The Volunteer Crew: Why communities take calculated risks

The more time I spend working with IET volunteers, the more I realise that resilience and innovation have something else in common: both require a willingness to take risks.

Now, before anyone starts worrying, I'm not talking about ignoring governance, abandoning standards, or throwing processes out of the window. Engineers are trained to understand risk, manage it, and minimise it where it matters. That's exactly what we should continue to do when safety, ethics, and public trust are involved.

But when it comes to building communities, connecting people, and creating opportunities for learning, being overly risk-averse can sometimes become a barrier to progress.

I've been reflecting on this after reading Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff. One of the themes that stood out to me wasn't rebellion for the sake of rebellion. It was the idea that successful communities don't just follow rules; they constantly question whether the rules still serve their purpose.

Historically, pirate crews became surprisingly effective because they challenged established systems and created new ways of working that gave people more ownership, accountability, and shared responsibility. They weren't successful because there were no rules. They were successful because they wrote better ones.

Across our local networks, volunteers regularly encounter processes that might have made sense years ago but now create friction. Sometimes it's how we organise events. Sometimes it's how we engage members. Sometimes it's simply the way we've always done things.

The most effective volunteers I've met aren't the ones who quietly accept those challenges. They're the ones who ask:

"Is there a better way?"

The strength of a volunteer-led organisation is that we can learn quickly. Small experiments allow us to test ideas, understand what works, and share those lessons with others.

Innovation almost never arrives fully formed through a top-down instruction. More often, it emerges from individuals and communities trying something different and giving others permission to do the same.

This is particularly important as our profession continues to evolve.

Many of our most active volunteers are helping build bridges between generations, disciplines, and sectors. Students are learning from experienced engineers. Early-career professionals are challenging established thinking. Retired members are sharing decades of hard-earned knowledge.

Those connections don't happen because they're mandated. They happen because people are willing to invest time, energy, and occasionally a little courage into doing something new.

That's why I believe we should continue giving our local networks the freedom to experiment. Of course, there are some things that should never change. Professional integrity, public trust, inclusivity, and supporting the next generation of engineers remain at the heart of everything we do.

But within those boundaries, there is enormous room for creativity.

The future of engineering doesn't just depend on developing new technologies. It depends on building communities that are adaptable, welcoming, and resilient enough to evolve alongside them.

After all, smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.