The last few weeks have been busy, as you can imagine, but even so, this message is well overdue. Firstly,  thanks to those people who have taken a moment to welcome me to my new job. I have agreed with Simon that my appointment should be of fixed term, lasting no later than the 1st February 2022. At this moment there is an opportunity to terminate the appointment or to re-appoint me as division director - but this is a choice to be made by the regional director.

 

I am grateful to Simon that I take over the position of division director in good order. Our training structure is capable and resilient. It is supported by well established but reliable systems and with passionate and highly motivated instructors and mentors. Our training rates are really phenomenal and we should spend more time reflecting on this success. However, it is not the only indicator to worry about; I in fact would really like us to not worry about training rates at all in the future. In the long term, this will not be a metric which is under our control. We need to focus on building sustainable and high quality training systems which are inclusive and as universal as possible. There are many things going on right now in training, but as highlights: our colleagues in training are moving forward with revisions to the S1 training scheme and providing more theory training courses in Moodle. We are also working on the improvement of pilot training systems and materials to support them. I will be working with Tom and Oliver respectively in the coming months to ensure that training for pilots and controllers is progressing as smoothly as possible.

 

We have an excellent technical infrastructure supporting our division; which our web team work tirelessly to develop and maintain on a tiny budget. We are working now in upgrading all our systems to the most recent standards as well as unifying many back-end systems into a single location to reduce unnecessary staff workload. Calum and his colleagues continue to develop core to support the daily operations of the division. In parallel, Andy is continuing to develop the UK Controller Plugin each month with new features for us to include in our controlling and the whole team under the guidance of Callum is working on building the foundation for our new training system. There are regular developments here, but nothing shiney and new to show off (yet). These are often the unsung heroes of keeping VATSIM UK online - so thanks to them. We hope to bring you news on these developments as soon as we have something to share.

In the last months, we have seen a huge surge in UK event popularity. Loui and Ben in Marketing have been working hard to ensure these events run smoothly and at a variety of UK airports. We will continue to work on this in the next few months, especially to support training and perhaps more importantly support the less popular corners of the UK. We have been especially working on unusual collaborations and types of events and will continue to do so during the next months.

In 2020, we will be opening a new and very broad department which will cover most questions and enquiries from members. Tom Earl will be leading this team and has already plans for how this department will look as we get into the first few months of operations. We aim to alleviate many (other) departments from member support and instead deal with most enquiries via a triage system lead by Tom and his team. We will be sharing more news on this department in the next weeks.

My vision for the UK is not revolutionary. Keep doing what we're doing and keep doing it to the best of our abilities. My job is to identify obstacles in the way of our goals and to support the DSG members responsible in overcoming them. I firmly believe we are on the right track, but there are many areas for improvement. One key area of improvement is in diversity. We are ignoring a very large percentage of our members - so we need to find a way to engage with this group in a constructive way. I am also increasingly concerned with the shrinking of our services away from the regions and towards a few select areas in the UK.  I will ensure that our actions and proactivity will tend towards reversing this trend. We need a division that works for every member and not just a select few.

 

Our staff and volunteers (in the form of mentors, contributors to documents, software and so on) are really what make the division so special. Without the thousands of hours dedicated to the UK each month, we would not be able to do what we do. I am highly appreciative of every person who contributes to making our community the vibrant and enjoyable place it is.. From those who make one flight a month or those who contribute one mentoring session a day - everyone is helping in their own way and this is making the UK a great place to be involved in this hobby.

 

I hope that we can make this a better place over the next two years.

 

Chris.