On the verge of spring, we hope to bring you a little sunshine with the latest edition of our quarterly volunteer newsletter!
Each edition brings new opportunities to celebrate our incredible volunteer community, share valuable insights, and keep you informed about the latest developments across BCS. Your dedication and contributions continue to shape the future of IT, and we’re excited to bring you updates, stories, and resources to support you in your volunteer role.
This quarter, we’re shining a spotlight on collaboration - whether it’s new initiatives, inspiring projects and events, or highlighting ways you can get involved in shaping the future of our professional community.
As always, we’d like to thank you all for your support. Your backing and positive engagement helps us keep the community thriving, and for that we are incredibly grateful.
2025 New Year’s Honours list We’d like to congratulate a number of esteemed BCS volunteers who were named in the 2025 New Year’s Honours list for their contributions to making IT good for society:
Former BCS President, Mayank Prakash who was awarded a CBE for services to the Advancement of Technology Professionals.
Chair of BCS London North, South, and Central Branches Dalim Basu who was awarded an MBE for Services to Young People and the Promotion of Science and Technology.
Chair of BCS Learning and Development Michael Cooper who was awarded an OBE for public service.
We are excited to share that we are trialling optional donation tickets for your free events via Eventbrite as a way for groups to increase their events budgets.
Donation tickets work directly through the Eventbrite platform. When presented with the option to get a free ticket to your events, attendees will see an option to donate a voluntary contribution towards the cost of the event. Any funds raised on behalf of a member groups event will then be attributed back to the account of the hosting group. This additional income will be subject to our traditional finance policies and guidelines.
It is important to note that in cases of joint group events, funds will be allocated to the host who completes the event request form.
We want to reiterate that this is completely optional and will in no way impact the experience of those who do not wish to make a contribution.
We hope this will enable groups to generate income to contribute to costs of running free events so that primary funding from BCS can be used for additional projects.
If you’re interested in trialling this feature, please let us know via groups@bcs.uk when you next submit and event request.
Attendee Sign In – BCS London Office
As part of our community offering, Member Groups are able to run in-person events from our BCS London Office free of charge. If your group is hosting an event at the BCS London Office with more than 20 people registered, it is crucial that a member of the hosting group be present to help with signing in your attendees. As many events take place after working hours, reception staff are not able to provide assistance, nor are our facilities staff based out of the office who are working to set up the event and ensure seamless delivery.
Should no one be appointed to sign in attendees, we expect this responsibility to fall to the Chair of the group/the organising committee member.
If you experience any issues with signing in attendees, please reach out to groups@bcs.uk to let us know.
Resource Centre
Volunteering Help Centre
Towards the end of last year, we announced that we had updated our Volunteer hub. Fuelled by your feedback and a desire to make your experience seamless, engaging, and impactful, the refreshed Volunteer hub embodies BCS’s commitment to empowering you. We deeply value the time and expertise you bring to advancing our mission, and this enhanced platform is designed to provide you with the tools and resources you need to get the job done!
What’s New?
Enhanced Navigation: The Volunteer Hub is now conveniently located under the 'Memberships & Registrations' menu in the 'Volunteering with BCS' section. We've streamlined the content across pages to highlight the most relevant information, ensuring you can quickly find what you need without feeling overwhelmed by excessive details.
Improved Resource Library: We’ve enhanced our support with the Help Centre functionality of Zendesk, designed to help you find answers faster than ever. The Volunteering Help Centre adopts an intuitive FAQ format, organized into themes such as running events, managing member group finances, leading a member group, and many more.
Volunteer Awards and Recognition
We depend on the good service of our volunteer members to carry our out BCS mission which enables us to meet charitable objectives, and our Royal Charter. We love to recognise our volunteers for their hard work, dedication and achievement on behalf of BCS, through our volunteer awards.
Recent award recipients
We’d like to celebrate the following volunteers who recently received volunteer awards:
10 Years Long Service award - Chris Todd Davies
25 Years Long Service award - Paul Bulmer and Jeremy White (retired from the South Wales Branch committee).
It is approaching the time for all groups to prepare their annual budgets for the 2025-2026 financial year. To support groups with this process, you are invited to join a 1-hour session on 4 March 2025 covering the budget submission process and timetable, allowing time for questions and answers.
This session will be repeated twice to enable broader attendance; the timings are as follows:
Mark your calendars! Join your fellow community members for a plethora of events, both online and in person. Curious about what's coming up? Check out the community events calendar here!
Are you a BCS Member with experience working in Wales? Want to make a National impact?
We are currently recruiting a Chair for the BCS Wales Hub leadership group, a strategic group that works collaboratively as a committee to share expertise and insight to help build the IT profession to deliver social and economic benefit in Wales.
As Chair, you will lead the BCS Wales Hub leadership group and align activities with its purpose, promoting professionalism, facilitating knowledge exchange and driving workforce development across Wales.
We are proud to be sponsors of Great Debate 2025, hosted by The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) on 12 March 2025 in Reading. Great Debate explores the urgent need to rethink engineering and technology in response to environmental, social, and economic challenges. With a focus on sustainability, it highlights the essential skills engineers must develop to tackle climate change, resource depletion, and social inequality. The discussion will cover the need for a mindset shift, greater versatility, innovation within sustainable limits, and modernising engineering education to meet 21st-century challenges. Four expert speakers will provide insights into shaping a future where both people and the planet can thrive.
BCS Discover is a platform that we launched in September 2023 to provide our members with CPD content and learning resources.
Whilst we continue to collaborate with Member Groups to produce CPD content for BCS Discover based on their activity, we’re currently looking to develop valuable resources for our members focused on soft skills and business skills, and we’d love your help! These skills - like effective teamworking, management, leadership, attitude and mindset, and meeting skills - are critical for personal and professional success.
We’re looking for volunteers to:
Write articles, blogs, or guides on essential soft skills (e.g., teamwork, adaptability, conflict resolution) and business skills (e.g., project management, decision-making, strategic thinking).
Share personal experiences or best practices to bring these topics to life.
Create video, audio, or slide presentations to engage diverse learners.
Are you based in Hartlepool, Leicester, Birmingham, Sutton London, or Southampton, and want to make a hands-on difference?
We are working with Microsoft and The Hg Foundation to bring the TEALS program to the UK for the first time. TEALSis a Microsoft Philanthropies program that supports equitable, inclusive computer science in secondary schools. The program helps teachers, particularly non-specialists, by pairing them with volunteers from industry who can boost subject knowledge in the classroom, enrich student learning, and accelerate the professional development of computing teachers.
As of the publication of this newsletter, the first ever Chartered Week, a national awareness week taking place from 24–28 February, will be coming to an end. This initiative highlights the incredible work of Chartered professionals and their contribution to society, bringing together practitioners, employers and awarding bodies from across professions to celebrate, educate and advocate for the value of chartership and registration pathways in all disciplines.
Every year there will be a different theme — for this first year the theme is Celebrating Trusted Professionals.
To celebrate the inaugural Chartered Week, on 25 February 2025 we hosted our first Convene Conference, an exciting one-day conference dedicated to celebrating ethical professionalism and innovation. The theme for the conference was: 'Innovating an ethical and sustainable UK tech landscape'. The event united government, organisational leaders, tech professionals, and academics to collaboratively shape the future of the tech landscape in the UK.
Don’t forget to add 24-28 February 2025 to your calendar to keep up to date with next year’s activities!
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