APRIL UPDATE - Royal Meteorological Society Response to COVID-19

Keeping our members and everyone engaged with our work up to date on the steps we are taking during these challenging times is very important.

The health and wellbeing of our staff, colleagues and those involved with the Society, is a top priority for us. We closed the Society’s office on 17 March and have continued to the run the Society efficiently with phone lines and emails remaining the same and staff making full use of videoconferencing. We will continue to work remotely until it is safe for us to return to the office. All our staff have the tools necessary to work effectively and we would encourage you to contact us with any queries.  

This does unfortunately mean that we are unable to dispatch any shop orders until the office can safely reopen and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. 

We are regularly reviewing the impacts of the pandemic on our staff and business areas and monitoring Government announcements. This includes liaising with those overseeing our out-sourced activities and developing appropriate mitigation strategies where possible.

We have cancelled or postponed all public events up to September 2020 and some have already been postponed until Spring 2021. We are reviewing events planned for the autumn whilst taking into consideration the Government’s statement on the need for social distancing until at least the end of the year. We are currently investigating the possibility of running virtual events over coming months and are providing regular updates via our events page, news page and social media channels. If you have registered for an event already, we will contact you directly with any updates and further information as soon as we have them.

Wiley, our scientific publishing partner, is experiencing disruption throughout the publishing process due to remote working in many regions globally combined with country-wide lockdowns. The current challenge is the print and distribution of journals and the biggest impact for our members is printed copies of Weather. Members have received their April issue however we are currently unsure if print versions will be available over coming months. We are doing all we can to make sure our print subscribers can access publications digitally. If you need support to do this, please do get in touch.

We continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis, following advice from the Government and Public Health England, and would like to extend our thanks for your ongoing support and understanding and hope you all stay safe and well.