Please note Septembers CL3 Workshop is proving very popular and is now fully booked with a long waiting list. 

Abridged minutes of the February 2023 EC meeting now available to view here

Abridged minutes of the November 2022 EC meeting are now available to view here

The abridged minutes of the July and September 2022 Executive Committee meetings are now available to view.

As shared through the HASNET email system recently, the ISTR Executive Committee is pleased to announce the location and dates for our upcoming flagship event, the Autumn Symposium.

With a theme of ‘travel and transport’ - the symposium will take place on Wednesday 23rd & Thursday 24th of November at the National Railway Museum in York.

The event will be held in person for the first time since 2019 and include plenty of opportunities to reconnect, or connect with new colleagues. We also plan to have a livestream option available for those who won’t be able to attend in person. More details including times, topics and speakers will be announced in the next few weeks. For now though, please save the date!

Find out more about the National Railway Museum and how to get their on their website.

We’re moving (virtually)… the ISTR registered address (our virtual office) has changed, our new address is:

ISTR, 124 City Road, LONDON, EC1V 2NX

You may need to advise your accounts department of this change for their records and for future payments. All other contact details remain the same and unchanged.

The abridged minutes of the EC meeting held on 23rd May are now available to view

All BSO meeting on the 28^th June 2022 at 10am

ISTR would like members to consider the following information in preparation for the All BSO meeting on the 28^th June:

1. A presentation (BPRS proposal.pdf) containing details of the proposed BPRS accreditation scheme. This will be briefly presented on the day by Andy White, the chair of the BPRS working group, and a representative from Royal Society of Biology will be available.
2. Answer the question (ISTR prequestion.docx) on the BPRS proposed scheme.  

It is important that ISTR members give feedback on the proposed scheme.

There will be a chance for questions and discussion following the presentation.

If you are unable to attend the meeting, ISTR and BSG welcome all comments/questions/feedback via email to istr-biosafadministrator@istr.org.uk.

If you can attend the meeting, ISTR and BSG look forward to seeing you all (virtually) on the 28^th June. 

Meeting joining details below:

Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/84410586250?pwd=OEtPdDJTVDRYREhEN3lVdEpIc0c5UT09

Meeting ID: 844 1058 6250

Passcode: 968014

Abridged minutes of the EC meeting held in February 2022 are now available to view

As many of you will remember, last year our Executive Committee members chaired a webinar, working with Camfil Ltd. looking at ventilation in a post-COVID world. The webinar highlighted a need amongst the ISTR membership for help and support in understanding more about how ventilation and filtration works. A common message at the webinar was that members could often feel challenged when discussing issues with their Estates / Facilities colleagues because they didn’t necessarily have the background knowledge.

As a result of this feedback, we set up a series of workshops to try and address some of these concerns and to empower participating members. The 3 workshops covered everything from understanding the basics of ventilation and filtration, to current and future standards relating to Air Handling Units (AHUs) and filters/filtration and on to operational standards (ACDP, GMP etc.) and some system common outline designs. 

Following the success of the workshop series, ISTR donated £3,000 to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, as nominated by Camfil. Find out more about the important work of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust on their website.