THE LEEDS ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS
Minutes of the Council Meeting held at 7.00 pm on Thursday 3rd November 2022 at The Corner House Club Leeds LS17 6QE
1. Attendance. R. Town in the chair with, A. Kibler, M. Murray, G. Roper, I. Scholes, A. Rogers, G. Toulson, J. Bentley, S. Stacey and H. Soutar. (Student Award Winner)
2. Apologies for absence. J. Aldersley, J. Burton, B. Yates and I. Blakeley.
3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting. Dated 6th October 2022 were approved and signed.
4. Matters Arising. Mr. Murray advised that member Mr. Bill Jagger had agreed to review the forthcoming accounts. Mr. Kibler had also been in touch with Mr. Jagger and will arrange for the accounts to be sent to him, although he said that there is ample time before they are due to be presented at the AGM in April.
5. Treasurers Report. Mr. Kibler gave a summary of the accounts including the balances in both the current account and savings account. However, they are not published here because the minutes appear on the website.
Date Item Debit
5/Oct/22 Council meetings – Corner House Club £120.00
5/Oct/22 Barrie Yates – Vernier £104.16
13/Oct/22 Methodist Church Room Hire £30.00
31/Oct/22 Barrie Yates – Shield Engraving £12.60
Mr. Kibler advised that the accounts for the year ending 31st October 2022 are complete. He also confirmed that member Mr. Chris Stocks had paid his subscriptions.
6. Correspondence. Mr. Murray had sent an email to Flexitallic UK Ltd. to investigate the possibility of a visit but had not as yet received a response. Mr. Roper had been corresponding with Dr. Ian Greaves. (See Current Programme).
7. Membership. Mr. Murray reported that there had been no changes to membership. He confirmed that Mr. Harry Soutar is now a full member of the association and council. Mr. Murray said he intends to email members to determine if their standing orders will be paid. This will reduce postage and extra correspondence. Mr. Kibler reported that the association had overspent in the last year in the sum of approximately £700.00 when reviewing credits and debits. He asked if we should consider increasing subscriptions to £20.00 or to leave it for this year, using funds to subsidise the loss. There was a discussion around the table and several extraordinary items such as sponsorships were mentioned. Mr. Town added that any subscription changes should be put to the members and Mr. Toulson said this proposal should be on the agenda at the AGM next April.
8. Current Programme. Mr. Roper reported that he hade been in touch with Dr. Ian Greaves about the possibility of a lecture on Nuclear topics. Dr. Greaves had agreed to offer a talk but so far was non-committal on a suitable date. Mr. Murray asked which dates were still to be allocated events. Mr. Toulson advised that several events were booked for the session but we still need to fill January and February 2023. Mr. Toulson asked Mr. Roper if he could book Dr. Greaves for one of these empty slots. Mr. Kibler had asked member Mr. Neil Cobbold if he could arrange a visit to Sherburn Airfield, noting that this would probably need to be over a weekend. Due to a poor weather forecast Messrs. Rogers and Toulson did not go along to see the Rocket Bike record attempt at Elvington. Mr. Town heard that the bike did one run but the second run was aborted. He offered to contact the bike rider Graham Sykes to see if he could offer another talk, perhaps on a different subject.
9. Next Session. Nothing to report.
10. Website. Mr. Toulson had received ‘Black Friday Offers’ from our web host ‘Big Wet Fish’ offering discounts on both web hosting and renewal of our domain name. We had taken advantage of similar offers in 2021 and as such invoices for both services would not be due until 2024. Taking advantage of the current offers would mean no further invoices would be due until 2026. Mr. Toulson suggested that this is perhaps planning too far ahead and proposed that we forgo this year’s offers. Mr. Kibler suggested that similar deals might be offered next year and we could consider those at that time. Mr. Toulson advised that the website had been updated with all confirmed or provisionally confirmed events for the current session. He requested that if council members manage to book events for January or February that they advise him promptly with full details in order to update the website and share the information with Mr. Murray for any forthcoming newsletters.
11. Annual Golf Tournament. Mr. Stacey advised that he had already booked and paid the deposit to Garforth Golf Club for the 2023 tournament. He had also advised sponsors of the details available so far. He had not contacted some of the other regular golfers but would do so closer to the tournament. He asked Mr. Murray to confirm that M.A.Ford were still corporate members as they had played a considerable part in the tournament.
12. Annual Dinner. Mr. Kibler reported that he had spoken to Andrew at Headingley Golf Club regarding costs for the dinner but Andrew had been reluctant to offer a quotation at the time, preferring to advise costs in the New Year. Mr. Kibler advised that the cost to the association for the dinner in 2022 had been £20.00 per head but with increasing food costs he was expecting the next dinner to cost somewhere between £20.00 and £25.00 per head. He suggested keeping the cost to diners at the same price as last year. He noted that in 2022 we had fourteen free guest meals to support. Mr. Murray reminded Mr. Kibler to offer free places to those who gave lectures to the association, in particular to member Mr. Steve Gledhill who had recently hosted a lecture/visit. Mr. Kibler reminded us that Mr. Gledhill had previously been offered a free place as he had often brought along a full table of guests. Mr. Kibler said that at the last dinner six of Mr. Gledhill’s guests had failed to turn up but Mr. Gledhill had still paid to cover costs to the association. Mr. Kibler asked if anyone would like to provide a prize for the dinner raffle. Mr. Murray offered to provide a prize as he had done previously. Mr. Kibler asked if we would like him to arrange a quiz at the dinner and this was requested by council.
13. Church Service. Mr. Scholes said that there was nothing to report.
14. Student Award. Mr. Roper passed the shield to the winner of the last competition, Mr. Harry Soutar, who was recently elected to council. He apologised for the misspelling of Mr. Soutar’s name on the attached plaque and said that this would be corrected as soon as possible. Mr. Town asked if we should now be looking into the award for 2023 and added that he would like to ask his Managing Director Mr. Stephen Wright for Thorite to be included in the forthcoming competition. This was approved. Mr. Bentley proposed that if perhaps four new young members were to join as a group rather than having only a single winner in the competition then we might be able to keep them for a longer term as members of the association.
Any other Business. Mr. Murray offered to help Mr. Soutar attend lectures and visits by asking members if they could offer transport to the various event venues. Mr. Soutar thanked him for the offer. Having no other business Mr. Town closed the meeting after thanking those who attended.
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