SEB Bulletin March 2008
From the President's Desk
According to the BBC News web site Monday 21st January was the most depressing day of the year in the UK. This is no doubt something to do with the accumulative effects of short days and almost unremitting cold, wet and windy weather. Fortunately, I managed to escape for almost a month visiting family in Northeast Brazil. I can report bright sunny days with day-night temperatures ranging from 35 to 28oC. The only pity is that I had to return to freezing temperatures, overcast skies and piles of examination scripts that needed my immediate attention!
I usually use this article to communicate relevant information from the last Council Meeting. However, the deadline for this issue of the Bulletin is a month earlier than usual and Council does not meet again until the 6th March. Instead I would like to consider the question of what motivates people to join the SEB or any other similar learned society. This is a very important question for Council in seeking to develop the Society and it was one of the questions posed, albeit in a different guise, at an excellent workshop on “Strategy Development” conducted by Professor John Marti from the University of Southampton after the November Council. His actual question was “what is the SEB's core business?”
As usual with management seminars the “correct” answer was not the obvious one and after a little prompting we came up with the proposition that the SEB was in the business of “career development”. This is an interesting idea and certainly some people do join the Society for direct benefits such as travel grants or to enhance their status and gain recognition through presenting papers and networking at the scientific meetings. Membership of committees or holding high office within the Society may also bring benefits of status and enhance career prospects as well as being quite a lot of work. However, commitment to intellectual endeavour for its own sake and/or a deep fascination with biology are also plausible motivations. I discussed this with a long-standing member of the Society now retired and he pointed out that people like him were long past being interested in career development. The question arises as to whether the SEB is really a business in the conventional sense? The answer here is clearer and a resounding yes! Although we are a non-profit making organisation we are providing a service to members and the wider community through the benefits Biology brings to Society.
The SEB clearly needs to excel in its provision of such services and adopt best practice from business if it is to prosper in the future. As with many learned societies we also own a publishing business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Over the last two years the Southampton staff have introduced a new IT and management system which can now provide Council with detailed information on the membership. Members also benefit from a redesigned web site with interactive features such as the ability to pay their subscription, vote on issues and pay discounted registration fees online. The SEB has a significant number of long-standing and loyal members, many of whom have long retired from academic life. Unfortunately, in the early days of the Society computers were not invented and nobody gave much thought to management information systems. Until around 5-6 years ago detailed records about the membership and activities of the Society are distinctly patchy. Recently, I received a very disgruntled letter from a “life-member” of the SEB who had been asked to renew his subscription for “life-membership” as it had expired! Apparently, “life-membership” has had different meanings over the last twenty years. I can only apologise unreservedly for past shortcomings and pledge to sort out such anomalies as they come to light. Although we still have some way to go the SEB is striving to raise its professional standards and suggestions on how we could improve things further are always welcome.
Ian A. Johnston
Honorary President
