Important changes to our Regional structure

The meetings that the itSMF UK puts together for its Regional and Special Interest Groups (SIGs), run free of charge for members, have long been considered a highly valuable part of the membership benefits package that our members all have access to. Over the course of the last 6 months, together with the Chairman of both the Events and Services Executive Sub-committees, we have been reviewing the delivery structure for these "Member meetings” and I am pleased to say that from January 2010, the Regional and SIG meetings will continue to be delivered through a new rationalised and formalised regional committee structure.

Firstly the regional structure of the itSMF will now comprise the 6 following regions –

·         Scotland

·         Northern Ireland

·         North

·         Central

·         South West & Wales

·         London & South East

A map detailing the boundaries for these regions can be found on our website - http://www.itsmf.co.uk/Regional.

As a member you will be allocated into your new region (or remain in the one you currently belong to).  

As part of an additional upgrading of our service, you will initially be automatically subscribed to the discussion forum for your new region and the regional chairs will be using this as a means of communicating to you in the new structure. (If you wish to unsubscribe from this discussion forum simply click on the unsubscribe link next the forum on the main discussion forum page.)

It is also worth mentioning that just because you reside within one region, this does not preclude you from attending any other meeting arranged in the UK or joining in any other forum.  This alteration of the regional structure is purely a device to rationalise and optimise the administration provided by us to you.  Indeed, we would encourage people to attend whichever meeting they think will benefit them during the course of the year. This is a "free" member benefit, so please do make the most of it.

Within the new regional structure we shall continue to deliver the SIG meetings, but through the regional structure. This way, bringing the two activities together, will effectively help us to deliver a properly coordinated service to all of our members. 

The chair for your region will be in touch shortly to introduce themselves and to ask for your  support and involvement on how to make these meetings the best they can be,  given the desire by us all to become much more active.  They will be looking for volunteers to host meetings in particular and those to present and to deliver on topics of interest to the wider membership. If you would like to host a meeting please do let us know.  

If you have any other questions please do not hesitate to contact Ben Clacy (ben.clacy@itsmf.co.uk ) or Chris Roberts (chris.roberts@itsmf.co.uk ) on 0118 918 6500.