Bill Richardson honoured by SMC 9 March 2020

The MA’s Company Secretary and Editor-in-Chief, Bill Richardson, has been honoured by the Scottish Mathematical Council (SMC). Bill has served on the MA Council since 1993 and, in additional to his current roles, quite uniquely, he has held the offices of Chair, President, Secretary and Treasurer at various points since.

As a teacher, Bill spent most of his career in Scotland where he led the Mathematics Department at Elgin Academy for 27 years. For part of that time he also served as the Scottish Examination Board’s Principal Examiner for CSYS (akin to A Level).

Bill was elected to the SMC for his first 6-year stint in 1989, with a spell as Editor of the Council’s Journal. By the time he returned to the Council in 2000, his impact on the continuing professional development of mathematics teachers, both north and south of the border, had been formally recognised with the award of an MBE. At the time, Adam McBride quipped that, in Bill’s case, MBE stands for ‘Mathematician with Boundless Energy’.

It was in 2000 that Bill took over as the National Organizer of the SMC’s Mathematical Challenge, a problem-solving competition pitched at four levels from upper primary to upper secondary.

At the SMC Conference at Stirling University on 7^th March, Bill was presented with an engraved glass plaque to mark his 20 years in that role, to the acclaim of the 300 teachers in the auditorium.

Congratulations Bill!