Director of Technical and Advisory: Margaret Emsley

Margaret became a member of Soroptimist International of Ashton-under-Lyne in 1988. She has been Regional President, Secretary and Programme Action Chairman, FEC Councillor and Federation Conference Registrar.

Margaret's career has been as a civil and structural engineer, initially working on construction sites the length and breadth of the country as well as a secondment to a firm of structural engineers. For the past twenty-one years she has been a lecturer at The University of Manchester. She was awarded a PhD in 2001.

Margaret is a Magistrate and her other interests include walking, crown green bowling and DIY.

Margaret believes that while robust but equitable constitutional and procedural processes are essential to the success of a dynamic organisation such as Soroptimism, they should not be intrusive or autocratic but provide the framework to enable the organisation to fulfill its core purpose of service.

During 2008, the issue of Incorporation will be dominant issue addressed by the Technical and Advisory Committee. Other issues they will also be addressing include:

• Investigating the viability of the creation of a Charitable Trust to embrace both the Golden Jubilee Fellowship and Emergency Relief Fund with the aim of creating one new charity which would encompass the charitable aims of SIGBI (such as programme related work) within a broader remit.
• Completing the work on Role Specifications.
• Investigating potential Conference venues.
• Completing the electronic Records of Decisions data-base in order to provide easier access to previous decisions made by both Clubs and the Federation Executive Council.