Scholarships and partnerships – latest updates from the BWPA committee

The BWPA is run by a team of volunteers who are passionate about contributing to the BWPA community and supporting women in aviation. The BWPA committee meets approximately every two months, and work diligently together in between these meetings to deliver events, scholarships, discounts and other benefits for other BWPA members. The hard work is paying off as our membership has grown by 60% since 2019, and we have welcomed several new committee members this year to support this growth and ensure the BWPA continues to deliver for our growing membership.

Recent ways in which our committee members have made great strides in helping the BWPA support women in aviation include:

• Formalising our partnerships programme Ensuring that there are benefits for both BWPA members and our partners by reviewing how we approach partnerships.
• Securing new benefits for members Including free landings and discount flight sim offers.
• Undertaking a full strategic review of our scholarships programme Our scholarships have grown from seven scholarships awarded in 2019 to 23 offered in 2022. To make sure the programme offers the greatest benefits for members and our generous sponsors, balanced against the effort for our volunteers to administer, the committee worked together to review our existing approaches and establish more effective ways to deliver the programme. We look forward to launching a revised scholarships programme in 2024.
• Establishing a 2023 interim scholarships programme Launching in early September, this will ensure we continue to offer practical support to women to achieve their flying goals.

At the July Committee meeting, our Volunteer Coordinator Lily Ayres applied to become an on-committee member. On-committee members undertake additional responsibilities to support the running of the BWPA. Lily has impressed the committee with her attitude and approach since becoming Volunteer Coordinator in January 2023 – as a 2022 BWPA Flying Start Scholarship winner, we have been especially impressed with her commitment to give back.

All members are encouraged to join the committee meetings to understand how the BWPA is run – check our events page for upcoming meetings. Minutes of past meetings can also be found in the members’ area of the website.

Please contact the Secretary for any questions about the BWPA committee.