Page 11 - Annual Report 2016-2017

NATIONAL MEMBERS FORUM (NMF)
Chair of the NMC, Mr. Trond MARKUSSEN
STATEMENT 11
The FEANI National Members Forum (NMF) has become an interesting arena for gaining knowledge and sharing information between the National Members (NM) of the organization. When the FEANI NMF was established as an arena to meet in between the FEANI General Assemblies (GA), the Organization became more visible and interesting for the National Members. We have seen more National Members participating with every single meeting and also the engagement in the meetings has increased.
In 2017 we met twice: once in Brussels in March and in Hamburg in August. Both meetings had more than 20 of the 34 National Member countries participating, some of them even with more than one delegate. When we met in Hamburg, 21 countries were represented with 33 repre- sentatives. At that meeting it was agreed that FEANI will plan for two meetings of the NMF per year, in the future.
Earlier the Secretary General of FEANI in cooperation with myself as Chairman of the NMF, planned and determined the agenda of the meetings, but lately this is changing as the National Members are bringing forward valuable ideas for themes to present or discuss during future meetings. At that same meeting in Hamburg we also agreed that for the future we will plan for two or three topics to which some of the National Members could have the oppor- tunity to share best practices. This in addition to external presentations of common interest like we had for the two meetings in 2017.
When we meet in Brussels, professor Greet Langie from the University of Leuven presented the project “Professional Roles and Employability of Future Engineers”. When we met in Hamburg the Engineering Council gave a presen- tation on the “UK Speci cations Framework”.
In addition to the NMF also the FEANI Regions held their regional meetings at which the Secretary General is invited to participate. The Northern Region was the latest region to start organizing such meetings. The rst meeting was held in 2016 and now they are being held more regularly, either as a separate and distinct meeting or as a meeting in the morning, preceding the NMF-meeting. The FEANI Regions (North-Central-South) can archive their documents on the FEANI Homepage. There they can be consulted by all National Members as often these documents can be inspi- rational in terms of best practice exchanges or for simply sharing information.
My impression as the Chairman of the NMF is that the Forum has become an interesting and important instrument, almost a supplement to the General Assembly, giving us an even better possibility to meet and share best practice, making it easier to become the Voice of Engineers in Europe. 