THE LEEDS ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS
Minutes of the Council Meeting held at 7.15pm on Thursday 6th February 2025 at The Corner House Club Leeds.
1. Attendance. J. Aldersley in the chair with G. Roper, A. Kibler, B. Yates, I. Scholes, C. Pinder, I. Auty, M. Golubevs and I. Blakeley.
2. Apologies for absence. J. Burton, R. Town, G. Toulson, J. Bentley, M. Murray, S. Stacey, H. Soutar and A. Rogers.
3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting, dated 2nd January 2025 were approved & signed.
4. Matters Arising. None.
5. Treasurers Report. Mr. Kibler reported the following transactions, listed below.
| Date | Transaction | Debit | Credit |
| 02/Jan/25 | Subs – B. Yates | – | 20.00 |
| 06/Jan/25 | Subs – H. Soutar student member | – | 4.00 |
| 07/Jan/25 | Subs – M. Golubevs student member | – | 4.00 |
| 13/Jan/25 | Subs – A. Bannister | – | 20.00 |
| 14/Jan/25 | Subs – A. Weiss (cheque) | – | 40.00 |
| 21/Jan/25 | Subs – J. Miller | – | 20.00 |
| 21/Jan/25 | Subs – H. Kingswell | – | 20.00 |
| 21/Jan/25 | Subs – N. Burchall | – | 20.00 |
| 21/Jan/25 | Other – Website Security G. Toulson | 10.50 | – |
Balance of Accounts was reported but not published here.
He said with the exception of the payment made by Mr. Toulson for website security all transactions this month have been subscriptions. He commented that since the current payment request went out we have received £858 of an expected £1128, we need to remind the people who have not paid. We have received interest on the savings account but this was less than £30. He suggested that he might investigate putting £5,000 into an ISA account to boost the interest. However, he is not sure whether we would be able to do this as an organisation so he will ask at the bank.
6. Correspondence. Mr. Aldersley received an email from Louise Brown managing director of Greyhound Box Company thanking him for inviting her to the M. A. Ford visit and extending an invitation for Leeds Association of Engineers to visit the Greyhound Box factory. This will be after September, as this season’s programme is full. Mr. Murray has been in contact by email saying British Jeffrey Diamond could be a possible visit. Perhaps he can contact them on return from his holiday.
7. Membership. Mr. Pinder (Cameron, student member of the council) recruited 4 new members at the previous meeting and has followed this up by recruiting 7 more, mainly his working colleagues. He now needs to chase them up for their subscriptions. Mr Aldersley proposed that we accept the new members and they were seconded by Mr. Kibler. They were accepted by a show of hands of council members present and will be ratified at the next members meeting (27th February).
8. Student of the Year. Cameron Pinder (student award winner) updated us on the World Skills event. He has further skills tests to do in milling before the European Finals. He has a five day training course in Wales at the end of February on the use of Master-Cam. There is a further selection process to go through before the European Finals where a field of seven candidates will be narrowed down to four. He is struggling to get machine operating time where he is not pressed to produce commercial items. At the visit to M.A. Ford he was introduced to their managing director who has been a great help offering to supply free tooling and possibly access to a machine tool at their plant in Derby although of course this comes with the problems of travelling there / overnight accommodation as it is too far to travel on a daily basis. Mr. Aldersley said he will speak to Paul Cartwright at Leeds City College to see if the can offer Cameron access to their machine tools.
9. Current Programme. Nothing to report, other than needing some information from our student members who are giving the February lecture for something to put on the website to advertise the event.
10. Next Session. We have an offer of a visit to Greyhound Box which will be after the start of the new session in September, Mr. Town is trying to get a visit organised to Carnaud Metal-Box in Wortley and we have the possibility of visiting Reliance Precision on the outskirts of Huddersfield.
11. Website. Please see below document e-mailed by Mr. Toulson.
Website Report – Two points to note during the February council meeting.
(1) Following on from my previous notice regarding changing our website hosting from Big
Wet Fish (BWF) to a free system operated by our friend Kally Shergill I received a surprise
invoice from BWF in the sum of £8.75 + VAT = £10.50 total. The detail was ‘PHP Extended
Support – End of Life Version’. I imagine this makes as much sense to council members as
it did to me at the time. I immediately contacted BWF and asked for clarification. Apparently
our website, operating WordPress, was running some supporting critical security software
approaching end of life support and additional costs would be incurred to maintain the
website security with some new software. At my request BWF attempted to resolve the
problem but were unable to do so, citing ‘critical errors’ being found, hence the need for the
additional support software to secure our website.
(Incidentally, in a similar vein you may also be aware that Windows 10 will not longer be
supported after 14 th October this year.) I am hoping Kally Shergill may be able to assist in
resolving the problem and have requested his assistance. BWF have said that I can be
reimbursed with the above fee if the technical matter can be resolved. They recommended
engaging a ‘Web Developer’ to attempt to resolve the problem but these people charge
anything from £30 to £60 per hour for their services. In the meantime I have had to pay the
invoice. The website will operate normally and safely with the new support that BWF have
now put in place. I will have more information on this matter at the next council meeting.
(2) I noted in the January minutes a suggestion from Harry that emails to members should
come from the website thus eliminating the need to give out personal email addresses for
correspondence.
Our website has a facility to forward emails to individual officers and this is already in place
and has been used occasionally in the past. For instance, from the ‘Council Members’ page
‘Contact President’ will route the message to Mr. Aldersley without showing his personal
email address. Initially, I had reservations about publishing any personal contact details on
the website but sometimes I am presented with a document containing the same for publication.
There are three regular occasions when I have, of necessity, included personal addresses and
telephone numbers on website pages, namely: Mr. Murray (for membership notices), Mr. Kibler
(for dinner applications) and Mr. Stacey (for golf tournament applications). Also note that
Mr. Murray’s home address is shown on application forms to join the association and Mr. Kibler’s
home and email addresses are on the dinner application form. To date I have not received any
complaints of nuisance emails or spam correspondence as a result of personal addresses being published.
However, strange as it may seem I have received reports from council members that a number
of scam emails and even pornography has been routed anonymously via the website forwarding system.
Following these complaints I changed all destination email addresses to my own personal email address
and have acted as a ‘clearing house’ forwarding relevant emails to the appropriate officers.
To date unfortunately I have not received any pornography. I am quite happy to change to the website system for all correspondence using the website forwarding system but I have reservations, as in the past I have been informed that emails have gone astray, whereas with personal email addresses all correspondence apparently has been received. The problem will be that if we wish to continue to post application forms online an address of some sort will be required for receipt. I am open to suggestions and will follow the instructions of council as to which way to proceed.
12. Golf. Nothing to report, other than everything is arranged with Cobble Hall Golf Club for this year’s event. Mr. Stacey responded by email to the remarks in last month’s minutes saying that every Leeds Association member has always had the opportunity to play in the tournament. At the last count eight individual members took part.
13. Annual Dinner. Nothing to report other than the menu has been circulated, but as yet no one has responded. However the Vicar, Rev. Paul Maybury, confirmed in a conversation with Mr. Aldersley that he will attend the dinner.
14. Annual Church Service. The date is yet to be confirmed by the Vicar, Rev. Paul Maybury.
15. Journal. Mr Bentley has been in touch saying he has the full file from the last journal and is in the process of updating it but needs the current membership list from Mr. Murray.
Any other Business. Having no other business Mr. Aldersley closed the meeting.
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