Dear SPE Aberdeen members, colleagues and friends,
Happy New Year to you all and welcome to our first newsletter of 2018. We have an exciting calendar of events coming up over the course of the year and I invite you to visit our website where you will find all the details.
In addition to these events, our School Career Guidance Committee will continue to work to inspire the next generation through a wide range of activities; encouraging young people to study STEM subjects and consider STEM careers is at the heart of many of these activities.
The committee regularly attends career fairs in schools in Aberdeen city and shire where they engage with pupils, parents and teachers and share their experience and advice. They also actively help forge links between schools and the industry by organising teachers show arounds at our conferences. At the end of last year the committee developed and delivered their own CV and interview skills workshop; they are looking forward to delivering more of these workshops throughout 2018.
Each year the committee supports and sponsors the ever popular TechFest’s “Maths in the Pipeline” programme and the TechFest annual “Festival of Science”; 2017 celebrated the 24th anniversary of this science festival.
One of the committee’s highlights of 2017 was the hugely successful “NASA in Aberdeen” project; a joint activity organised by SPE Aberdeen Section, The Energy Institute (EI), the Society of Underwater Technology (SUT), Aberdeen Science Centre and TechFest. This is now an annual event for the next 3 years and the SCG committee are busy helping plan the 2018 event; the theme of which is robotics. Similar to last year, a team from NASA will visit Aberdeen and the events that they will deliver will include a public lecture, primary and secondary school engagement and a family activity weekend. Details of the NASA team and key dates will be announced shortly on our website and social media pages. We are grateful to Statoil who sponsored the 2017 programme, and who are again sponsoring the 2018 programme along with Apollo, BP, Nexen, Oceaneering, and Taqa.
The SCG committee continues to champion Energy4me, SPE’s global energy schools programme (primary and secondary), at all the events that they attend. Additionally, Continuous Personal Development (CPD) sessions for teacher are run through Aberdeen Science Centre ensuring that the reach continues to grow. Such has been the success of energy4me in Aberdeen that SPE International is keen for other sections to use our model; a testament to the huge input from our members and volunteers.
The modest surplus from our conferences and awards dinner events held throughout the year provide us with the funds to support and sponsor this wide range of activities. Also key to the success of these activities is the unwavering support of our volunteers. The SCG committee is always looking for volunteers to get involved. If you are interested in volunteering or finding out more about any of their activities please contact the committee chairs at SCG.chair@spe-uk.org