Silver Circle? What’s That?

Silver Circle is a phrase crafted to include retirees, seniors, consultants, older part-time workers, and others—a large group of ACS members and a rapidly growing one. ACS local sections are forming senior chemist or Silver Circle groups to keep these members active in the Society as well as in the community.

As current Chair of the ACS Silver Circle Working Group (SCWG), a group established by the ACS Committee on Local Section Activities (LSAC), I am working with a small team to define what ACS should be doing for its seniors and what senior ACS members can do to enhance our professional lives.

SCWG knows from the reports submitted by local sections that at least 23 sections now have senior committees, and that number seems to be growing every year. SCWG encourages you to check out whether your local section has one, and, if so, consider whether it has programs in which you would enjoy participating. If there is no program, take a look at the ACS website (www.acs.org/SilverCircle) for our SCWG Starter Kit, a tool that gives some ideas on how to get started in your local section with a seniors committee. At this time in their careers, seniors have the experience, knowledge, time, and energy to help develop younger chemists and to help students of all ages understand the value of a chemistry or chemistry-related career.

If you still attend ACS national meetings, consider attending our SCWG breakfast. It is jointly sponsored by SCWG and the ACS Development Office. The affair offers a full breakfast and a fine opportunity to meet others who are movers and shakers in their own local sections. In addition, the breakfast program offers a principal speaker (three ACS Past Presidents and a Chemistry Nobel Prize winner have spoken recently), some ACS folks whose programs you should know about, and an open discussion session for idea sharing. At the next ACS national meeting, which is in Philadelphia, come join us on Tuesday, August 19, 2008, at 7:30 a.m. When you register for the meeting, you can purchase a SCWG breakfast ticket at the same time.

What else are we doing? We are looking at what other professional organizations outside ACS are doing with K–12 education, and we are capturing what some ACS local sections are doing, too. Our goal is to publicize best practices, so others might join in at the ACS local section level to enhance science in local schools.

Within ACS, we are exploring with other national committees outside LSAC to see whether we can develop programs of benefit for ACS seniors. We encourage group travel for seniors (Betchart Travel offers these trips to ACS members), better use of the new ACS website, consulting and part-time opportunities for ACS seniors (MyEncore, ChemInsight), and best practice sharing among local sections.

What’s Silver Circle? It is what we make it to be. If you have ideas or comments to share, contact me. SCWG and I look forward to hearing from you.

Thomas R. Beattie
Chair, Silver Circle Working Group
ACS Committee on Local Section Activities

Back to Top Return to Newsletter