The following is excepted from an email to Richard Osborne, newly-elected Council member for the British Interplanetary Society:-

Thanks for your excellent list of suggestions. Here are a few comments of my own off the top of my head:-

* Agree wholeheartedly with comments about design and branding. BIS needs a new logo and a whole new look. I'm pretty sure that logo dates from the Society's founding in 1933. Just... don't hire the same company that did the 2012 Olympics logo ;-)

* BIS should hold more meetings outside London. They should co-operate with e.g. the NSC on co-branding and advertising of meetings. The NSC has 300,000 visitors a year interested in space, a market the BIS could and should tap into. Meetings could be live-video-linked back to London for those old duffers who aren't willing to venture beyond the M25 into Here-Be-Dragons-Land.

* BIS should hold more meetings targeted at younger members/potential members, and improve links with UKSEDS..

* BIS should recognise that space is not just a scientific and industrial activity, but an entrepreneurial one as well, and be ready to provide support to UK space entrepreneurs, whether with advice or links to potential sources of funding. If BIS doesn't do this, Rocketeers will ;-)

* Agree with support for development of radical ideas. It would be even better if this 'ideas incubator' was supported by at least a small amount of funding for concept development -- basically a British version of NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, which sadly closed down a couple of years ago).

* Facebook: BIS exec needs to take over the Facebook group that already exists and breathe some life into it. It only has 18 members and it's dying on its feet.

* Create an RSS newsfeed for BIS news and events

* Contribute to the Google Calendar of UK Space Events that already exists

* BIS website to include profiles of BIS members doing interesting space-related work.