Some of you may have seen on the SRP social media accounts that I finally received confirmation of my CRadP professional registration, so can now refer to myself as a Chartered Radiation Protection Professional and use the letters CRadP after my name. It does sound like a small thing, but this means people who don’t know our profession (like my dad who was a computer programmer) can now understand I am working at a professional level akin to a Chartered Accountant or Chartered Engineer. It also makes me proud of my work and my profession. If my journey to Chartership has inspired you to fill in the forms and wait anxiously for months there is more information here.

Issue 2 of Radiation Protection Today (SRP’s new magazine) is well in production with deadlines this month for the articles being written and approved. This sounds straightforward but basically is a group of 5 people reading all the articles and when 2 of us are happy with it, pressing buttons on SharePoint to approve the articles. Bit like herding cats at times, but we got there before the deadline. The new issue will be with you (by post or electronically) with the December issue of Journal of Radiological Protection.

I can’t do a November blog and not mention Remembrance Sunday. This year my usual excuse ‘I have to look after the little one’ to get out of being involved in the parade didn’t work as she was marching with the rest of Egremont Town Junior Band. So, they gave me the big drum to beat ….you know the one that everyone marches in time to! I did ok. There were a few dodgy beats and I messed up the sequence to start them playing a couple of times (it is supposed to be double tap, double tap, then three beats) but my total rehearsal time was half an hour so I think I did alright. The youngest two members hadn’t marched before with the band but they did really well, playing their way through the 2 pieces of music three times each between the church and the war memorial. They also played ‘Abide with me’ beautifully while the wreaths were placed.

We held the Engagement Directorate Board in November and we managed to get through all the business in plenty of time. This included a review of what Engagement Directorate needs to do to deliver the Strategic Plan, which was hard graft, looking at a spreadsheet on MS Teams.  We managed to place SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound) actions against most of the requirements so we now clearly understand what needs to be done to progress SRP to a better position in the longer term.

I know some of you will be in denial until December; but once Remembrance is over, it is downhill to Christmas in my house. The Christmas cake is made and maturing, we are well on with buying the Christmas presents and I have started the Christmas card list. The kids and Mr H have started playing carols and Christmas songs at brass band rehearsals so they are humming the tunes already, so I might as well give in and go find the decorations…..

You can get in touch on the usual details.

Jennifer Humphries BSc CRadP MSRP TechIOSH

SRP Director of Engagement

Twitter - @jenkhumphries

Email - Engagement@srp-uk.org