THE LEEDS ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS
Minutes of the Council Meeting held at 7.15pm on Thursday 4th January 2024 at the Cornerhouse Club Leeds.
1. Attendance. J. Aldersley in the chair with A. Rogers, B. Yates, M. Murray, G. Roper, A. Kibler, I. Scholes, J. Bentley, S. Stacey and I. Blakeley.
2. Apologies for absence. G. Toulson, J. Burton, R. Town and H. Soutar.
3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting, dated 7th December were approved & signed.
4. Matters Arising. None.
5. Treasurers Report. Mr. Kibler briefly summarised his report that had been sent prior to the meeting by email. The full list of transactions is listed below.
| Date | Transaction | Debit | Credit |
| 7/Dec/23 | Subs –J. Scrupps (paid by cheque) | – | 20.00 |
| 7/Dec/23 | Subs – G. Scholes | – | 20.00 |
| 11/Dec/23 | Subs – C. Stocks (arrears) | – | 5.00 |
| 21/Dec/23 | Subs – N. Birchall | – | 20.00 |
| 28/Dec/23 | Subs – B. Yates | – | 20.00 |
| 28/Dec/23 | Bank Charges | 9.00 | – |
| 29/Dec/23 | Subs – M. A. Ford (corporate) | – | 100.00 |
Balance of Accounts was reported but not published here.
He explained that due to us exceeding the amount of free transactions allowed per month we had incurred bank charges of £9. Mr. Kibler said that the increase in subscription cost to our membership will allow us to continue subsidising events such as the annual church service and the meal after the solstice walk.
6. Correspondence. Mr. Aldersley said he had tried contacting our three student members via the Leeds City College email system regarding submissions for the Leeds Association Website but has had no response.
7. Membership. Mr. Murray has updated the subscriptions list in line with responses from our membership renewals received. He said that we have lost another member, unfortunately John Finn has resigned due to his wife’s continued illness. Mr. Murray was asked how many members we have on the books, he said that not having the list with him his answer would only be an estimate, but it is around seventy. He concluded by saying he was concerned that we might lose Leeds City College as a corporate member with Mr. Aldersley (our Vice President) retiring from his teaching position there later in the year. Mr. Aldersley said that the corporate membership was given by us at no charge to Leeds City College for the mutual benefit of both the college and the Engineering Association. This gives us access to the engineers of the future and gives them the benefit of attending our lectures and visits and also gives us a potential venue for any prestigious lectures in the future. He feels that if we continue to offer the corporate membership for free, there is no reason for them to reject it and he will not be severing all contact with the college. He will try obtain a list of where his current students are employed as it might prove useful in getting factory visits / lectures in the future.
8. Current Programme. Mr. Murray will try getting a new date for visiting Siddall & Hilton due to our October visit being cancelled. Our first event of 2024 will be a lecture by Gary Briggs of James Walker Moorflex who will give us a talk on “Intelligent Bolting Solutions” Mr. Aldersley is trying to recruit Gary into our association. We are to attend IFG Drake Limited (Golcar) in February on a factory visit and Neil Cobbold will give us a talk in March about his path through life, no doubt touching on many of his varied interests which include flying light aircraft and driving and maintaining steam locomotives.
9. Next Session. Mr. Murray has been in contact with the people running the Anderton Boat Lift (Canals & River Trust), they have agreed to give us a talk / lecture in the Leeds area, which we are proposing in September 2024 followed by a visit to them in October. We have an offer of a lecture from our member in Australia (Vas). We have been told that he has relocated in Australia from Port Headland to Perth but the time difference to us is still around 10 hours. It might be more appropriate for him to give us his lecture when he visits Europe which he does once per year. It could still be necessary to do this by Zoom. Gary Briggs has offered us a factory visit to the James Walker Moorflex manufacturing facility in Cockermouth (Cumbria). Mr. Roper has been asked to clear old documents from a company that manufactured steam boilers. If there is sufficient historical information to accompany the drawings he already possesses he will give us a talk / lecture. Richard Isaacs of Northern Rail has offered us a visit to their locomotive maintenance workshop at Neville Hill. Mr. Yates will contact a blow moulding manufacturer based in Leeds to see if they can offer us a factory visit. Mr. Scholes said we had an interesting lecture on concrete several years ago at Leeds University, perhaps we should investigate a return visit to see how things have progressed. Mr. Murray suggested that we might organise a visit to Leeds Industrial Museum, this would be a daytime visit.
10. Website. The feeling is that the website runs smoothly, however we would like more input from our student members to try increasing our appeal to a younger audience.
11. Golf. Mr. Stacey said everything is in place that needs to be done at the moment. He will not be doing anything further until March. He does not anticipate requiring any further golfers as he tries to keep numbers down to thirty nine.
12. Annual Dinner. Mr. Kibler said the dinner is booked for the 20th April and he has nothing further to do until the New Year.
13. Church Service. Nothing new to report. The current vicar turned down an invitation to our annual dinner. We need to contact him in March to fix a date for our Annual Church Service. The current vicar is called Paul Maybury.
Any other Business. Mr. Kibler asked Mr. Roper to charge the battery on the new Leeds Association laptop computer, he is concerned that it might not be holding charge. When he came to demonstrate it at the December council meeting, it would not start up and he thought that it had been fully charged prior to the meeting. Having no other business Mr. Town closed the meeting.
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……………………………………………President. ……………….. Date