Welcoming the BPS Member Board

This new board consists of a diverse set of members from across the society, and it is there to champion your interests, with Professor Carol McGuinness as its chair and representative on the Board of Trustees.

I've spoken a lot about our Member Journey project in these blogs, because I really believe that it is going to transform the experience that you have as part of the society.

The Member Board will be overseeing the project, and got an in-depth introduction from our partners The Social Kinetic into the work that we've carried out so far, and the more than 30 workstreams that have emerged.

It's an exciting time as we're tasked with turning the huge report created by The Social Kinetic, on the back of our co-production work with you, into a reality.

We're going to be able to announce some exciting new initiatives soon, and will be launching the next phase of the project, including more opportunities to get involved, in the August Member Update.

The board also discussed our new draft volunteer strategy, which they'll be working to implement, alongside early discussions on a vision for the future of our member networks.

A webpage for the board to keep you all updated on its activities is currently being developed – we'll include a link to it in Member Update as soon as its ready.

It's a time of first for us at the minute, with Covid-19 meaning that we had two hold our first fully digital annual conference on 30 June and 1 July.

Thanks to the hard work of our staff, our Standing Conference Committee, our host Claudia Hammond and our fantastic speakers, the event was a great success, with upwards of 94 per cent of the more than 840 delegates rating it good to excellence.

This is a fantastic result for our first ever online annual conference, and I want to thank all of those who were involved in it.

If you joined us as a delegate, I hope you enjoyed it and took plenty away from the diverse range of speakers and presentations.

I particularly enjoyed seeing the winner of our student competition, Alice Thompson, focus all of our minds on what psychology could look like 2040 – if you didn't catch it, find out more about Alice's presentation in The Psychologist.

Thank you to all of our speakers, our Vice President David Murphy and our President Dr Hazel McLaughlin – I have it on good authority that the virtual 'green room' was good fun for all involved!

We recorded all of the presentations – delegates should have received information on how to access these – and we will be making them more widely available in the coming months.

We learned a huge amount from an event that was a new experience for all of us, but we'll now be expanding our digital events offering on the back of this success. I hope to see you at one soon.