THE LEEDS ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS
Minutes of the Council Meeting held at 7.30pm on Thursday 5th November 2015 at the Cornerhouse Club Leeds.
1. Attendance. B. J. Yates, President in the chair with, J. S. Shergill J. Aldersley, I. Scholes, M. S. Murray, K. J. Hegarty, A. Kibler, G. Toulson, A. Rogers and J. Bentley.
2. Apologies for absence. H. Kingswell, and I. A. Blakeley.
3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting, dated 1st October were approved & signed.
4. Matters Arising. Mr. Murray said that Martin Pollard, a production manager at Meltog, had applied to be a member but when advised that life membership was £150 declined to take up that offer and joined as a Full Member, paying his subscription of £15.
5. Treasurers Report. Mr. Bentley gave his report as follows:-
Accounts from 8th to 31st October 2015:-
Current Account
Debits
I. Scholes for Printing £40.00
K. Hegarty Room Hire £49.35
B. Yates Plaque Lunch £375.60
REA Cleckheaton £27.00 Cheque not cashed yet
Income
Mitchell Fox – Golf £1046.00
Subs £545.00 Will refer to 2015/6
We are still owed £40 from Mr. Burgess for Golf Sponsorship.
6. Correspondence. Mr. Murray said he had two letters returned to sender. One related to member Mr. Dobbs and had since been resolved. The other related to member Mr. Metcalfe and this was still to resolve and would be reported on later. Mr. Murray had also had a message from council member Howard Kingswell who had recently had a major operation. Howard reported that his convalescence was slowly progressing. Mr. Murray proposed that a small gift of a pack of Guinness might be sent to Howard and this was unanimously approved.
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7. Membership. Mr. Murray reported the addition of two new members, John Francis Scollen of IMI Leeds and Michael Frederick Stoker who is retired. Steve Stacey our Golf Secretary had been instrumental in introducing these two members. Both had paid their fees of £20. Mr. Murray asked for a vote to ratify their membership and a show of hands confirmed this.
8. Current Programme. Mr. Murray reminded us that we needed to find a visit for the next Ladies Evening. Mr. Yates had looked into a visit to ‘Petcraft’ for the Ladies Evening following Fox’s Biscuits declining a visit. Petcraft advised that they are no longer offering visits to their facility. Mr. Scholes said that his wife had greatly enjoyed the recent visit to the Marton Mills textile factory. Mr. Yates asked Mr. Scholes if he had any suggestions for the 2016 Solstice Walk but he replied that this would be considered during the drier months next year.
9. Next Session. Mr. Yates asked Mr. Scholes if he had looked into the possibility of a lecture on a historic munitions explosion that had occurred at Low Moor in Bradford. Mr. Scholes said he would investigate and report back.
10. Website. Mr. Toulson had reviewed the running costs of the website. No invoices were due until April 2016 when ‘Hosting’ for the next year is due. Last year this cost £43.19 including VAT. The Domain Name (last invoiced at £14.39 for two years) is not due for renewal until May 2017. To summarise, the running costs of the website are just over £50 per annum or about £1 per week. Mr. Toulson advised that recent updates had addressed the previous comment made by Mr. Scholes in that the President’s name was not shown on the website. This had recently been corrected. Further edits had been made to indicate that the visit to Fox’s Biscuits had been cancelled and the details of the 2016 Golf Tournament had been added following receipt of the information from the Golf Secretary. Mr. Toulson received media including photographs and a video of the presentation of the Leeds Minster Memorial Plaque from Mr. Murray. These would be uploaded to the website. Mr. Murray said that a photograph of new council member Mr. Kingswell was also supplied for inclusion in the council members gallery. Mr. Toulson said he would add these new details soon.
