SoLR World Food Week
Our first World Food Week went down a storm last week, with colleagues getting together across the UK to share food, celebrate our diverse heritages and raise money for our 2022 charity Shelter, totalling and impressive £479. You can still donate via our Just Giving page here. Big thanks to our Community Committee and volunteers who made this happen.
Right on topic, Emily Pittaway shared her thoughts on the Cultural Geographies of Food: Understanding food and identity for SoLR World Food Week.
London networking event
The SoLR Community Committee are pleased to announce that our London community networking event will be at Tank and Paddle, Minster Court on Wednesday 25 May from 5:30 pm. Thanks to Mott MacDonald and WSP who are sponsoring the bar and snacks. Please note, the date has changed from what was previously advertised, due to venue availability.
Spaces are limited, so please do RSVP, or cancel your RSVP if you later cannot attend. In a SoLR first, this event will be held at ground level... Free for all members.
Membership
We now have 170 members and in May we are going to make subscriptions easier and improve visibility within our online member areas. This will allow membership subscriptions to run for one calendar year from when we first joined the Society. Following the transition, we will be able to access our subscriptions within our SoLR account.
Any membership started in 2021 will still run until the end of 2022. As we transition over the next week or so, you may receive confirmation emails, which you can ignore. If your membership fees are outstanding, please pay here.
Waterfront Conference
SoLR partnered with the Waterfront Conference Company this year to endorse the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects Forum in March and the Land Assembly and Compulsory Purchase for Major Infrastructure Conference in April.
SoLR member Joel Allibon, Land Consultant at WSP, represented SoLR at the Land Assembly and Compulsory Purchase for Major Infrastructure conference on We 27 April and has shared his experience:
“This event was an excellent opportunity to network with clients and industry colleagues, whilst listening to a number of informative presentations from land acquisition experts who shared their insights on the successful completion of land assembly and compulsory purchase for major infrastructure projects.
The conference provided an insight into all aspects of land assembly, from land referencing and calculating compensation, to exploring the tools available to address landowner concerns and improving stakeholder engagement. Lessons learnt were presented from recently consented nationally significant infrastructure projects on how to manage risks and overcome the challenges facing projects during development, following consent, and after land acquisition.
As a result of attending events such as these, my networking skills are improving and I would encourage other members to seize similar opportunities and attend future events.”
Land Referencer Apprenticeship
NCATI Open Day
Vincente de Faria, Katie Pollard (pictured below) and Sheoma Richards attended the latest open day at the National Collage for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI) on 28 April to once again promote land referencing careers, and direct school leavers towards the information and industry vacancies on our website. The open day was well attended and we are keeping in touch with those who expressed an interest in applying for roles.
Marketing to Higher Education Schools and Colleges
To further promote the Land Referencer Apprenticeship, we have conducted a marketing exercise to 400 higher education schools and colleges in the Midlands, identified by SoLR members through deploying their geospatial analysis skills. Thanks to Gabby Podmore and Andrew Ledger for undertaking the hard work! We aim to regularly engage with schools going forward, so that we can raise the profile of the services we provide to future colleagues, but also the future engineers, planners, environmental consultants and clients.
Apprentice vacancies are still open with the following employers and details can be found here. Please do promote these excellent opportunities within your networks.
