21285 - SCTE Broadband Dec2021 COMPLETE v1

46 Vol. 43 No. 4 - November 2021 Issue the backing of Tom Hall MBE, was subsequently co-opted to the Committee! My first meeting was at the new offices in Wembley together with Beverley Walker who was taking over from Tom Hall as the Society’s National Secretary. Following the 1992 AGM, again with the strong backing of Tom Hall, I was elected President of the SCTE. The early ‘90s recession was not good for the Society. The Society was technically insolvent and only a positive cash flow prevented us from going under. The Society needed a major shake-up to survive. Sounds difficult; how did you tackle the problem? There are two ways of increasing membership; one is to increase penetration in the existing marketplace and the second is to expand into new geographical markets. We tackled the first in several ways. We introduced a Technician class of membership and, together with Chief Engineers at several MSOs encouraged our employees to become members. Chuck Carroll of Telewest, co-opted onto the Exec Committee, was extremely helpful and together Videotron and Telewest funded the development of the first SCTE Technician Training Courses. They insisted that all our sub-contractors used certified technicians. Technician numbers went from zero to a peak approaching 500. We also made the Society a more social organisation – lecture days were extended from half to full day events with lunch and an evening cocktail party. Summer lectures included sporting activity afternoons and we crowned the social calendar with our annual Gala Dinner, always at a spectacular venue and including an awards ceremony. How about the new markets? This was difficult to start with, owing to the limited funding available. In 1992 I agreed to chair a conference session at the first Amsterdam IBC show and, in 1993, a session in Montreux. Following the IBC event, I received several comments about the lack of cable content at the show and, having passed these critiques to the IBC organisers, was immediately invited to join their conference committee! By 1994 I had been asked to sit on the IBC management committee and in 1995 the Society exhibited at IBC for the first time. By 1998 the show had grown significantly and it was obvious that it could no-longer be organised and managed by a bunch of volunteers. The result, after many meetings in darkened rooms, was to set up a partnership company of the existing organisations on the management committee (IET, RTS, IABM, SMPTE, IEEE and the SCTE) to run the show and who would share profits. from the industry !995 IBC with Bill Riker, President of the US SCTE