ITP0809/012
INDUSTRY & TECHNOLOGY POLICY BOARD
British Composites Society ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2010

1. Executive Committee membership
This year was the first year with the new structure for the BCS, shown in the Appendix.  Far more involvement was solicited in the BCS management with Activities and Committees.  The old Board Meetings were replaced with Committee Meetings that encompassed a much wider participation.  The Executive Committee met after these meetings and the members are listed in the Appendix

2. BCS Committee meetings
The BCS met on the following dates.  The attendance lists were circulated within the minutes:
April 26th 2010, 1 Carlton House Terrace
November 3rd 2010, 1 Carlton House Terrace

3. Opportunities for growth of Division Community or constraints
The new Strategy for the BCS is for much wider participation by the Composites Community.  Publicity has gone out  for open meetings, where all are invited to become involved.  As such, there are new faces at the meetings and new names in positions of responsibility in the new structure.  Within the year there were some minor changes to the activities and personnel.  Targets for each Activity were put in place, and these will need some revision as the new structure works out some of the creases.

4. Technical programme
With the new structure and people being put into place with new targets no meetings were held in 2010.  A meeting was held on May 12 2009 entitled Living with Composites: Composites in Extreme Environments.  The meeting had 50 delegates and was hosted by ACG in Heanor. Bill Broughton on NPL and Quentin Fontana of ACG were the Chairs.  Collaboration with other organisations who hold one day meetings on composite materials was sought to minimise overlap and duplications.  Preparations were well under way for the next in the successful series of ICMAC conferences to be held in Belfast in 2011.

5. Foresight / Innovation and Growth
At this time no activities for this were undertaken

6. Professional membership developments
Part of the new structure included a focus on membership and promotion within Committee 02.  As a starting point a study was carried out to identify what the numbers and status of BCS members is.  This was difficult to identify specific members but a list was prepared and targets to improve the number of members and the number of promotions established.

7. National and international linkages with other Societies /Institutes
A new activity within Committee 03 aimed to identify and establish links with both national and international composite bodies.  A list of national groups was identified along with key personnel within the group and approaches will be made next year with a draft MoU (approved by the IoMMM) on what the nature of any link might be.  A similar list is under preparation for international bodies and early contact made with the Korean Composites Society as they are running the next ICCM conference in Korea.

8. Government interfaces
Government interests have been represented at BCS meetings by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI). UKTI is the Government department that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy and assists overseas companies to bring their high-quality investment to the UK. UKTI was part of the Inter Agency Composites group that worked with BIS to develop the UK Composites Strategy, which was launched in Nov 2009. As part of this strategy UKTI has committed to work with other Government Departments to map, grow and market the UK's capability in composites through targeted FDI and making UK companies aware of trade opportunities. UKTI's presence at BCS meetings facilitates awareness of, and alignment with, ongoing Government work in composites.
9. Publications
None at this time.  Committee 03, will help prepare a diary for composite related press releases and articles for Materials World and other relevant publications.

10. Awards/prize
The Leslie Holliday was awarded to Dr. Paul Curtis of DSTL

The Composite Award 2010 (for published work of particular merit in the field of composites) was awarded to V Koissin and his fellow authors J Kustermans, S V Lomov, I Verpoest, H Nakai, T Kurashiki, K Hamada, Y Momoji and M Zako for the paper ‘Structurally stitched woven performs: experimental characterisation, geometrical modelling, and EE analysis’ published in Plastics, Rubber ad Composites, volume 38 issue 2-4.

The Executive has put forward nominations for the Leslie Holliday Prize and the Composite Award 2010.

11. Other matters
None at this time.