Isobel - Membership & Accreditation
In my last blog post I had just started my new rotation in the Membership Development and Accreditation team. Six months have now past and I’m writing this from a very exotic location as I come to the end of the rotation and look to pastures new!
I’m currently out in Korea at the IUPAC World Chemistry Congress in Busan. There are about 3000 delegates at the conference (including quite a few Nobel Laureates) and about 116 symposia over the course of the week covering 12 areas of chemistry. I’m representing the Royal Society of Chemistry on a stand where I’ve been talking to delegates about membership (a familiar topic for me!), and also involved with book sales, promoting our journals, had meetings with recently admitted Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and much, much more! It has been a fantastic week. The highlight has been holding a members reception for almost 70 delegates where our ex-President David Phillips gave a welcome speech and attendees include the President of the Korean Chemical Society and the Brazilian Chemical Society. Having never organised an event like this before it was a really exciting challenge and I was quite nervous about how it would go and whether people would turn up. However, it went really well and everyone enjoyed the evening. The hardest part was encouraging people to leave at the end of the night!
I’ve had lots of other travel opportunities during the last six month for both Membership and Accreditation. I attended the Royal Socitey of Chemistry's ISACS16 conference in Zurich and have gone to many UK based events for membership recruitment. I’ve also been on 3 UK university accreditation visits with our committee of assessors to assess how the university seeking accreditation runs their chemistry courses. These visits have been great and really helped support work I’ve been doing to write best practice and guidance documents on accreditation, running industrial placements and teaching professional skills through a chemistry degree. Project managing and producing these documents was a really good development opportunity for me and they have all been finalised and gone to print before the end of my rotation – phew!
Outside of work, a group of 8 RSC staff found ourselves in Edinburgh at the end of May to run the Edinburgh Marathon. After many long, cold, dark and rainy runs through the winter it was exciting when the big day finally arrived. For many of us it was our first marathon and I think I speak for everyone when I say it won’t be the last!
Overall, another fantastic six months in Cambridge and at the RSC. This will be my last blog post as a grad as I’m moving over to an Education Executive role in the Education Team. I’m really excited to start my new job but as Geri said…
‘Once a grad, always a grad’
Isobel is a Graduate currently working in the Membership Development and Accreditation department on the Royal Society of Chemistry's Graduate Scheme. To see if we are currently recruiting for the RSC Graduate Scheme click here
Posted by
Isobel Hogg on Aug 25, 2015 9:18 AM Europe/London
I’m currently out in Korea at the IUPAC World Chemistry Congress in Busan. There are about 3000 delegates at the conference (including quite a few Nobel Laureates) and about 116 symposia over the course of the week covering 12 areas of chemistry. I’m representing the Royal Society of Chemistry on a stand where I’ve been talking to delegates about membership (a familiar topic for me!), and also involved with book sales, promoting our journals, had meetings with recently admitted Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and much, much more! It has been a fantastic week. The highlight has been holding a members reception for almost 70 delegates where our ex-President David Phillips gave a welcome speech and attendees include the President of the Korean Chemical Society and the Brazilian Chemical Society. Having never organised an event like this before it was a really exciting challenge and I was quite nervous about how it would go and whether people would turn up. However, it went really well and everyone enjoyed the evening. The hardest part was encouraging people to leave at the end of the night!
