Local companies are also encouraged to display their latest innovations.  

For more information, please contact Katherine Critchley at  wales@1919.wes.org.uk .  Registration for the event will be opening soon. 
Launch of WES Members' Area on website

Only available to WES Members, the WES Members' Area focuses on areas of interest to women engineers, drawing on the expertise of our Members as well as carefully selected partners.  We want this area to be driven by members' needs and a place you can confidently share your experiences, free of judgement. 
 
Login to read about:
  • Considering legal action against your employer?  Find out how WES members can get a free consultation with mfg Solicitors
  • Awards that recognise female engineers and how to write a winning nomination
  • How to shine in a job interview
  • Experiences of women engineers
  • Networking tips
  • Why be a chartered engineer?
  • Promoting engineering to girls - read tips and anecdotes
 
Contact Cath at  info@wes.org.uk if you have not received instructions on how to access the site.
WES CENTENARY TRAIL WIKITHON DATES

If you'd love to take part in the WES Centenary Trail project and develop your digital skills, we have two wikithons coming up, one in Bristol and one in London. Come and join us to and learn more about editing Wikipedia. Help to celebrate brilliant women engineers by creating and improving their pages on the world's favourite online historical record.

3 April, Bristol  
WES will be linking up with UWE Bristol for their Women Like Me celebration to host a Wikithon celebrating women in engineering, and the WES Centenary year.
Training will take place 09:30-10:00 with the Wikithon drop-in running from 10:00-14:00. Please sign up for this FREE event on Eventbrite
 
18 May, London, LSE Library
WES are working with Heritage Open Days (HODS) to run this event for the celebrated Women's Library, at the LSE. Training will be delivered by inspiring Wellcome Wikimedian, Dr. Alice White.
The event will run from 10:00 to 16:00, with our Wikimedian on hand to help with all enquiries. There'll be opportunities to break for lunch. Sign up for this FREE event here .

Magnificent Women: Podcast on the First Female Engineers

In February the Bedford Centre for Women's and Gender History  invited a panel of commentators to celebrate WES and the women that helped to found the Society. This event was recorded and has now been transformed into a podcast which can be heard here.

The panelists looking back at the historic roles of female engineers included:
  • Henrietta Heald, author
  • Nina Baker, engineering historian on the first female electrical engineers
  • Jane Robinson, historian and author
  • Elizabeth Donnelly, the CEO of the Women's Engineering Society
WES Centenary Women: Claudia Parsons

Claudia Parsons, engineer and first woman to circumnavigate the globe by car also wrote two romance novels inspired by her travels. The first one was called Brighter Bondage, published by Chatto & Windus in 1935 . We have read it and can recommend it as a remarkably undated and very entertaining romp through the world of car, boat and train travel through early 1930s Europe. And for anyone wondering about the title, it is nothing like 50 Shades of Grey!
 
Claudia Parsons published her autobiography "Century Story" in 1995 - an equally fascinating read. A short preview of her fascinating life is on her Wikipedia page which we will be improving this year.
WES Tyneside Cluster


We are looking to reinvigorate the Tyneside Cluster, covering Northumberland, Newcastle, County Durham and Tees Valley, and would like to create a committee of WES volunteers to support activities in this area.

If you're interested in getting involved please email Jo Douglas-Harris on  jodouglas304@gmail.com .
WES Young Members' Board 

Sign up for #LottieTour 2019! 

WES is organising its fourth #LottieTour this year for Tomorrow's Engineers Week 2019, to show how varied and exciting it is to work in engineering!

 Last year we had over 150 engineers involved taking photos of Lottie at work, but we' d love this number to
grow even more this year!   

Our theme this year is 'Then and Now' to celebrate the WES Centenary. Our idea is to post photos comparing how much engineering has changed over the last 100 years. Please use this form if you would like to borrow a Lottie Doll from WES to take your photos. 

Please note that dolls will not be available until the end of April.



WES University Groups Board

The UGB chose the British Science week as their joint events week with the theme of Remembering the past; Celebrating the present and Transforming the future.
 
Glasgow's FemEng society used each day of the week to publish the profile of an individual in the school of Engineering who have made a significant contribution and are role models. WESBath participated in Bath taps into science where they taught the children about engineering by creating cup boomerangs and a steady hand game. Surrey WES hosted an event filled with fun quizzes, challenges and prizes. They also held a raffle to raise money for iamtheCODE. Loughborough University had an impressive range of activities including posters about pioneering women, inspirational female leaders in STEM talk and networking and STEM community day.

