This goes back a long way, to pre-Sputnik days. I first became interested in my early-teens, reading books by Arthur C. Clarke and Wehner von Braun, and in particular having my imagination fired by the illustrations of R.A.Smith (in the UK) and Chesley Bonestell (from the US).

I did science at school and engineering at university as a consequence of this, and also the influence of my maternal grandfather who had made engineering seem interesting as a child. I joined the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) in 1956 out of interest and have been a member ever since.

When I got my doctorate I joined what was then the UK Rocket Propulsion Establishment to work on the early days of European interest in launch vehicles. Subsequently the UK lost interest in big rockets, and after working in other government jobs for a while I joined/was recruited by what was then British Aerospace Space and Communications in 1982 where I worked on the early design stages of a variety of projects as a system engineer.

These included the Eurostar Comsat platform, what would eventually turn out to be the Envisat Earth observation platform, the Hotol reusable launch vehicle concept and a number of other launch vehicle studies, lunar exploration studies (including SMART-1) and a number of planetary missions.

The first IAF Congress I attended was in 1985 in Stockholm, and have been to most (but not all) Congresses since. In 1990 in Dresden I was drafted onto the IAF Launch Vehicles Committee. I had served on the Council of the BIS for some years before this, and about that time I was also made a member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

Having discovered the IAF it was clear to me that this was an important international forum at which all the worldwide activities in astronautics were discussed. My (professional) interests in space are very broad, and the IAF Congress provided an opportunity to find out about the current "state of play" in the whole variety of areas I needed to know about, and to develop personal relationships with others working in similar fields outside the constraints of agency projects or collaborative contracts, which provide the other means of getting to know other workers in the field.

As an amateur "archeologist" as well as a long-term "spaceman" I was interested to find out that in the early days, when the IAF was founded in 1950, it was thought that the IAF might have to become the developer of spaceflight as an international space agency pursuing spaceflight for peaceful purposes.

I was proposed for the Bureau by my "friends" in the BIS. (Sir) Martin Sweeting of SSTL had been a UK member on the Bureau before me, and with the end of his term the BIS (and Martin) thought that I was a suitable person to follow him. Up until that point I had taken little interest (apart from serving on Technical Committees) in the "politics" of the IAF, but it seemed to me important that it maintain and develop its unique function as an international forum for space.

The Bureau provides the top level "management board" for the IAF. It meets formally twice a year - once at the Congress and once in the spring in Paris. At other times it conducts discussions by e-mail and other means. Apart from the organisation of the technical sessions (run by the Technical Committees) it is responsible for everything else that the IAF does and for making recommendations to the General Assembly - although most of these functions will be delegated to Committees for specific purposes.

Generally one member of the Bureau takes a particular interest (sits as an ex-officio member) in each of the working Committees, but by working through these committees the IAF spreads the burden (since all members are volunteers) and recruits the best available talent for particular tasks. And an important function of the Bureau, guided by the President, is to develop the long-term vision of the IAF.

The purpose of the Finance Committee is very simple - to keep the IAF honest in its financial affairs. The Finance Committee reviews the IAF income and spending both for the year past and for the future to evaluate how well we are doing and what we can do in the future (e.g. investing in a new website), as well as making investment decisions on the funds held by the IAF. The Finance Committee reports to the Bureau and also directly to the General Assembly at the annual Congress.

While the UK has not gone in for major "flagship" space projects such as human spaceflight, nevertheless it remains a good "team player" within the European Space Agency. One significant recent development has been a growing interest in interplanetary missions, and in particular the interest in the UK signing up to the ESA Aurora programme to explore Mars. Despite the ultimate failure of the Beagle lander, that project raised British interest and involved the life sciences in UK space activities, and this has now been further progressed in UK preparatory activity for the ExoMars lander.

With particular reference to the IAF (and in my role as Vice President of the BIS) we are getting excited about winning the venue for the 2008 IAF Congress for Glasgow.

This is seen as a major opportunity to make space more visible within the UK, to raise public attention and awareness, and to welcome the international astronautical community back to one of the birthplaces of the IAF. It is our belief, shared by many parts of the UK space industry, that bringing the Congress to the UK at a time when the UK is looking forward to future space activities will be of particular benefit to all participating - not just industry but academics and institutions.