Guidance for Committee Members 

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to the IOR and its work.  These notes provide some guidance on your responsibilities as part of the IOR’s network of volunteers and operational structure.

1.       Meeting arrangements

Agendas are distributed about a week in advance of meetings and minutes showing actions usually within a week or so. If you cannot attend please reject the Outlook diary invite and email to let us know if no longer available.

 Most IOR meetings are held online to make them easy to attend.

 You are expected to attend most of the meetings, usually if you are not able to attend regularly you will be asked to give up your place to someone who has more availability.

Once a year there is a face to face meeting of all Committees on the day of the AGM in November in London which is helpful to meet and interact with other members and feedback to the IOR Board and strategic priorities.

 A googledoc Committees feedback spreadsheet is updated after each meeting and you can look at this to see what else is going on within the IOR and where you can work together with other groups. 

If you wish to leave the committee you should in the first instance contact the Chair or staff member responsible.

2.       Code of Conduct, IOR policies and practices

In all IOR meetings, you are expected to act with honesty, fairness, courtesy, competence, integrity and respect for others, and we shall avoid all real or perceived conflicts of interests, making an open declaration if any conflict of interest should arise during the course of the meeting.

You should have read and understood the IOR policies on Code of Conduct, Equality and Diversity and Declarations of Interest.  These and other policies are available at  https://ior.org.uk/about/policies-and-practices .

It is important that you consider discussions at the IOR meetings as confidential and respect the position of other people in the meetings in sharing information or data or commercial sensitivity if that occurs. If you have any complaints or concerns about an IOR meeting you should contact either the Chair or staff member responsible.

3.       Your profile as an IOR Committee member and use of Social Media & Talks

Once you become a member you may not realise that if you post a comment about the IOR it may be seen as representing an official IOR position on that issue rather than a person view – so you should consider the values and objectives of the IOR in any post or presentation you are giving.  Committee members are encouraged to use positive messages – particularly if they are tagging or mentioning IOR as part of their own social media posts about the industry.   If you chose to share more controversial or negative messaging then it might be useful to clarify that you are not posting as the IOR to avoid confusion.

If you want to show your involvement in IOR please do not use the IOR logo or logos designed for IOR activities or show IOR as your employer or your main employment under your profile in LinkedIn/X/Instagram or under your email signature.  Our policy on IOR logo use prevents members, even those on Committees, from using the IOR logo on their business communications.  In your emails or social media we recommend you could:

• Add initials eg MInstR after your name 
• Using the special “We support IOR” logo
• In your LinkedIn bio you can add IOR as an organisation you volunteer with or list IOR projects you are involved in. 

IOR Social Media Guidelines

Here are some helpful hints from the IOR social media internal guidance:

• The IOR cannot be seen to be recommending any companies or commercial technologies over any other and must remain neutral.
• IOR communications should avoid the use of commercial names eg for refrigerants although we will acknowledge sources of information when permission is allowed by the owner / original author.
• Inclusivity: the RACHP sector covers many types of occupations and career stages.  The IOR is for all individuals working in refrigeration, air-conditioning, and heat pumps.
• The kinds of values that reflect the IOR Charitable Objectives are:

Collaboration: we provide a forum for and actively promote the exchange of expertise and ideas to further the industry.

Integrity: we are commercially unbiased and act impartially for the good of society.

Leadership – we tackle difficult issues and champion engineering efficiency through the promotion of best practice.

Advancement we provide educational resources, encourage invention and research, and support RACHP career development.

General images guidelines

Do you have permission to use the image?

Is the resolution ok - is this the best high-quality image available?

Photos should on balance reflect diversity.

Does the image support best practice (avoid sharing examples that might damage the reputation of the industry).

Only post images where correct PPE is in place.