West Midlands Branch

By Catherine Steel (Chair, West Midlands Branch)

The branch had another successful year, putting on a number of varied events for its members. We started the year with the first edition of the branch newsletter. In this we published the results of our membership questionnaire. This showed that members wanted to be provided with more local networking opportunities and events across the branch (i.e., not just in Birmingham). Our events this year have taken place in Birmingham, and Oxford. We have tried to reach a variety of audiences holding events at weekends, evenings and during the week. The branch is also trying to help members keep up to date with new developments such as statutory regulation and Continuing Professional Development (CPD). At the AGM in April the Society's president, Pam Maras, came to address the branch and Victoria Burt came to discuss the process for CPD. We also held our annual student event in February which highlighted the careers paths available in psychology.

The branch has continued to work on its website as this seems to be one of the most effective ways to communicate with our members. On the website members can find information about the committee, the branch aims and future events. Throughout the year we have also been compiling an electronic mailing list to enable us to reach members quickly and more easily to inform them of our activities. If you would like to be included in this please e-mail c.steele@worc.ac.uk. We are about to issue the second newsletter. We are always happy to receive articles from our members. If you would like to write for our newsletter or have information about local events you would like to advertise please contact Julia Rose (e-mail: rosejulia6@aol.com).

In November we launched the West Midlands Occupational Psychology CPD forum. This was in response to a request from one of our members who wanted to contact other occupational psychologists in the area to discuss CPD. This event went well and the branch is looking into ways to support this group further such as peer networking and setting up more informal group meetings. We’d like to extend this further by providing regional groups for other areas of psychology. If anyone has any specific requests for a regional group please contact Helena Taylor Knox (e-mail: htk@fairnflower.com).

This year the branch has tried to make contact with other relevant regional organisations. We are keen to work in collaboration with others to enable us to pool resources and serve our members more effectively. We worked with the Division of Occupational Psychology (DOP) and had a member of their committee attend the CPD event. We are currently planning an event for postgraduates in conjunction with PsyPAG (Psychology Post Graduate Affairs group) and have also contacted the Cognitive Section and started discussion about a joint event with them sometime in the new year.

Finally we are planning an exciting new development for 2008. In January we will be launching the search for the West Midlands Psychologist of the Year. The award will be based on an individual’s contribution to the region and to psychology. We will be accepting nominations throughout the year and the award will be made in January 2009.

The committee has worked very hard this year, as always to come up with new ideas for events and interesting ways to engage with our members. I can’t state strongly enough how much we welcome input from our members and we will do our best to respond to any requests. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the committee members for their hard work this year, particularly to Angie Emler our outgoing 2006/7 chair and to thank our members for their continued support. We hope to see more of you in 2008 and look forward to meeting the West Midlands Psychologist of the year very soon!