Chairman's Introduction

We, in Mid Scotland Section, strive to offer a service to our members that allows them to get the maximum benefit from their RSC subscription while giving everyone the opportunity to put something back into the subject that has been a major element in their development.

Our local University in Stirling no longer offers degree courses in Chemistry so we are very much an industry based Section but our “home” is based in Forth Valley College, Falkirk Campus, where Chemistry is still thriving, albeit at a non-degree level.  Our committee meetings are held in the College and we also hold regular meetings there aimed at the student population.

With about 230 members we are the second smallest Section within the RSC but, in terms of our activities, we rival many much larger Sections.  Our objective is to meet our members’ needs and wishes, in terms of our activities, through a very varied program of technical, scientific and social events.  Over the past few years we do seem to be getting better at this with 80 to 100 attending our events in the College and 30 to 40 attending our evening events.  All our events, including the AGM & Dinner, are open to non-members, although they can not participate in the AGM itself, and we actively encourage our members to bring non-members along.  We had about 12% of our membership at the last AGM, a figure many other Sections look at with envy.

A lot of our efforts are targeted at schools, through Chemistry Week activities every alternate year in Primary Schools and annually with a “Top of the Bench” challenge for Secondary schools.  This work is generously supported by Syngenta for which we are extremely grateful.  We would like to do more, especially in Primary schools, but lack the personnel.

One of our latest initiatives, “Top of the Firm”, which saw some 47 folk battling it out over a variety of challenges this year, is aimed primarily at our industry-based members.  We have run this for 3 years now and it has even been “exported” to other Sections.  We wait to see if it can be as successful for them as it has been for us.

We have tried hard to encourage our retired members to maintain their links with the Section and, based on numbers attending our social events we are succeeding.

We would love to be able to do more but we need people to share the workload.  If you feel that you could give a little time (especially if you are a younger member), no matter how small, then perhaps we will be able to cover those areas, like the work of the Benevolent Fund, that, presently, we can’t cope with.  Contact the Secretary who can discuss with you about how you can help.

Next year’s program will be put together over the next couple of months – ideas please to the Secretary.