At this year’s conference, Kathryn Taylor (Informals Honorary Secretary) gave a talk explaining about all the marvelous ways you can get involved with the informals and all about the resources they have to help trainees across the country.
The Informals are a student body that, as of 2015, now have an official seat on CIPA’s council. As honorary secretary, Kathryn is the representative of CIPA student members on this council, on CIPA’s education committee, and on PEB’s candidate consultancy committee, ensuring that the voices of CIPA student members are heard.
As she said, the best way to keep up with all of Informals updates is often through the Yellow Sheet blog. So if you’ve found your way here – you’re already a little closer to getting more involved in the Informals. This can be a really valuable community to be part of, so please do make the most of us!
To subscribe to the blog, scroll down to the bottom of the Yellowsheet homepage and enter your email address where prompted to do so. Please also join the Yellowsheet LinkedIn group and follow the Twitter page!
A non-exhaustive list of Informals activities, which Kathryn spoke about in her talk, are listed with the website links below.
Exam Preparation:
Foundation lectures – starting in autumn each year – we organise a series of introductory lectures to the patent profession. These are often in hybrid form, so they can be used as an opportunity to meet us, but also be accessed from across the country. Learn more about these here.
Advanced lectures – we also put on lectures for more advanced trainees, which you can find more out about here.
FD1 and FD4 tutorials, and mentoring for those who are resitting. More information about these can be found here.
Other support:
Buddy scheme – where you get paired up with a slightly senior trainee who has just got through early training, and has all the tips to help you do the same. More information about this can be found here.
In-house group – for those trainees who are in house, and don’t have a big internal trainee network to share their experiences with. More information about this can be found here.
Wellbeing:
We have a dedicated wellbeing and welfare officer, and welfare email address (informalswelfare@gmail.com), where a mental health first aider (who is also a trainee patent attorney) will be able to offer support.
We also run a regular wellbeing coffee club, which you can find more information about here.
For more welfare information and resources, we also have a dedicated section of our website, here.
Regional Events:
We have regional secretaries all over the UK who organise social events and activities to where trainees from the area can meet up. Go here to find your local sec.
The Yellow Sheet 