So, last week was my final meeting as a member of Microbiology Society Council. It was the end of a long and highly enjoyable road, and one which I will hopefully rejoin at some point when I feel that the membership has gotten over their ‘Hoskisson fatigue’….
I’ve been a member of the Microbiology Society or Society for General Microbiology (SGM), as it was then, since I was an Undergraduate. I attended my first meeting in 1998 at a fresh PhD student (actually just before my studies commenced) and I’ve only missed two or three meetings since then. I then became involved in the organisation as fresh post-doctoral researcher, sitting on the now defunct ‘Fermentation and Bioprocessing group’ in 2002 and I helped organise my first symposium in 2003. When I started my own lab in University of Strathclyde in 2007, I applied to join SGM council as an elected member and attended my first meeting in October 2007. Joining Council was an eye opener, seeing the diversity of work that the society does and how passionate the members are about our Society. During my time on council, my roles changed – I joined the editorial board of Microbiology Today, I sat of the Scientific Conferences Committee as a council representative, I became editor of Microbiology Today, I Joined the Publications Committee, joined Editorial Boards, I sat on strategy working groups and on finance committee, I lead working groups to help with the rebranding of the Society and helping to develop our new logo, developing the new website. I sat on and then chaired our Equality and diversity working group, something I’m immensely proud of (and which established the Microbiology Society as a leader amongst learned societies in the area). Over the last three years I have chaired our communications committee and this has been enormous fun, working on a range of projects from Antibiotics Unearthed, Fun Kids Radio, helping with fact files and media requests, editing scripts for scientific content for plays, working on comics, and on our Silver Gilt Medal Winning Chelsea Flower Show exhibition. Working with the society has enabled me to attend events at Parliament on a few occasions to talk to MPs and Lords about Microbiology and also meet an amazing range of people. There have of course been the difficult and challenging decisions that council has taken during this period too – the move to London from Reading, buying in to Charles Darwin House and of course changing the name of the society! As one can see, working with the society can lead to an amazing array of things that you can get involved with and contribute too. It also allows you to learn about and develop skills in areas that you may not have considered before. Most of all, for me, the best thing about being involved in the society has been interacting with people – as a junior academic, meeting and spending time with leading academics and learning from their experience, forming great friendships with other microbiologists and meeting lots of members and trying to represent their views at meetings to ensure that we are inclusive and forward looking. Also, last but by no means least working closely with the amazing staff that the society has, some of the most talent, passionate and committed people I’ve ever met. I am very proud to call myself a member of the Microbiology Society, I’m proud of what we do to promote and encourage microbiology at all levels. I guess the point of writing this was to encourage Microbiology Society members to take the plunge, get involved and help make a great society even better. It is a fun experience and you will benefit enormously from it and as a consequence – every member of the society will benefit from your engagement. So, look out for nominations early next year. This also goes for every learned society, they thrive on engaged and committed members and consequently everyone benefits.
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Prof. Paul A HoskissonNews from the Hoskisson Lab Archives
June 2017
CategoriesBlog Posts for The Royal Society of Edinburgh
Young Academy of Scotland, Research the Headlines Blog which aims to address the way in which research is discussed and portrayed in the media. |