The first meeting of the PWI’s new Board took place recently. There was a real spirit of determination to take the PWI forward and a willingness to help in that transformation. The Board is keen to develop the PWI’s role as a learned society in the rail industry. What does this mean in practical terms? It means looking closely at the ways in which rail engineers develop their knowledge and creating ways in which the PWI can take part actively in this process. This will be a change from past practice where the PWI has generally taken a more passive role, providing technical literature in the form of books and journals. My first step in this initiative was to build a relationship between NSARE and the PWI. We agreed to work together last year and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to that effect. I now meet regularly with Gil Howarth, Chief Executive of NSARE to discuss ways in which the PWI and NSARE can work together to aid the professional development of railway engineers. We’ve decided that this year we will put in place actions to back up the principles – I’ll let you know as things develop.
Unsurprisingly, the Board was also very interested in the PWI’s finances. The 2011 accounts are currently being prepared and I expect them to be ready for publication in the Spring Journal, in good time for their consideration at the June 9th AGM which will take place on June 9th at the Derby Conference Centre. The 2012 budget was approved, but the Board was insistent that the PWI must eliminate its current trading loss as soon as
practicable. This has to be achieved by both income generation and cost reduction. The Ginger Group’s focus on local recruiting to drive up membership, which I mentioned in my last blog, is therefore of vital importance. In parallel, we must also look at our single greatest expense, the quarterly Journal. In the past this was a nil-cost item to the PWI, as the costs were covered by advertising revenues. In recent years this has not been the case and the Board has insisted, quite rightly, that the costs and revenues of the Journal be examined to bring it back to break-even. At the same time, the Journal’s quality of content and presentation must be maintained or improved. That’s quite a challenge for the Exec team and the new editor. Our target is to make changes for the Summer Journal – I’ll keep you up-to-date with plans through this blog.