JobsWES Jobs

Vacancies
General
(deadline dates given below)
Apprenticeship 
Returners 
Academic
TiredTired Engineer in Training
Tired Engineer in Training, Eleanor Yong, shares the drawings that she started to help break up the monotony of studying/revising.
Eleanor Yong How Many IT Technicians
Eleanor Yong Revision Break


Events Upcoming Events
The WES website events listing includes events from across the country of interest to women engineers.  View it here.
news More News
RAEng's Visiting Professors Scheme  

The RAEng's Visiting Professors Scheme is an industry into academia initiative which provides substantial funding of up to £30,000 over 3 years for host Universities to recruit a senior engineer from industry who will be appointed as a Visiting Professor (VP). The VP's main role is to offer mentoring and careers advice for students, bringing the curriculum to life with industry relevant examples. The Academy is committed to diversity and inclusion and welcomes nominations and nominees from women and other groups who are currently under-represented across engineering, as well as recognising the full breadth of engineering. 

The scheme opens every year between February and April. For more information, please click  here .
Funding of up to £1,000 for engineering sector women available
 


Women & Leadership International is administering a national initiative to support the development of female leaders across the UK's engineering sector. The campaign is providing women with grants of up to £1,000 to enable participation in a leadership development programme. 

The scholarship funding is provided with the specific intent of providing a powerful and effective development opportunity for engineering sector women; however the funding is strictly limited and has to be allocated prior to the end of May.

Find out more and register your interest by completing the Expression of Interest form here before 3 May 2019.
Part-time & Flexible Apprenticeship Survey
 
A shortage of flexible and part-time apprenticeship programmes mean that people who are unable to work full time are missing out on training opportunities. Men & women, disabled people, people with caring responsibilities and young people leaving the care system - unable to train or find work at all.

For employers, opening up more part-time and flexible apprenticeships will also help create more diverse workplaces, reduce gender inequalities and tackle skills shortages. Developing better apprenticeships would help people from underrepresented groups get into work and training, benefiting families, businesses and the economy. Please complete or share this survey with employers and educational institutions.

10-11 April 2019, Manchester
This event hosts the opportunity to see the latest technologies & solutions to make manufacturing smarter. It provides a comprehensive overview of industry 4.0, with insights on why to invest in industry 4.0, how to do so step-by-step, digital twins, understanding the new energy landscape as well as plenty of case studies of industry 4.0 in action.
 
WES members receive a 30% on the Summit delegate fee, the Expo is free to attend for those who pre-register. For more info please go here.
Women in STEM: Fearless Females 
  
 19 June, Bournemouth & Poole College, Poole
 
A STEM CPD event for Careers Advisers, Teachers, STEM Leads and Enterprise Advisers to inspire young women to consider careers in STEM and to create STEM networks and opportunities for CPD. To book please go here
INWES-MENA and ATFI Conference 2019
 
Sustainable development and profession of the future
15 June 2019,Tunisia

The conference will offer scientists, engineers  and exhibitors the opportunity to present their latest research results, ideas, developments, and applications in all areas of Sustainable Development on the areas of :Environmental, Education, Health, Energy, Economic, Gender Equality and Socio-Cultural Issues. For more details have a look here.

WISE Conference 2019
 
14 May, IET

With the target of 1 million women in STEM in 2020 within reach, the WISE conference is looking beyond this to show how women are critical to addressing the future skills needs in the UK. 

Join the 2019 WISE Conference to address one central issue in this -  Ensuring women participate fully in the UK's technology and engineering workforce. To register for tickets please go here.

A research project exploring how female engineers develop, enter, maintain, engage with, alter and leave formal internal and external networks and the extent to which these networks contribute to the construction, maintenance and alteration of career identities. The findings of the study will enable engineering companies to (re)design their women-only networks in order to make sure that they empower and retain women engineers.


If you agree to participate, you will be invited for a one-to-one interview with the researcher, Dr Vanda Papafilippou. The interview will last approximately one hour and can be conducted any day and time between February and April 2019 and can take place either face-to face if you are based in Bristol or the surrounding areas or via Skype.
 
If you are interested in participating or if you require further information, contact directly Vanda ( Vanda.Papafilippou@uwe.ac.uk )

Partner WES Partners news

We would like to thank all our Partners for their continuing support of WES. To see the list of partners that support WES please visit the website 
here.

To discuss WES partnerships please contact us on corporates@wes.org.uk.  

Have you read the WES Journal - The Woman Engineer?
All issues of the WES journal are available here. Become a member and get your own copy delivered to your door.
 

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