Renew Magazine - Quarter 1, 2021. Circular Economy Focus

UPDATE FROM THE AEMT SECRETARY

Thomas Marks shares the latest news from the Association.

WE ARE AT A PIVOTAL MOMENT IN THE AEMT’S HISTORY, despite coming out of a damp squib of a year. The lockdowns have encouraged moments of reflection, clarity, and focus, which have presented a clear route forward for when we step out of the pandemic and a sense of normality returns.

Pivotal, because we say goodbye to a true champion of the association, Tim Marks, who was Secretary of the AEMT from 2001 to 2017, and in a supporting role until he retired at the end of 2020. There will be more on the success he has brought the AEMT in the magazine’s next issue. He remains available to the association as a consultant and will continue to support the industry by representing AEMT members on the standards committees we are members of.

I will continue my role as Secretary and will also become General Manager for the AEMT, working with the council to ensure the association remains relevant, progressive and above all else, valuable to its members.

Our first priority this year is to ensure that our members are taken care of, that those requiring Ex training are catered for, and that the association is in a position to start growing again.

We begin by hiring back in-house a full-time administrator, who will be the members’ new point of contact for membership enquiries and course bookings, filling the shoes of Jane Garnett who retired in 2019.

We also move office in February to a new location in York, which will become our new base to run the association from. We look forward to publishing details of this soon.

For the Ex courses, we are working hard on improving our online offer to easily train workers from afar and in the UK, who are looking for a more flexible learning experience. And for those who enjoy the classroom-based courses, we also look forward to bringing these back where we can and as soon as we can (COVID permitting).

Before the end of the first quarter, we aim to have completed our membership outreach project, which ChordUK initiated and ran for us in November 2020. This will mean all membership profiles and records will be accurate, current, and logged in our new management system and on the AEMT website.

With this system in place, more staff hours, and a new office, members will see much better interactions from the secretariat.

I wish you all the very best for 2021 and really look forward to reuniting later this year when our face-to-face events return.