11. Journal. Mr. Bentley asked Mr. Murray if he had details of council members in the last five years as he could no longer obtain this information from the Calendar Cards. Mr. Shergill reminded us that details of council members were also to be found on the reverse side of the dinner menus. Mr. Murray asked Mr. Bentley what plans were in hand for production of a new journal. It had been suggested before that it would be good to have a journal produced prior to the 150th anniversary dinner next year. Mr. Murray suggested that we consider inviting companies to sponsor advertisements in the forthcoming journal with a suggested cost of £20 per advert. This would be considered later.
12. Golf. Nothing to report. Mr. Toulson had published confirmed details of the 2016 Golf Tournament on the website.
13. Annual Dinner. Mr. Yates asked that we decide whether to have a large or small scale dinner to celebrate the 150th anniversary. Mr. Rogers said that in recent years we have been effectively running a dinner for the benefit of non members, e.g. guests and business associates, with last year’s dinner only attracting a few members. He said that he thought we should make this the last large scale dinner if we are not attracting association members. Mr. Rogers had been in touch with ‘Leeds Seventeen’, the venue we have used several times, and it had undergone a refurbishment. He showed photographs of the renovations. He had also investigated ‘The Mansion’ at Roundhay, another venue we had used before. The Mansion was not available for our proposed date but other dates were available. Mr. Rogers had learned that meals started at £45 and drinks packages at £75 per person. Additionally a room charge was £1600. The Mansion had proposed outside catering at ‘T.F. & J. H. Braime’s’ premises costing £4000 plus £45 per person for meals. He expressed amazement at how high these costs were, considering that we had previously budgeted in the region of £19 per person for the dinner, with no room charge. Mr. Rogers had also contacted the Leeds Armouries but they were only catering for weddings etc., again at considerable cost. Mr. Kibler said he liked the idea of a ‘formal dinner’ and proposed that we should keep that format. Mr. Yates asked for a vote to decide whether to keep the formal dinner. Mr. Toulson suggested that this consideration and vote should be postponed until after the 2016 dinner. This was agreed. Mr. Rogers reported that the last dinner comprised 62 diners with only 17 of that number being association members. He had expressed concern that the Headingley Golf Club might not be capable of accommodating a potentially larger gathering, with space for musicians to entertain during the evening. Mr. Hegarty assured us that the Golf Club was capable of accommodating up to 160 and this should be more than enough for our requirements. Mr. Rogers said that we had managed to keep costs ‘tight’ when using Leeds Seventeen. Mr. Scholes said that if the Leeds Seventeen venue was chosen then he would not attend as he was unhappy with the quality of his last meal there. Mr. Hegarty questioned why we should be considering changing the venue when we had enjoyed the 2015 dinner so much. Mr. Rogers suggested that we keep the same format as last year, returning to Headingley Golf Club, and this was agreed. Mr. Murray expressed his belief that it is an honour for the association for the Lord Mayor of Leeds to attend the dinner. A question was raised as to whether or not to invite both the Lord Mayor and a guest speaker to the dinner. Mr. Rogers reminded us that guest speakers can typically cost £500 as well as the meal costs that we also cover. Mr. Yates asked if we should have a live musical trio. After a short discussion a show of hands voted against the trio format. Mr. Kibler said that he had made a contact and proposed a ‘girl singing duo’ as an alternative to the instrumental trio. He said we might consider having the girl singers to replace speeches, especially an expensive guest speaker. This was agreed in principle and Mr. Kibler would investigate availability of the girl singers. Mr. Rogers said he would contact the Golf Club to check that it is available and if so make a booking for Saturday 16th April 2016.
Any other Business. Mr. Kibler suggested that we consider payment of subscriptions being made by electronic transfer. Mr. Bentley and Mr. Murray advised that this had been trialled previously using the direct debiting system but serious problems of traceability had resulted. Mr. Kibler said he had not meant direct debiting but solely ‘electronic transfer’ of funds. Mr. Murray said he anticipated similar problems would arise if we were to consider electronic transfers and Mr. Bentley agreed.
Having no other business Mr. Yates closed the meeting.
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