21285 - SCTE Broadband Dec2021 COMPLETE v1

47 Vol. 43 No. 4 - November 2021 Issue From small returns in 1998, by 2001 the Society was receiving £140K per year rising to over £650K by 2018. This enabled us to consider other exhibitions abroad as well as setting up regional Society Groups. A chance meeting with Col. Vinod Khare at a show in the US led to a training contract with BECIL, India, exhibiting at Convergence India, support from Prem Biel (Chair of the company organising Convergence India) and the subsequent setting-up of SCTE India. A joint approach to training in Kosovo with Jos Huiser, ex Tratec, led to exhibitions in the Balkans and an ongoing Balkan SCTE led by Besim Latifi, who later introduced our African Ambassador Florentino Jardin. By far the most successful group has been our Benelux SCTE. With backing from Chuck Carroll, then at Ish, Rien Baan was asked to coordinate a meeting of interested parties. This took place in the Hague in April 2003, at the Vecai offices, hosted by Job Vehrmeijer, Vecai’s Technical Director and attended by Aart Verbree of CAI Westland, Herman Grooten of Gouda Cable, Rien and myself. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and the Benelux SCTE was set up as a sub-committee of the Society. The group has grown over the years; it now has nearly 100 members and organises its own lectures and social events. Altogether, the geographical expansion has resulted in nearly half of our members coming from outside of the UK. When did you take on the CEO role? In reality, the role of President always encompassed an operational element but, by the turn of the century, with increased Society activities and IBC involvement it became obvious that we needed a more committed resource. This coincided with my ‘retirement to Wales’ and the Executive Committee asked me to take on a formal CEO role for both the Society and SCTE Ltd on a paid 3 day/week basis. In reality it turned out to be a 7 day/week, 52 weeks/year commitment! So why are you retiring now? Well, firstly I’m not getting any younger! Leaving aside the ‘under a bus’ possibility, the Society needs to have a management continuity plan anyway. The first part of this was to separate out the President and CEO functions and we accomplished this in 2016 with Mike Thornton taking over as President and re-introducing a three-year term as standard. We then set about strengthening the sub-committee structure so that chairs had more control and direct input into operational aspects. We are now in a position, with Tony Basham as a strong and effective President, to consider doing away with the paid CEO role altogether so I was happy to ’put in my notice’ effective at the AGM this year. But surely you are not disappearing completely? Certainly not, I love the Society too much. I have decided not to stand for re-election to the Executive Committee but I have agreed to continue in a voluntary role as Director, providing some continuity and looking after the archives and constitutional matters. I have also agreed that I will manage the IBC interface for an interim period whilst we recover from COVID-19 and re-structure. So, what are you going to do with your spare time? I have recently discovered that I like cruising holidays, so whilst the pension lasts… Other than that, I have a collection of scanned photographs dating back to the ‘50s to organise, clean, re-colour and, of course, my interest in genealogy keeps me busy in spare moments expanding my 50,000 person family tree! We wish you all the best for a long, healthy retirement Roger, and thank you again for everything you have done for the SCTE. from the industry SCTE Benelux Dinner 2020